On April 18, 2025, two local service providers and four individuals living in the China Hat/Horse Butte Area of the Deschutes National Forest filed for injunctive relief in U.S. District Court to prevent the Forest Service from conducting a planned May 1 massive sweep of unhoused people. (This mass eviction would be part of the Cabin Butte Revegetation Project closure.) These plaintiffs claim that the Forest Service did not live up to assurances published in its November 2022 Environmental Assessment for the Cabin Butte Project. In this EA (page 223) the Forest Service stated it would work with local governments, community organizations, service providers, and others to help relocate "persons experiencing homelessness." The suit also alleges that the USDA Civil Rights Office has not responded in a timely fashion to Disability Discrimination Complaints filed by 80 people seeking reasonable accommodation. "Plaintiffs aver that the involuntary displacement of more than 100 unhoused persons on May 1, 2025, will result in irreparable harm, adversely and grievously impact their physical health and mental well-being and . . . will result in serious further deterioration of medical and mental health conditions which may even result in death." The suit draws attention to the impact such a sudden removal of so many people with no safe place to go on surrounding jurisdictions. "Medical teams which do outreach into the China Hat encampments, such as Adventure Medics of Bend, OR, have advised that given the sheer number of those being displaced, coupled with the number of significant medical conditions and disabilities, the pending May 1, 2025, displacement amounts to a public health crisis." In reaction to the Cabin Butte Project closure, Bend City Councilor Megan Perkins told Oregon Live (April 7, 2025), "I don't quite understand how this is going to work, and I think the process is shortsighted." This article goes on: "Without alternative camping options and no room at the shelters, she said she is concerned about the strain this will put on other areas, cities and forests. 'I'm very worried about it, both from the perspective of someone having to move and not knowing where they're going to go and from the perspective of surrounding communities already strapped without sufficient resources to support the population.'" If carried out on May 1, this sweep would be, by far, the largest eviction of unhoused people ever conducted in Central Oregon. As many as 150 people, many of them with identified disabilities, are now targeted for sudden displacement. On March 26, 2025, a spokesperson for COVO (Central Oregon Veterans Outreach) told KTVZ: "They don't know where the hundreds camping in the area would relocate, as Bend's other major encampment, Juniper Ridge, is being downsized by the City of Bend and Deschutes County." On Feb. 25, 2025, at a community-wide homeless forum at West Side Church in Bend, seven staff members from various congregate and outdoor shelter programs participated on a panel. In response to a question presented to all on the panel, down the line each said they were maxed out with no space available. In addition to this lawsuit, several people are mobilizing the "court of popular opinion" with a petition signed by community members addressed to Deschutes National Forest Supervisor Holly Jewkes. It asks her to pause her plans to conduct the May 1 hard closure, but, instead, to "engage in a rolling closure over the course of the summer and early fall while the weather is good to allow service providers and community organizations to work with the residents there to get them relocated." A copy of this petition is available to read and send to Ms. Jewkes. It can be found at facebook.com/pauseevictions. Or, just send a personal message to Ms. Jewkes at SM.FS.BFR_FD@usda.gov. If you do, please copy to the Bend City Council (council@bendoregon.gov) and Deschutes County Commission (board@deschutes.org). In his Easter "message," President Trump once again took the opportunity to demonize disabled people. He has just demolished the Interagency Council on Homelessness. The deployment of USDA law enforcement personnel now assembling in Bend may surpass in numbers the strike force sent to Bend on the evening on Aug. 13, 2020, to disperse hundreds of Bendites who had assembled to block the departure of ICE buses carrying two local fathers.
