This is the first part in a series examining housing and homelessness issues in Southern Oregon’s Josephine County.
It was mid-November when Amanda Anderson reached out to county commissioners, mayors, senators and Street Roots in a near state of panic. Anderson, a resident of Southern Oregon’s Josephine County, had just learned her family might be forced to live on the streets in the new year.
“I don’t know where to turn for help or advice,” Anderson wrote.
For the past three years, Anderson; her husband, Michael; and their two teenagers have lived in two trailers, tucked away on a close friend’s residential property in Selma, an unincorporated community of fewer than 600 people. But after a neighbor made a complaint about their living situation, the county found them to be in violation of camping and land-use ordinances. They were given notice that they have until Feb. 11 to find somewhere else to live in a county notorious for its lack of affordable housing and social services.
Josephine County has two cities, Grants Pass and Cave Junction, and many rural, sparsely populated areas, like Selma. Filled with retirees, the county is dominated by an anti-tax, conservative voting bloc that has weakened public resources, including libraries and jails. The few social programs, such as rental assistance and food banks, are concentrated in the cities, and their services are spread out thinly across the rest of the county.
Demand for affordable housing is high in Josephine County, yet nobody is building. Vacancy rates hover at or below 1%, driving up rent and cost burdens for residents — if they’re lucky enough to find a place. From 2017 to 2019, the county’s homeless population nearly doubled. The 2019 Point in Time count revealed 1,030 people were unhoused, more than 1% of the county’s population. For comparison, fewer than 0.5% of Multnomah County’s population was found to be homeless.
The Andersons said they were lucky to find any form of shelter back in 2017, even if that was two trailers violating county code. At the time, the couple — both Oregon natives — had placed their kids with their grandma and had taken to living in their car. Michael, previously a logger, had just been in an accident, pinned under a truck on the way to work. He survived but was left with a traumatic brain injury, severe nerve damage and major spine injuries. Amanda also suffers from mental disabilities, and their 13-year-old daughter, MaCaela, has a learning disability.
In a desperate search for work, Michael came across Selma property owner Darrell Haug, who lives in a two-bedroom mobile home. Haug saw the family’s situation and offered up the two trailers on his property for free, not wanting to see MaCaela living on the streets.
“I probably would not have offered the trailers if it hadn’t been for her,” Haug said.
In early 2018, the family moved in and finally felt at home. Amanda Anderson now calls Haug “dad,” and the kids call him “grandpa.”
“We became family,” Haug said. “They became the kids that I didn’t have.”
Although the family still struggled to get by on state cash assistance (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or TANF) and food stamps, Anderson took it upon herself to do charity work of her own. It started with helping a widowed mother furnish her home with donations.
“Her 4-year-old walked up to me, and she thanked me with tears in her eyes for her first bed of her very own,” Anderson said. “It warmed my heart, and I just kept going from there.”
Anderson kept gathering donations to give to people in need, and soon boxes of clothes, furniture and other miscellaneous goods filled the property. Neighbors began to view the property as a junkyard.
Last October, after receiving a complaint from a neighbor, a Josephine County solid waste specialist contacted Haug and the Andersons about allegations of accumulations of solid waste, such as garbage, abandoned vehicles and construction waste. The complainant said Anderson’s donation piles were bringing rats to the area, though Anderson argued that “the whole valley has them.”
“The rat issue poses a serious health risk not only to the Anderson family but to others in the neighborhood,” the neighbor wrote in a formal complaint to the county.
The Andersons cleaned up the property for an inspection, but when the county saw their living quarters, the family faced an even harsher reality: They were in violation of county code for camping for over 120 days, having two occupied trailers (rather than one) and having an illegal dwelling unit per state law, as well as for household garbage accumulations with “serious environmental concerns,” in reference to the rat infiltration.
Records from the inspection state that Haug, the property owner, told county officials he wanted the family to leave. Haug fervently denied ever making such statements.
Ultimately, Haug and the Andersons were told to remove all occupied travel trailers from the property within 120 days from when the original violation was sent, making the deadline Feb. 11. If the vehicles are no longer occupied and meet the county codes, they may stay on the property.
In Oregon, it is legal to live in a camping vehicle on private land with the consent of the owner for any amount of time, so long as there is adequate water supply and sewage disposal and the residents comply with local laws. Most Oregon counties have additional policies on how long camping vehicles can be occupied on private property, among other restrictions.
Some Oregon cities have eased restrictions recently due to the lack of affordable housing and rising numbers of people who are homeless. In 2017, in response to the city’s tight housing market, Portland deprioritized fining people for sleeping in RVs and tiny homes on private property. And to accommodate those who were displaced by wildfires last fall, Springfield, adjacent to Eugene, approved RV living on private property with no time restrictions.
But in rural parts of Josephine County, camping on private property still cannot exceed 120 days in a 12-month period, and only one unit is allowed per property. Mark Stevenson, the director of community development in Josephine County, said enforcement of this policy is only prompted by complaints.
Anderson’s husband, Michael, argued that many people in the county live in trailers on one property for long periods of time; they just haven’t received a complaint. Trailers like these are even listed for rent on Craigslist.
“We’re not the only ones in this situation,” he said.
The county does not track how many of these violations they have found, but Stevenson said they frequently receive formal complaints about occupied vehicles. There has been an uptick in neighbor land use complaints in recent years, he said, and there are 1,100 active land use and structure violations, some of which are RV-related.
“The citizens of Josephine County are confident when they file a complaint we will follow through on it, and we do,” Stevenson explained via email. “Occupation of an RV is not at the top of our list, and consideration is always a priority when there is a family involved, especially with children.”
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In recent years, Josephine County has chosen to invest in keeping properties clean. This could help to maintain housing values and continue to draw retirees and businesses to the county. In late 2017, the county brought on a legal counsel, Augustus Ogu, to focus on its backlog of land use cases, most of which are more severe than occupying an RV on private property.
“Litigation of these land use cases are 100% the last resort,” Ogu said.
The county always attempts to work with residents first to bring their properties up to code, but if owners don’t comply, the county can take responsibility for the property to clean it up.
People with alleged violations always have the right to make the county prove the case, said Walter Fonseca, an Oregon Law Center staff attorney in Grants Pass. But many people in these situations may not have the resources to take the county to court.
“You’re displacing people who are really at the last place they want to be,” Fonseca said.
The Andersons do not have the time or resources to go to court but requested an extension so they could stay in the trailers until summer, rather than having to leave in the coldest time of the year.
To process the extension, the county set up a property inspection date for the date of their eviction, Feb. 11. Thomas Peterson, Josephine County solid waste specialist, said the family needs to show household garbage has not returned and provide evidence of efforts to find alternative housing in order for him to consider granting an extension. Amanda said she doesn’t have any documentation of seeking new housing because they haven’t found anything affordable enough to warrant an application.
Peterson told Street Roots he grants extensions in cases where progress has been made and shorter extensions in cases where it has not.
If they are not granted this extension, Haug has invited MaCaela and Amanda Anderson to temporarily stay in his two-bedroom mobile home while the 16-year-old son, Robert, stays with nearby friends.
Michael Anderson is already living in his truck amid marital distress, and Amanda Anderson is worried the rest of the family could end up living in a car, as well.
“It’s really hard, once you get stuck in that situation, to get yourself out,” she said.
Nearly 16% of Josephine County residents live in poverty, according to the latest U.S. Census estimates. The Anderson family survives on food stamps and $621 a month in TANF, which helps low-income families with children while they strive to become self-sufficient. With this small monthly stipend, the family has no savings for emergency situations like this.
Anderson is worried that if she places her kids with friends, she will lose the cash assistance, since it is provided only to families that are living together long term.
“Once I lose my income, where do I go from there?” Anderson said. “How do I get out of that hole? I have put in so many job applications. Nobody wants to touch me because I have no work experience. … People don’t bother calling me back for an interview.”
Anderson, 36, was married at age 18 and raised her kids while her husband provided for the family. He is in the process of applying for disability benefits, and she said their lawyers are confident he will get his disability money. In the meantime, she is trying to make money by selling goods that people donate to her.
She has reached out to the limited social service providers in the area, but they are inundated with requests with the extra pressures from the pandemic and the wildfires that burned through the area in the fall. None of the city commissioners, mayors or senators she reached out to were able to provide any assistance, she said.
In Josephine County, the wait list for a Section 8 housing voucher, a federal subsidy, is about 12 months, with 609 families on the list, said Teressa Santucci, executive director of the Josephine Housing Council.
Anderson didn’t even bother applying for a Section 8 housing voucher since the rentals in the area are extremely limited.
“I know people are granted their Section 8 voucher, and then they lose it because they can’t find a house,” Anderson said in reference to the time limit recipients have to find housing after receiving a voucher.
Demand for housing in Josephine County far outnumbers available units. One analysis found that from 2010 to 2016, the county produced only 48 units for every 100 new households of people. For comparison, nearby Jackson County produced 60 units, just below the state average of 63 units for every 100 new households.
At the time of reporting, there are about 10 available rentals listed on Craigslist in all of Josephine County that are under $1,500 a month. They are all 30 minutes away from Selma in Grants Pass, and they are mostly single-family dwellings out of the Andersons’ price range. In Cave Junction, the town 20 minutes south of Selma, there are wait lists for the few low-income apartments. Anderson said nearby RV parks are also too expensive, and one of their trailers is too old to park there.
Though options in Josephine are limited, Anderson said she wants to keep the family there to not uproot the kids. Her son, Robert, is a part of Illinois Valley Fire District’s youth training program, and at 16, he is the youngest person to have graduated from the Fire Academy at the department.
“His whole career, his whole future is built around the area,” Anderson said. “If he continues along the route he is on, as long as he graduates, his entire college will be paid for.”
Robert said that even if it comes to it, he wouldn’t want to live in a shelter.
“I’m not going to have that underneath my name,” he said.
Currently, the only nearby shelter, Gospel Rescue Mission in Grants Pass, separates residents by sex and requires they participate in a religious program. Anderson said that she wouldn’t want to split her family up and couldn’t deal with that with her mental disabilities. The Grants Pass City Council recently approved a trial run for a new low-barrier shelter, where families could remain intact, but there is no scheduled opening date.
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While this shelter is one step toward providing services for people who are low-income or houseless, Josephine County still has an extreme lack of affordable housing and many residents who oppose changes that would help those in need.
“Everybody classifies all the homeless people in this group, these boxes,” Anderson said. “They don’t understand how we got here.”