County’s rural outreach team helps homeless people in remote areas

Lane County’s two-person rural outreach team works to help people who are homeless outside the Eugene-Springfield urban core. 

They take supplies to people living in forests, tucked in makeshift shelters along sand dunes and camped in small towns throughout the county. They may spend years working with individual clients, helping them to first find shelter, and then more permanent housing — steps on the road to independence.

Their work is a reminder that homelessness is not just a challenge for urban areas. It also touches remote rural areas, where people are removed further from services like housing and shelter.

So Justine Hopper and Theresa Burchell make their way to them, giving people the supplies they need to survive and the encouragement they need to make the journey out of homelessness.

Lookout Eugene-Springfield caught up with the team in a recent interview about their work, its challenges and what keeps them motivated. This interview was conducted in person and over email. Answers have been lightly edited for clarity.

Lookout Eugene-Springfield: Where do you go? And what do you do?

Hopper: We’re out of the office for the most of the day, meeting people where they’re at. You know, we’re not in Eugene or Springfield. We’re rural specific — so Florence, Blue River, Oakridge, Veneta — pretty much everywhere except Cottage Grove, Eugene and Springfield. 

Burchell: We go to rural communities and just hike around, hike into camps, hike where people are congregating, and build community and build a rapport with communities and all of the spaces that Justine has identified. We bring survival supplies. We help folks do front-door assessments to get on the centralized waitlist (for shelter). We help folks get onto any type of housing waitlist that may be available that they are interested in accessing.

How long do you work with individual clients?

Burchell: We walk side-by-side with people as they work to navigate toward housing. The time frame really ranges. We’ve seen people get into shelter and move into housing pretty quickly because of high vulnerabilities (people with children or health needs, for example). We also are working with someone that we’ve been working with for almost four years that recently got into housing after being unhoused for 20 years, almost.

What are examples of survival supplies? 

Burchell: Tents, sleeping bags, tarps, clothing items, hygiene items, socks, hand warmers, flashlights, snacks, food items, some medical supplies.

Hopper: We’re working more closely with folks. If they have any specific requests, we’re able to fulfill those. Like good winter work boots, or if they need a coat.

When are people most likely to meet you?

Burchell: Our vehicle says Street Outreach Services on it with county plates. We have certain places that we will stop in, a spot in every city that we go to.

Do you work primarily inside cities or outside city limits?

Burchell: For a while, we were supporting someone that we’ve been working with long term outside of (the) city limits of Florence, up in the Siuslaw National Forest on top of the mountain to get there. As long as it’s within county lines, we’ll respond.

What’s the most rewarding part about your work?

Hopper: The people.The connections that we make is, I think, the thing that makes me keep coming back. We have such strong relationships with our communities and people that we care so deeply about. If people just spent more time being more understanding and empathetic and wanting to actually find a real solution, it would just make the difference.

What’s the most challenging part about your jobs?

Burchell: Bureaucratic red tape, what you can and can’t do with your dollars. There’s a lot of language around what you can and can’t use those dollars on. But the reality is there are certain things that maybe we could spend on folks in their homelessness situation that could really help, like storage. The bureaucratic stuff and then social stigma of homeless people, the great discomfort that people feel when they witness or experience unhoused communities without taking the time to explore within themselves, or like Justine is saying, communicate with folks, and we realize, oh, there’s no othering. We’re all the same.

Hopper: Just the lack of access to housing and the lack of housing and affordable housing. Like Theresa mentioned before, there’s people who get in really quick. There’s other people who wait a really long time. 

One client, specifically that we work with who’s out in the forest, is a very old, vulnerable man, and he doesn’t know if he’ll make it through the winter.

This is somebody who is very engaged in the system, very engaged in our program, is doing everything that he needs to do, and is committed. And still, it will be a long time until he’s served. And it’s frustrating because you want to give people the power and autonomy that they can make the choices of where they live.

What’s the most surprising or unexpected thing that people don’t know about your jobs?

Burchell: I think it might surprise people how real we are. We talk, we engage people … because we’re all on the same level. We talk like we’re real people. We present (as) real people to real people. And it’s very effective. And I think sometimes people expect us to be a little bit more buttoned-up. Maybe we’re the rebels of the office.

Hopper: We’re very low-barrier. We’re not going to expect people to be sober. We’re not going to expect people to commit themselves to something that they don’t want to do. We leave that power to them. It’s just being open to allowing people to make the choices that work for them and are best for them and not us deciding what’s best for them.

What’s the one thing you’d want people to know about your job?

Hopper: Homelessness only grows every year, and the cities, especially responding to homelessness is not, I mean, you see Portland, you see Eugene, you see Salem. People are constantly being swept from the city, you know, and they’re pushed out into these rural spaces because that’s the only place that they can go. And they’ll keep going deeper and deeper and deeper. You know, you’re so far away from access. And I think people would really be surprised, like, how many people are living out in the woods right now, because that’s the only place that they can.

Burchell: We care very deeply about the people we serve, and knowing that they may not be getting what they need as fast as they need, or may never be served in the way that is most beneficial to them, that really sucks. The walls are closing in on social services, and it’s hard to look away from that. It’s hard to not feel it.

What attracted you to this type of work?

Burchell: I wanted to be part of work that went to people and provided that radical type of support that doesn’t require people to deal with transportation issues or financial issues and things like that. We could bring all of these services to you. I wanted to be a part of that solution.

Hopper: I really fell in love with the work and just being with people who I felt like I could relate to and be authentic with and understand where they were coming from. And I think that’s such an important part of our work, is being able to be on that same level with folks.

What’s one experience that really stands out?

Burchell: It’s a couple that we were working with for maybe two years in the Florence area. We were hiking over the sand dunes to reach them, and that was a journey and supporting them through the process of accessing medical support for deteriorating health conditions, accessing food and accessing housing waitlists and then supporting them through actually getting into housing. That stands out the most to me, because it was a heavy lift and it was well worth doing. But it just showed the deep desire to survive. There was something about this experience that just showed these people’s grit and determination. It was pretty incredible to be able to support them.