Officials said Oasis Village transitional housing project will be full when it opens Jan. 10, and the waiting list for moving into one of its 15 tiny homes grows by the day.

The village, built on 12-acres of land donated by Deschutes County, is located at 2525 E Highway 26 near the Redmond Airport. The community is centered around a building that includes a communal kitchen, bathroom, showers and laundry facilities.

Near that, 15 small homes just 100-square-feet in size are lined up, sparsely outfitted with electricity, heating and a bed. Four of the tiny homes were built by high school students at Redmond High School as part of a construction technology course with materials donated by Hayden Homes and Parr Lumber.

The 15 tiny, wooden homes will serve as a place to sleep, store belongings and get out of the cold. They will have shelves, a desk, a chair and storage totes. Five of the small shelters will have double beds to house couples and the other ten will house individuals with single beds, Oasis Village officials said. Residents can come and go as they please and will be permitted to bring pets and park vehicles on site in a special lot. Alcohol and drug use will not keep people from being able to live at the property.

Oasis Village was the culmination of a long collaboration between governments on the city, state, and county levels, as well a variety of local community organizations and individuals. The project has been funded by a nearly $1 million grant from the governor’s office, in addition to another $967,500 from the American Rescue Plan Act funneled through the state, Deschutes County, and the Central Oregon Health Council. Financial support and volunteer work has also come from community organizations like the Zion Lutheran Church, Redmond Community of Christ Church, Rotary Club of Redmond, NeighborImpact and other private individuals.

The project also received in-kind support from the city of Redmond, the Oregon Department of Transportation, H.A. McCoy Engineering & Surveying, Hayden Homes and Deschutes County, which made the land for the village available.

Staffing the project

Alison McKinney was hired in October by the nonprofit Oasis Village board to serve as a case and program manager for the village. McKinney, who has worked with the Redmond-area’s homeless population for more than eight years, said she gets calls every day from people inquiring about space in the village. For now, she puts them on the waiting list.

“When you consider the number of people without housing, it is a small dent in a huge issue, but we are part of that continuum,” McKinney said. “We are working with Shepherd’s House and Bethlehem Inn and it is part of that continuum of how we can get (Redmond’s homeless) into permanent, stable housing.”

McKinney said she, along with peer support specialists, will work with village residents to access resources like the voucher systems and apply for stable housing, Social Security and disability entitlements. Residents also have the opportunity learn essential life and job skills at the camp, including how to cook healthy meals and budget their resources. Residents will have access to a community garden where they can grow their own fruits and vegetables, McKinney said.

“What we are wanting them to access is their individual ability to move forward at their pace,” said McKinney. “At what they think they can do so they are not overwhelmed. Change, whether it is good or bad, is not comfortable for anybody. Your stress levels always change whenever there is change in your life.”

McKinney said guests can stay at the village for a maximum of two years as long as they are actively working toward objectives that lead to permanent and stable housing. She hopes some leave to better housing in just a few weeks. While residents will have to check in and out of the village, but they will be largely free to come and go as they wish, and they will be in charge of maintaining their individual tiny home as well as contribute to the overall order and cleanliness of the entire village.

The median age of those who will move in to the village on Jan. 10 is their early 50s, McKinney estimated. She said the majority are living on a fixed income and many supplement that by collecting bottles and cans. A lot of them work, she said, but typically the only jobs available are low paying and unreliable. But she said some time at Oasis Village may change that.

“The biggest thing is now that you are warm, safe and dry, you look more appealing to a potential job,” McKinney said.

Board direction

James Cook, who sits on the Oasis Village board of directors, said a few years ago he could never have dreamed of something like the village coming to fruition. He said political officials and segments of the community had been resistant to taking on the issues homelessness, but that is no longer the case. Oasis Village, he said, is the right move for the city and for its homeless residents.

“These are people who for whatever reason have fallen out of touch with community … society has not been there to support them,” Cook said. “It takes a lot of trust-building to get people to be willing to come out of the junipers (the BLM land to the east of Redmond).”

Redmond City Councilor Cat Zwicker said she has a lot of hope for Oasis Village.

“We need to have transitional steps to help people out of homelessness, and meeting them where they are instead of where we think they should be. I think that is one of the most important things,” Zwicker said. “As a person who has lived very precariously close to that being unhoused stage during the first Great Recession, I know how easy it is to have something tip you over the edge.”

Redmond city councilor Clifford Evelyn said he believes Oasis Village garnered so much support from the city, the county and the community because it was thoughtfully developed to address the issue at hand. He also said the village is long overdue in Redmond.

“We have no other option. If we do nothing it (homelessness in Redmond) is just going to get worse. People are in need of this,” Evelyn said. “The fact of the matter is that it needs to be successful, which it is going to be because we aren’t going to let it fail. And it is our only option to ensure our city doesn’t look like other cities that have homeless people all over the place.”

Evelyn said the need for Oasis Village is much more clear when considering the 27 individuals who died homeless in Central Oregon in 2023.

“These are our citizens. These are people who live in our city,” Evelyn said. “We don’t want anybody to die from homelessness. And whatever we have to do to make sure that doesn’t happen again, that is what we are going to do.”

Deschutes County Commissioner Patti Adair said she hopes Oasis Village is a good first step, and that in future the village is able to provide resources for those with substance abuse disorders.

“There are always different reasons why people are homeless and each person is unique. But we’ve got to turn the corner,” Adair said. “There are a lot of different solutions that we have to find. But this is one of them.”

County commissioner Tony DeBone said the fact that the waiting list to get into Oasis Village is growing by the day sends a very clear message about Redmond’s housing crisis.

“It kind of reminds me that we have a big problem here,” DeBone said. “The state of Oregon has limited urban growth expansion and land use opportunities for private property owners, and this is happening all up and down the West Coast. We’ve got a lot of people with a lot of needs. And this is the community offering support with government resources added, and we are turning the corner from private property rights and personal responsibility to ‘How much housing can we build.’”

Separate shelter

Bethlehem Inn, which got nearly $3 million in state dollars through the Project Turnkey program to buy and renovate a local motel in Redmond and to turn it into a transitional housing shelter, had to close its program last year citing staffing issues.

The organization has since said it is revitalizing its program to offer a more long-term housing option to people struggling with homelessness. However, it is currently unclear when the program will come back online.

Gwynn Wysling, executive director of Bethlehem Inn, told The Spokesman on Dec. 28 she was unable to provide any updates on the matter and that the organization was still considering their plans.

“This is going to be a longer-term program than what we have here in Bend for those individuals choosing to be in a clean and sober environment that supports their ability to continue to work and be a little more independent than in the shelter environment,” Wysling said. “We plan to have 21 units available and are excited that that will be opening up after the first of the year.”