Motley,

The current program run by St. Vincent DePaul has about a 1% complaint rate. Most of those complaints are resolved by mediation by St. Vinnies. Very few need any sort of law enforcement response. To put this into perspective, 2% of the US population is either in jail, prison or parole or probation so that this vetted camping program has a lower crime rate than the general population.

If they are not camping in designated hosted spots that include sanitary facilities and rules, then the homeless are camping in drainage ways and along our rivers and streams. Eugene spends hundreds of thousands cleaning up these illegal sites. We already spend public safety and emergency medical resources responding to the illegal camp sites. Smaller distributed legal places with sanitary facilities will actually create a lower burden on the taxpayer.

Ask a police officer or deputy if they have and how often they have to respond to illegal camp sites and how dangerous that is.