LATEST UPDATE (03/29/2024): Based on news reports (Bend Bulletin | KTVZ | Central Oregon Daily), it appears that Deschutes County Board of County Commissioners (BOCC) voted 2 - 1 on Wednesday March 27, to cancel the contract the county had with Free On The Outside to run a shelter for adult male parolees on SE Wilson Ave. in Bend. As a result, it appears the property will be sold or re-purposed. Commissioners Adair and DeBone voted to end the contract and close this shelter; Commissioner Chang voted against. We await an official announcement from the county.
What appears below is an archived version of the information EastsideVotes.org provided January --> March, 2024. Some links may no longer work. The county's FAQ on the program, for instance, was taken down.
there appear to be discrepancies between the grant application and what is actually attempting to be implemented by the county...
Information on this page comes from Deschutes County Document No. 2023_690. It was obtained via a public records request from Deschutes County. (At least some of this document is also available in the minutes (page 183) from the 07/26/2023 Deschutes County Board of Commissioners meeting.) Document No. 2023_690 is the sub-recipient agreement between COIC and Deschutes County that supplied the $1 million grant to purchase the targeted property at 640 SE Wilson Ave on the east side of Bend. It includes the county's grant proposal for the money. The first image is from page 15 of Document No. 2023_690.
Problems.
Full capacity per the grant agreement is at least 24 (see page 17 of county's Document No. 2023_690). But see the picture below taken January 30, 2024. The purchased property appears to be in a state of disrepair/neglect and unoccupied.
Full capacity per the grant agreement is at least 24 (see page 17 of county's Document No. 2023_690). But see the picture below taken January 30, 2024. The purchased property appears to be in a state of disrepair/neglect and unoccupied.
- Pro-active monitoring/tracking of shelter resident counts was attempted by neighbors. A request for counts of residents moving in and out of the purchased property was emailed to the Director of Deschutes County Community Justice on January 11, 2024:
- "Is there a way for the public to monitor move-in and move-out of residents? Not looking for personal identifying information or criminal history, just would like to be able to view or review the official record & count of when residents move in and out."
- Response received on January 18th from the Director was: "Public reporting of client #’s: Staff are finalizing the performance metrics required for grant and program reporting with program funders. We will update the program FAQ when the metrics, platform and frequency of public reports is finalized."
- A second request for this information was sent to the Director of Deschutes County Community Justice 11 days later on January 29th and the response received was from a County paralegal: "Thank you for your email. We have processed your email as a public records request. We have no responsive documents to your request."
- We don't know what that means, other than to know the county isn't providing the information requested.
- Conclusion: There's no indication the shelter is now, or was actually operating at capacity by January 10, 2024.
If you want to help stop this shelter from taking root in Larkspur, please consider taking a moment to sign a Change.Org petition.
A second discrepancy between grant proposal and reality relates to the following schedule as taken from page 26 of county's Document No. 2023_690.
It appears that this schedule has not been adhered to by the grant recipient. We know the targeted property was purchased by end December, 2023. From the county's FAQ item 15 for this facility, we are told the first resident "was placed" on January 5th, 2024, 4 days after the deadline. But what about all the other missed deadlines? Where is the accountability when over $1 million in taxpayer money is consumed like this?
A third and major discrepancy between county's grant application and what has actually been done with the grant money relates to the location of the property the county targeted for its shelter. Below is a snippet from page 24 of the county's grant proposal (Deschutes County Document No. 2023_690).
In fact, the targeted property is less than 1000 feet from not one, but two Bend Parks and Recreation properties: per Google Maps it's 586 feet from Kiwanis Park, and 806 feet from Vince Genna Stadium. And, the targeted neighborhood is neither sparse nor remote. As taxpayers, we are demanding accountability here. The county must live up to its grant proposal and select a different location for this shelter. More details and discussion about the targeted location can be found on parolee shelter page, item # 6.
If you want to help stop this shelter from taking root in Larkspur, please consider taking a moment to sign a Change.Org petition.