SAFE CAMP
Shawn Collins is executive director of Unity Shelter which manages Safe Camp.
Safe Camp and SafePlace FAQs
Q: I need shelter in Corvallis, Oregon. Where can I get information?
Corvallis Men's Shelter: 541-250-5113 (211 SE Chapman Place)
Corvallis Women's Shelter: 541-207-4636 (1166 NW Jackson Avenue --a.k.a. Room at the Inn)
Corvallis SafePlace Intake: 541-224-7690
Unity Shelter: 541-286-5121 / info@unityshelter.org
Q: What is Safe Camp?
A: Safe Camp is a site located on property of the First Congregational Church of Corvallis that offers shelter, through camping sites and microshelters, to people who are unhoused. The idea is that Safe Camp, as the name implies, offers a safe place where people can safely rest and sleep, begin to access services and receive support to work toward permanent housing. (For more about microshelters, see the section below.)
Q: What drove the initial push to create Safe Camp?
A: Safe Camp launched in the summer of 2019, when people living in tents in the tree farm adjacent to the church’s property were cleared with no advance notice at the request of the landowner, who seeks to have it annexed into the city and developed. Some of the uprooted people gathered at the nearby First Congregational Church, in the parking lot, with no idea about where to go next. As the church and other advocates for people without homes rallied to help the campers, Safe Camp, the first site for SafePlace, was created on the church property.
Houseless people have struggled to find shelter in Corvallis for years; some of them have elected to camp in locations that can be shut down by authorities with little or no notice. When authorities close one of these camp sites, the residents there are forced to start over again in a new location, where they often cannot be located by social workers or others who are interested in helping them find more permanent housing. There has been no place in the county or city where the unhoused can sleep and rest safely – and where they can regularly access the services necessary to move them toward more stable housing.
Safe Camp has been structured to break that cycle. The idea is to give the unhoused a safe place where they can settle; this allows camp managers, mentors, social service agencies and others an opportunity to connect campers with essential services, including transitional housing. Safe Camp managers and volunteers believe consistent access to those services will help move campers into more stable housing, and this already has occurred in a number of cases.
Q: What is SafePlace?
A: SafePlace is a new program providing transitional housing in or near the parking lots of participating faith-based organizations; Safe Camp at the First Congregational Church is part of SafePlace, but SafePlace extends to other locations as well. The goal of SafePlace is to assist individuals, couples, and families in housing transition by providing a safe environment for temporary housing coupled with case management services and peer support.
Q: How did SafePlace leaders decide how to develop this program?
A: When reviewing the many local programs that already exist to assist people who don’t have stable housing, transitional housing was determined to be a gap. SafePlace was inspired by Opportunity Village in Eugene. Collaboration with other area programs is a core aspect of SafePlace. Its guidelines, code of conduct, and intake procedures all draw upon ones used by other successful programs.
Q: What is Unity Shelter?
A: Unity Shelter is the umbrella organization that will include programs designed to provide safe shelter through collaborative care, such as SafePlace, the Men’s Shelter, Room at the Inn and future programs that fit into Unity Shelter's vision or mission. Each of these programs will have its own leadership team and staff, but Unity Shelter will serve as the overarching fiscal agent for each of the programs.
Q: Who is managing SafePlace and Safe Camp?
A: SafePlace is managed by a Steering Committee in partnership with the board and staff of Unity Shelter. The Steering Committee is comprised of leaders from other faith communities, local nonprofits (including the Corvallis Sustainability Coalition’s Housing Action Team, Corvallis Housing First, Room at the Inn and the Men’s Shelter), and individuals with years of experience and education working within the systemic issues of housing. This team has valuable experience which helps guide day-to-day operations and also the path forward.
SafePlace has hired night staff and a manager for Safe Camp and the SafePlace locations at First United Methodist Church and Corvallis Evangelical Church. Staff and volunteers from each congregation are directly involved in the work of running the microshelters at their individual sites.
Q: Will Safe Camp continue to have a mixture of camp sites and the microshelters?
A: Yes. First Congregational remains committed to providing temporary, transitional housing as part of its fundamental faith mission. Safe Camp will continue to offer a mixture of microshelters and camping sites. As Safe Camp residents move on into more permanent housing, other houseless residents will be invited to apply for spots in the camp. All residents will receive supportive services to help them make the transition to permanent housing.
Q: How many residents are living at Safe Camp now?
A: About 10 campers live at Safe Camp now, divided between microshelters and the camp sites. The expectation is that more people will apply to live at Safe Camp as the weather warms, and camp managers have been working to revamp the application process for potential camp residents.
Q: Is there a limit to the number of people who will be able to live at Safe Camp?
A: Yes. No more than 21 people will be able to live at Safe Camp, divided between the microshelters on site and the area reserved for camp sites.
Q: What is a microshelter?
A: A microshelter is a small and (somewhat) portable structure, about the size of a garden shed, that’s big enough to shelter and sleep an individual, a couple or a single parent with children. The microshelters have locking doors and are electrically heated. The county regulations allowing vehicles for the houseless to be parked in faith community parking lots define vehicles in such a way to include microshelters.
Q: Who is allowed to stay in the microshelters?
A: Currently, the microshelters are housing people who are medically fragile and therefore at higher risk during the coronavirus pandemic. City officials have approved using the microshelters for this purpose.
Q: Who has built the microshelters?
A: The microshelters are being built with generous donations for materials and the donated labor of local contractors.
Q: Are other faith communities involved in the SafePlace program?
A: At this writing, two other congregations, the Corvallis Evangelical Church and the First United Methodist Church, have become SafePlace sites, and microshelters have been placed at both churches. The goal is to enlist additional faith communities and other organizations in the SafePlace effort.
Q: How can my faith community or organization get involved in placing vehicles or microshelters for people who are unhoused in our parking lot?
A: First, assess the energy and commitment of your congregation, community or organization to take this on. Has serving the houseless been a part of your ministry or mission in the past? Is it something that your community or organization is willing to do now? In our experience, working with people who are unhoused can be incredibly rewarding, and it can trigger controversy – among neighbors and others. It’s work that’s considerably easier with the support of a reasonably united community. So the first step is to talk this over with other members of your community or organization. Next, connect with SafePlace! Our program has been operational for a year and we have created the infrastructure, support network, and resources to create a successful program throughout our city. A contact email for SafePlace is listed later in this document.
Q: Can we get a microshelter for the parking lot at my faith community or organization?
A: You can get a microshelter by becoming a program participant of SafePlace. Please note that our microshelters are all constructed by volunteer labor. Therefore, availability of units ready to place is subject to the schedule of our construction partners.
Q: How do we find out more about becoming a SafePlace location?
A: For more information, contact Garrett Beatty, worship pastor at Corvallis Evangelical Church (the location of one of the SafePlace microshelters), at garrett@evch.org.
Q: Are there indications that Safe Camp and SafePlace are having success in helping residents transition into more stable housing?
A: Yes. At this writing, 11 participants have moved out of Safe Camp and into housing. All Safe Camp residents have been added to the waiting list for Section 8 housing vouchers. In addition, Safe Camp participants are connecting with health care services and the Oregon Health Plan, with the assistance of Benton County health navigators to support getting their health care needs met.
Q: I’ve heard that some law enforcement officials have concerns about camps for people who are unhoused such as Safe Camp. Is this true?
A: It’s true. However, Safe Camp leaders believe many of these concerns reflect law enforcement’s previous experience in dealing with camps in unauthorized locations such as the tree farm property adjacent to Safe Camp. Law enforcement in the county has much less experience working with a managed situation such as Safe Camp. Safe Camp leaders believe a managed camp in which residents must adhere to a code of conduct, and where those participants can access necessary services, is safer (and easier for officers to deal with) than what has been the city and county’s status quo: A series of camps that can be closed down with little or no notice, forcing people who are unhoused scurry to find new locations to live.
Safe Camp managers believe managed facilities such as Safe Camp, with case management and other services, offer a better option, both for camp participants and for the community.
Q: Aren’t Safe Camp and SafePlace luring houseless people with no connection to the mid-valley region?
A: No. The vast majority of camp participants have connections to the area.
Q: Who’s paying for Safe Camp and SafePlace?
A: To date, this program has been funded by the hosts of SafePlace locations (First Congregational UCC, First United Methodist, Corvallis Evangelical Church), our partner organizations and agencies like the Corvallis Sustainability Coalition, the Men’s Shelter, Room at the Inn, Corvallis Housing First, and contributions by individuals and other faith communities and organizations.
Q: How can I donate to Safe Camp or SafePlace?
A: If you’re interested in contributing to Safe Camp or SafePlace or to help build additional microshelters, information on how to donate can be found at these sites: Our own Giving page and through the Corvallis Sustainability Coalition’s website - https://sustainablecorvallis.org/get-involved/donate/ (Be sure to specify whether your donations are for Safe Camp, SafePlace or microshelter construction.)
Q: What is the status of the application from First Congregational to Benton County for a conditional use permit for Safe Camp?
A: On Aug. 18, the county Planning Commission voted 6-1 to grant the church’s application for a conditional use permit for Safe Camp. The commission’s decision was not appealed.
Q: What is the church asking for from the county?
A: The church asked to use the 1.35 acres of its property that is in the county as part of its Safe Camp ministry – its work to provide temporary, transitional shelter to people in our community who lack shelter.
Q: Are conditions attached to the permit?
A: Yes – and many of those conditions have been proposed by Safe Camp managers to help improve the safety and comfort of Safe Camp residents and our neighbors. For example, the church will cap the maximum number of residents at Safe Camp at 21, divided between tents and microshelters. The conditions proposed by the church also call for guests to sign a code of conduct; failure to adhere to the code of conduct can lead to a guest’s eviction from Safe Camp. (Guests now must sign a code of conduct, which has been substantially revised since July 2019, and guests have been evicted for code violations. See the Code of Conduct document here.) Other conditions are designed to address fire safety concerns – for example, each camping site and microshelter is equipped with a fire extinguisher.
Q: How can I find out more about Safe Camp and SafePlace?
A: Send us an email at safecamp@corvallisucc.org. We’ll respond to civil emails as soon as possible.
11/23/2020
Safe Camp in the Media
- Pastor's Jen's column in the Gazette-Times appeared online Sept. 21. You can read it here.
- Four walls and a roof: Homeless advocates seek fast action on microshelter proposal for Corvallis area (Corvallis Gazette-Times, Feb. 14, 2020)
- Seeking sanctuary: Corvallis church offers safe harbor to homeless campers – for now (Corvallis Gazette-Times, Aug. 9, 2019)
- Corvallis’ Growth Pressures Neighborhood (Corvallis Advocate, Aug. 14, 2019)
- Safe Camp gets 60-day extension (Corvallis Gazette-Times, Aug. 23, 2019)
- Oregon church sees hosting 'houseless' people on its property as Christian duty (United Church of Christ website, Nov. 5, 2019)
- The national website for the United Church of Christ posted an article about Safe Camp on Nov. 5, 2019. See the article here.
(Links are subject to change by the news websites.)
For information related to homeless rights advocacy, see The Homeless Rights Advocacy Project
For information related to religious institutions and houseless advocacy, see this PDF document from the Homeless Rights Advocacy Project
Who's Involved
The Safe Camp Steering Committee consists of:
- Rev. Jennifer Butler, senior minister of First Congregational UCC
- Jane Barth, community volunteer and representative of Corvallis Sustainability Coalition
- Robin Frojen, First Congregational UCC member
- Cassandra Robertson, owner of Abundant Solar and representative of Corvallis Sustainability Coalition
- Jim Swinyard, community volunteer and member of Corvallis United Methodist, former Benton County Sheriff
- Virginia Gustafson Lucker, member of First Congregational UCC
- Tim Roach, retired Presbyterian pastor and member of First Presbyterian Church
- Jill McAllister, minister of Unitarian Universalist Fellowship
- Aleita Hass-Holcombe, member of First Congregational UCC and executive director of Corvallis Daytime Drop-In Center
- Garrett Beatty, pastor of Corvallis Evangelical Church
- Andrea Myhre, director of Corvallis Housing First
- Mike Moore, director of public affairs, Corvallis Oregon Stake, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
Safe Camp is also supported by:
- First United Methodist Church
- Sangha Jewel Zen Center
- First Presbyterian Church
Support This Effort
For information on how you can help support our work, please contact the church office:
541-757-8122 / office@corvallisucc.org
To make a donation to Safe Camp, please go to the giving page on this website.