Another homeless camp pops up

Another homeless encampment in the Oak Harbor area is causing consternation among residents.

At a May 2 city council meeting, Mayor Pro Tem Tara Hizon addressed public comments complaining about a camp adjacent to The Home Depot parking lot.

Steve Adams, owner of Whidbey Island Boats and Boards, claimed the Oak Harbor Police Department had “failed to shut it down going back to June 2022” and that members of the camp were stealing from the store.

Hizon said the city and police are “very much aware” of the homeless encampment. She said city leadership has been “anything but silent” and pointed that the council’s 2023 legislative priorities included “supporting public safety and modification to new legislation that impact emergency services staff’s ability to support the community.”

At the meeting, Chief Kevin Dresker said the Oak Harbor Police Department is working with The Home Depot to deal with the issue and that the company is the “victim” in this situation, as it will ultimately be responsible for cleaning up the area.

The camp is in a hidden wooded area next to The Home Depot’s parking lot. Dresker said dealing with homeless camps in the city is “like whack-a-mole,” meaning as soon as the police department gets rid of one, another pops up elsewhere.

He said there were inaccuracies in the comments council received about the camp. He said that the camp was relatively recent and he first learned about it a few weeks prior. When he visited it, there was no one there because The Home Depot had already trespassed the people, he said.

Dresker said The Home Depot owns the largest portion of the camp but there are a couple of residences at the east end of the area. Since it’s on private property, the police have to cooperate with the owners.

“We do not have the right to just go in and take unilateral action,” he said.

The Home Depot corporate office signed a trespass letter, meaning that the Oak Harbor police can give anyone on the property a trespass notice. If the police find that person on the property again, they will arrest or cite them.

Dresker said four people in total have been given trespass notices and the police have not found them back on the property, even after “fairly frequent checks.”

“We assist property owners the best we can, but we cannot commit to watching or maintaining constant surveillance for property owners,” Dresker wrote in an email to the News-Times. “Property owners have the responsibility to manage and monitor their property, even if they sign a trespass letter.”

The Home Depot’s public relations department did not respond to the News-Times’ request for comment by press time.

Another homeless camp that has garnered a lot of attention is located on Hoffman Road on North Whidbey. The camp consists of several cars and RVs permanently parked on both shoulders of the road and has only grown since the News-Times reported on it in January. Since that camp is on public property, there are laws that limit what the Island County Sheriff’s Department can do. Martin v. Boise, a 2018 decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, states that anti-camping ordinances cannot be enforced on public property if not enough homeless shelters are available.

Island County Sheriff Rick Felici described housing options for the homeless as “really, really scarce” which has probably contributed to the camp’s increasing size and the problem of homeless camps in the area in general.

When it comes to the city of Oak Harbor, Dresker said the police department attempts to do periodic walk-throughs of known problem locations when staffing and call-load allow.

“We just can’t guarantee that we’ll do this, when we’ll be able to do this or how often,” he said.