In the push to address homelessness in Central Oregon, the city of Redmond and Mountain View Community Development safe parking program are considering a new approach by building a 45-spot recreational vehicle site with reduced rates to provide those experiencing homelessness with a safe and secure place to live.

The site will be on land shared with Oasis Village, a proposed transitional shelter that could house another 30 individuals — meaning 75 people could live on the roughly 10 to 12 acres of land. The number could be higher if multiple people live in some of the RVs.

According to Redmond Mayor Ed Fitch, the two sites will make a dent in the growing homelessness issue in Redmond, but it won’t be the complete solution. The plan comes as the Redmond Airport plans to remove roughly 40 people living on airport land and the Department of State Lands aims to remove approximately 100 people from land east of 17th Street.

“The key thing is we want to have these things hopefully in place because there is going to be a lot of relocation this year,” said Fitch. “There’s going to be some upheaval that we’re going to try and at least provide some alternative locations for these people this fall.”

Rick Russell, pastor of Mountain View Fellowship Church and executive director of Mountain View Community Development, said the RV park and Oasis village will operate as neighbors and possibly share resources, but are two distinct programs that serve different populations.

Russell, who is also the director of the Redmond Safe Parking Program, said that while the parking program is free, every current participant has some income and many could afford something if there were reasonable options. But, current RV parks in the area can cost around $700 to $900 per month. Many are at capacity or won’t accept RVs older than 10 years.

“It’s just not an open door to any of the folks that we’re working with,” Russell said.

The proposed RV park, however, will offer spots below the going market rate and allow people living in operable RVs and camper vans a place to live. Russell and Fitch emphasized, however, that these will be temporary, not permanent, spots for residents that can help fill a gap in Redmond’s response to homelessness.

“It’s kind of marrying traditional market rate RV park operations with homelessness services,” said Russell. “In a housing continuum, this is a step up from safe parking and a much more stable environment where they have some skin in the game as well.”

According to Russell, officials are still trying to determine the cost of renting a spot and how long people can stay. However, he said the likely duration will be less than two years.

“I really wouldn’t regard it as a shelter or a managed camp or something like that,” Russell said. “In some ways, it’s much more like a business than it is … a traditional shelter.”

Russell said there will be a fee for participants and it will include services such as housing navigation and case management that can help people advance to more stable housing than an RV park.

As opposed to traditional shelters or managed camps, Russell said the population taking advantage of the RV park will likely be in more stable positions but may need services and case management to find something more permanent.

While the park may be able to fund itself through revenue, Russell said the services may require subsidies from city, county or state governments.

Despite the Deschutes County Commission’s recent surprise reversal on a proposed managed camp for homelessness in Bend, Fitch said the county has been “a tremendous partner” on the RV site project.

“They have shown great willingness to work with us on it to share expenses,” Fitch said. “We do not see anything like what happened in Bend occurring here.”

Fitch also pointed out that the Redmond concept is different than the managed camp Bend wanted. While the Redmond site will be managed, it will be exclusively for RVs on the northern end and the tiny homes for Oasis Village on the southern side.

According to Russell, the original idea came from County Commissioner Tony DeBone.

DeBone said the location was one of the biggest concerns. The Bend camp, he said, was a little parcel next to a Les Schwab Tire Center and different from the edge of town proposed for Redmond.

Additionally, DeBone noted that there are already dispersed campers in the RV park area and that the county was brought into the discussion early, rather than being surprised with anything. He said the Bend camp moved forward before anyone spoke with businesses or residents in the area, which caused the quick reversal.

“Let’s try not to do that,” DeBone said. “Before we go do anything, let’s make sure people know what’s going on.”

Fitch said that even though the RV park would be within the urban growth boundary, it’s not near residences or commercial buildings.

“I think that gives everyone a lot of comfort in that there’s not going to be a lot of conflict between this property and adjacent neighbors,” Fitch said.

DeBone said the county is trying to optimize the opportunity for the land and that there needs to be a supported place for people to go. He added that the county commission is all on board with an RV park and sent a letter to Gov. Tina Kotek on March 1 asking for more flexibility from the state’s land use system.

According to the letter, current state statutes and administrative rules prohibit the siting of managed homeless camps on rural lands outside urban growth boundaries. The flexibility requested would allow managed camps within one mile of urban growth boundaries and urban reserves but would exclude high-value farmland, productive forests and all state land use Goal 5 protected resources.