Mountain View Community Development of Redmond gets people without stable housing into better housing and onto better lives.

Last year it gave 129 homeless people a safe place to sleep, through a safe parking program. It’s the least expensive way to give people a safe place to sleep.

It’s not the best, of course. It’s not designed to be forever. Some, 37 people, failed to comply with the rules last year or it otherwise didn’t work out. Here’s the good part, though: Another 45 moved onto permanent housing. Another 10 found some other positive arrangement, such as staying with family or relatives.

Mountain View is branching out into offering 8-by-12-foot microshelters, with double that size for families. It’s placed an order for those in Redmond and in Bend. The units don’t have plumbing, but they do have heating and cooling and lighting. Deschutes County commissioners also recently voted 2-1, with Commissioner Tony DeBone voting against, in favor of moving forward with a 65-year lease for a project in Redmond that may enable Mountain View to provide tiny homes for 75 people.

The organization could do even more. It wants to expand its safe parking programs to Bend. It needs places to locate. It has state funding available to do it, if it could only find the parking lots or other locations, Rick Russell, the organization’s executive director told us.

Mountain View provides a caseworker who supervises the safe parking locations. It has security cameras in place to keep a check on behavior. Residents must comply with the good neighbor policy and also there are strict rules for visitors.

This is a solution that helps get people from living in unsafe, unsanitary places into good spaces. It’s proven to work in Central Oregon. It has money to help more people. It just needs places to do it. You can find out more here: mvcdoregon.org.