All the seats in city hall were filled during Monday’s public forum at the City Council meeting. The top item on the agenda was what will happen to Whoville, the illegal homeless campsite on Broadway street that’s home to 50 people.
50 citizens throughout Eugene spoke about keeping Whoville active, at least until a viable shelter is able to replace it.
“Please, do not close Whoville until we have other shelter available,” Michael Adams said to City Council on Monday. “We’re not asking for Whoville to be open indefinitely, but with the possibility of snow happening this weekend, I don’t see how you could close it down.”
Last week a fence was put up surrounding the Whoville lot, indicating that the city is getting closer to shutting down the premises. However no date has been announced by the city.
In November, City Council voted to pass two legal campsites for the homeless to sleep at, but the Roosevelt Boulevard site is the only one that’s currently up, and it’s filled to capacity at 15. If the 40-50 people who live in Whoville were to be evicted, the other concern is that all of the tents, appliances, and warming station that were donated would have to be left behind, leaving the ex-Whoville residents to start all over again.
“We’re heading into a debacle with Whoville that we we’re hoping to avoid,” Jean Stacey, a chairwoman for Opportunity Village said. “They can’t take all of the things that were given to their community with them. According to my estimates, it’ll cost $100,000 of the taxpayers money to shut Whoville down.”
The consensus from the public was to keep Whoville until there is a better alternative available, however few had alternate proposals. Dan Bryant, President of Opportunity Village, was one of the few who brought a proposal.
“The support we had with the city with building our opportunity village was fantastic,” Bryant said. “We want to offer our support to build another transitional community. It would be better insulated and better for the community then what is currently offered. I’m looking forward to the support that we will hopefully have with the city.”
Opportunity Village is currently situated on North Garfield st., where they have a mini-suburb of small housing areas built for the homeless.
Before the public forum section of the meeting, the council proposed to extend the Overnight Sleeping Pilot Program Ordinance, which is the program that is designated to set up as of now two legal campsites for the homeless to spend their nights. The proposal would extend the program to Oct. 31, 2014 instead of Mar. 31, 2014.
The plan is currently just a proposal, and a public forum will be held to discuss it in mid-February.