Shelter service providers across Central Oregon are dealing with less funding from the state this year. A safe parking program in Redmond, intended to help people transition from living in their vehicles or small structures to stable housing, could close soon.

Last Friday, Rick Russell learned his safe parking organization wouldn’t be receiving the state funding they had hoped for. Russell, 45, is the executive director of Mountain View Community Development, a program that provides safe parking spaces for people in the Bend and Redmond areas.

Safe parking spaces let people park the vehicle they live in and not have to move it around.

Russell said the program is a “cost-efficient” and ”highly effective form of sheltering people.” The organization spends about $1,400 per month on each parking space.

But faced with a significant budget hole, Russell said the Redmond site, which sheltered 129 people last year, will soon cease, with consolidation of spaces beginning as early as next week.

“We will do everything we possibly can” to not kick people out, he said, but without public funding or community support, an “end of the runway” looms.

In Central Oregon, people living in their vehicles is a common occurrence, but finding a place to do it can be hard. Last year, the Bend City Council changed its parking code to require people to move the vehicles they’re living in every 24 hours, along with other restrictions. There’s also been a steady eviction of unsanctioned homeless encampments in the region.

Russell said the Redmond program serves about 40 people per night, and that last year, it helped 45 people move into permanent housing. Now, the program is losing almost half of its budget and regionwide, other types of shelters are also facing a $1.7 million shortfall, according to the Central Oregon Intergovernmental Council. The regional governing body administers state funds and coordinates projects across agencies and governments in the region.

Russell received an email last Friday from COIC Executive Director Tammy Baney, informing him and other service providers of the cuts.

Baney said in an interview that current shelter operations are being asked to reduce their budgets, even as the current shelter network doesn’t serve all who need it.

“So we’re going to need to also have additional funding coming in to be able to meet some of these needs,” Baney said.

This year, state budget money for shelters was restricted to those that received funding in 2023. Safe parking shelters weren’t eligible back then, and now that they are, they are in line behind more traditional low-barrier shelters, which have fewer requirements for entry, according to Amy Fraley, a senior program manager for houselessness solutions for the City of Bend.

Deschutes County Commissioner Phil Chang said that while safe parking programs might not be as effective in other parts of Oregon, “we have great experience and success with it here in Central Oregon.”

Chang said legislation could be introduced into the upcoming short legislative session to help fund parking programs specifically and address a “gap in the system of shelter and traditional housing” in Oregon.

News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2025/10/03/redmond-oregon-safe-parking-homeless-shelter-central-funding/