I’m a native Oregonian. The central part of the state has been my home for more than a quarter century. It’s where I expected to build my life.
It’s also where I fled after a harrowing marriage with a husband who threatened my life. With no money, no job and no housing, I found safety and sanctuary deep in the woods of the Deschutes National Forest. That is where I lived for seven years.
But this spring, the Forest Service forced nearly 200 people, including me, from an area called China Hat, located just south of Bend, Oregon. This place, our home, was a last resort when systems failed us.
What we experienced was a mass displacement of people with nowhere else to go — and a harsh foreshadowing of what’s to come for others as cities and other entities fine, arrest and jail people without providing any other safe place for them to live. Since the Supreme Court’s Grants Pass v. Johnson decision greenlit those cruel policies a year ago, they have been on the rise across the country.