Each morning, as people awake after camping at the specially appointed “Night Lawn” behind the police station in Ashland, volunteers who provide food and support as residents must take down their camps before 8 a.m. The effort has been organized by Southern Oregon Housing For All (SOHFA), an established advocacy group that has worked for more than a decade to support improvements for people without affordable housing in the Rogue Valley.
“When it became obvious that the Night Lawn was really tragically not helpful for non-housed residents, people stepped forward to address it through volunteerism,” said Rich Rohde, a founder of the group and active member. “We are there in the mornings with food and support, and as advocates for improvements that are drastically needed.”
As coverage in the Ashland.news reported this week, the Mayor of Ashland called for the area where people stored their possessions during the day near the camping site to be closed. Rohde said that the sudden announcement to close the storage area has resulted in people storing their belongings at various locations, and for some, carrying them on their backs.
The group assembled a meeting last April, after a number of incidents elevated the issue, including campers who had been cited by Ashland police for not moving off the Night Lawn before the required time for them to vacate the site in the mornings. Throughout those past five months, the group has seen important if slow improvements for conditions, including the installation of a picnic table, improved relations with law enforcement at the site, limited access to electricity, and established smoking areas.
Even before the mayor announced her decision to close the “front lawn” storage, SOHFA was working to establish a volunteer-run location where people could keep their belongings safe during the day and avoid loss of necessary items for sleeping. The recent decision came as a surprise to the group, and they have been working with individuals to help people find somewhere to put their things in the past week.
Meanwhile SOHFA has been preparing a proposal to the City that is loosely based on a model that worked in Costa Mesa, California, where volunteers ran a discrete operation offering storage lockers at a church to unhoused people. The local group’s proposal will include a modest storage area, a charging station, and materials that direct people to resources in the region. They hope to see the storage project begin in the next several weeks.
“There’s a recognition that the night lawn is not a permanent solution, but one that has been made available because of the city’s criminalization of sleeping in public spaces,” continued Rohde. “In the long run, we [SOHFA] are trying to find more comprehensive solutions and present them.”
Looking forward, the group could use additional volunteers to support both at the proposed storage area, the Night Lawn in the mornings, and to help staff emergency weather shelters. In addition, the group will continue to advocate for improvements to the existing facilities and more comprehensive solutions in the future.
“We hope that the night lawn, as a temporary check in hub, could be a positive for the city and the residents, but it is going to take a lot of volunteerism, and more than that,” Rohde concluded. It is going to take the intentionality with the city, that it can see people there as respectful residents, not a problem to get rid of.”
SOHFA has an online hub with more than 700 supporters on Facebook called SoHousingForAll. The group posts important information about affordable housing, local updates, and resources on many housing topics relevant to residents of Southern Oregon. To find out more or to sign up to volunteer with SOHFA, please contact them through their Facebook page.
