On the morning of August 6, approximately one dozen protesters gathered outside the Eugene Municipal Courthouse, demonstrating against the city’s policy of sweeping homeless camps.
The catalyst for the demonstration was the arraignment of three homeless activists who had been arrested for disrupting a July 22 Eugene City Council meeting.
Jetty Etty, one of the activists who’s arraignment took place that day, is facing seven charges including obstructing government officials, disorderly conduct and criminal trespass.
Not all of the pending charges are related to the July 22 disruption.
Etty said that her choice to protest at the city council meeting was in response to the Union Pacific Railroad in conjunction with Eugene Police Department sweeping homeless camps in mid-July, an action that Jetty alleges displaced approximately 200 people.
After unhoused individuals had been removed, Etty said she then helped them up camp on a nearby piece of Bureau of Land Management land, which she said they were legally permitted to camp on for 14 days. Etty said the city served them with a 72 hour notice to vacate, but then returned 23 hours later and said everyone had 15 minutes to leave.
“I was pissed because they had taken all of these people’s things, and were just like targeting them. And so we went to city council,” she said.
Etty claims that security at the council meeting was in the back corner when they entered the council chamber, and one person even opened the door for them to enter the chamber.
“I think one of the reasons why they are pushing these charges so hard is because like ‘You stupid idiots just got caught in the back, not doing your job, not protecting city council. And we went past and you’re going to make it seem like we were violent, and like we went in in this crazy manner when we didn’t.’”
Nick Drake, another demonstrator who was putting up signs outside of the courthouse, said that the city isn’t doing enough to stem the issue of homelessness.
“The city really doesn’t have a solution other than criminalizing homelessness,” Drake said. “Even the CSS Hut sites would be a real solution, but only 260 of them at 60% occupancy, that’s less than 200 [people]. The point in time count was perhaps 3,000 unhoused people, so we’d need to have at least that many hut sites, and that’s not really housing either because they don’t have an address and they have limited access to electricity there.”
CSS, or Community Supported Shelters, are micro-homes built for unhoused people in sites designated by the city. Drake said he believes that while microsites are beneficial for the unhoused community, there are not enough of them nor do they provide an adequate substitute for permanent housing.
The 2024 Lane County Point in Time Count recorded 3,085 unhoused people in Lane County during the night of January 31, 2024.
Drake, who himself was homeless as a teen in Eugene during the 1990s, said he feels that the bar for new renters in Eugene is far too high.
“I was a homeless teen here in the ‘90s and could not get housing,” Drake said. “Arresting everyone and putting them in the court system is A: very expensive and B: not a solution.
I think if the people of Eugene knew what the police were up to against the poor people of our city, they would probably freak out.”
A recording of the July 22 council meeting disruption can be found on the city’s YouTube channel at the timestamp of 47:23.