In Oregon, the National Forest Service is preparing to do some forest maintenance in the Deschutes National Forest. That’s all to the good; clearing brush and doing controlled burns, as is the plan for this project, is a vital part of forest maintenance and helps prevent out-of-control wildfires.
What’s baffling about this is that it’s necessary to clean out a massive, trash-strewn homeless encampment before the work can begin.
Dozens of homeless people who have been living in a national forest in central Oregon for years were being evicted Thursday by the U.S. Forest Service, as it closed the area for a wildfire prevention project that will involve removing smaller trees, clearing debris and setting controlled burns over thousands of acres.
The project has been on the books for years, and the decision to remove the encampment in the Deschutes National Forest comes two months after the Trump administration issued an executive order directing federal agencies to increase timber production and forest management projects aimed at reducing wildfire risk.
Deschutes National Forest spokesperson Kaitlyn Webb said in an email that the closure order was “directly tied to the forest restoration work.” Homeless advocates, meanwhile, seized on the timing on Thursday as U.S. Forest Service officers blocked the access road.
Let’s get one thing straight: These people are not being “evicted.” “Evicted” implies that they had some legal right to be there in the first place. They are trespassing, they are breaking every environmental regulation in the Forest Service’s book regarding camping, and they are preventing legitimate use by taxpayers. Camping is legal in the National Forests, there is an allowable amount of time involved; most forests enforce a 14-day limit. Some of these people have been occupying this site for years.
Those limits are obviously not being enforced here, nor are the prohibitions on littering and dumping trash. Have a look:
Of course, the usual suspects are already thumping their chests and shouting about how unfair this is to the squatters occupying property that belongs to the American taxpayers, and which is supposedly available for recreational use.
Four people living in the encampment including (Mandy) Bryant, along with two homeless advocates, filed for a restraining order to stop the closure. The claim argued it would cause irreparable harm to more than 100 people who were living there, many of whom have disabilities.
Why are people with disabilities living in trash-strewn encampments out in the forest?
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Fortunately, a U.S. District Court Judge, Michael McShane, denied the restraining order. The homeless enclave will be removed, the work will go on, and if there is any sanity remaining in the region – this is Oregon, so we shouldn’t accept that as a given – the vagrants won’t be allowed to re-establish themselves.
We can argue about the wisdom of the federal government owning so much land in the American West. Believe me, in Alaska, we have that conversation all the time. But while that land is in the possession of government agencies like the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management, it should be available to the American taxpayers. These lands are supposed to be available for camping, hunting, fishing, and so on. On those years when I go down to Colorado to hunt deer and elk with my loyal sidekick Rat, we routinely camp and hunt National Forest lands. But having an enormous garbage dump inhabited by vagrants kind of detracts from the camping experience.
The Forest Service is doing the right thing by removing these people. Hopefully, they’ll do the right thing in refusing to let them return.
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