Last spring, the U.S. Forest Service cleared out a large number of people living in the forest south of Bend in an area known as China Hat. More than 100 vehicles and numerous personal effects were left behind. According to a new story from Investigate West and FORJournalism Lab, the Forest Service may have fallen short of constitutional obligations to give China Hat residents a “reasonable” opportunity to retrieve their belongings. David Dudley, a special project reporter with the Homelessness: Real Stories, Real Solutions FORJournalism, joins us to discuss the story.
Note: The following transcript was transcribed digitally and validated for accuracy, readability and formatting by an OPB volunteer.
Dave Miller: This is Think Out Loud on OPB. I’m Dave Miller. About a year ago, the U.S. Forest Service cleared out a sprawling homeless encampment in the Deschutes National Forest. About 200 people had been living in the area, which was known as China Hat. The National Homelessness Law Center says a sweep was possibly the largest ever on forest land. But more than 100 vehicles and numerous personal effects were left behind.
Now, a new story from InvestigateWest and the FORJournalism Lab says that the Forest Service may have fallen short of its constitutional obligations by not giving former residents a “reasonable” opportunity to retrieve their belongings. David Dudley is a reporter with the FORJournalism Lab. He joins us now.
It’s great to have you on Think Out Loud.
David Dudley: Likewise, Dave. Thanks for having me.
Miller: How much warning did campers get before they were kicked off this public land?
Dudley: So, the notices started going out in January. I’m gonna say mid to late January. So they had about four months or so.
Miller: And what form did these announcements take? How were people notified?
Dudley: Well, first through a press release, the public was notified. And then rangers started to go around and they would knock doors. If folks would answer, they would let them know. If folks would not answer, they would tape notices to doors and they also taped laminated flyers to trees throughout the area.
Miller: Given this effort, what prevented people from moving somewhere else before the sweep and importantly for what we’re talking about here, preventing themselves from losing their possessions, their mobile homes, their boat or the tools they used to do their jobs?
Dudley: That’s a great question. In a lot of cases, these are people who are dealing with disability. They’ve got all manner of physical and mental challenges that prevented them from being able to, for instance, pack everything quickly or to move vehicles. And a lot of times the vehicles might be broken down, they might need to be repaired, but they can’t afford to repair them. And then of course, as the closure loomed, and then once the gate was closed, Forest Service rangers started to ask for registration. In some cases, they wanted people to use certified tow truck drivers to tow their vehicles out, which proved insurmountable for a lot of those folks.
Miller: I want to get to hear more about what that actually meant. But, first of all, what is the Forest Service required to do by agency rules, federal law or under the Constitution to make it possible for people to retrieve their possessions in circumstances like this?
Dudley: Yeah, so first they’re supposed to tell everyone what happens to their things if they are not retrieved. Second, they have to be reachable. Folks have to have phone numbers, email addresses, so that they can actually reach the people that they need to get behind the gate. And a lot of those folks were saying that they were not able to get through via phone a lot of times, and sometimes when they were able to get through via phone, they would then be told, “For this request, you have to write an email.” So, it’s still a very cloudy area.
Miller: Wait, so what are examples of what would happen when a former camper tried to retrieve their belongings?
Dudley: Some folks are saying that their calls were just never returned. No one ever answered the phone; it’s a message phone. And they would leave messages and not get returned calls. Some of them who would get through via phone, for instance, if they had a vehicle to get out, they might be told, well, “you have to email the registration” or “you have to email the VIN number so that we can verify it and that it belongs to you.”
In some of those cases, either RVs, vans or other vehicles, they were inherited. If a camper, for instance, is moved out of the forest into an apartment or maybe to another area, they might say to a friend, “Hey, I can’t take this RV with me. Would you like to have it?” And naturally, if it’s a step up or maybe it could be sold or something, then they’re saying, “yeah, please, I’d love to have it.” So there’s a kind of informal thing happening there, and there were not a lot of title transfers in those cases. So they did not have the legal documentation to prove that they were the legal owner.
But in some cases, there were bills of sale. An attorney in the area worked really hard to help them establish ownership through petitions, through getting multiple people to sign that, yes, this person gave this RV to this other person. So it was a convoluted process that proved frustrating in many cases.
Miller: Can you tell us the story of a man named Chris Walston?
Dudley: Yeah, so I met Chris Walston about a year ago. I started reporting this story in March – not this March that just passed but March of 2025. And he was not well. He was diagnosed with heart failure after working on the coast. He was in and out of the hospital, and he was actually in the hospital the day of the closure, which is why a lot of his things were left behind.
He and his brother reached out to the Forest Service multiple times to try to access various items for Walston, including a houseboat that he had really dreamed of getting back on the water and a trailer that had tools, compressors. He’s a roofer, so he used that stuff to earn a living. And his brother left behind, actually, an urn that held the remains of the ashes of his deceased wife. And both of them did get in once, but they both said that they were rushed out and not given enough time to do everything that they needed to do to get their things out. And then they say they were never allowed back in.
So, a lot of their things were left behind, things that both helped them earn a living and also things with an intense personal value.
Miller: What did you hear from legal experts about how all of this played out?
Dudley: Legal experts are saying that there are some problems with the way that the Forest Service handled it. They are, again, required to give people firm dates, but they also have to say what happens if they don’t get their things. And then the next step is they have to be accessible. Whenever people call, they have to be able to have an opportunity to get their things. And because so many people say that they called and did not get return calls, there’s a problem that emerges there.
There’s talk of folks still interested in getting justice, and some of the things that they left behind are no longer intact. A lot of vehicles were disassembled and scrapped out. And then, of course, smaller items might have been thrown in the trash or they might have been in the vehicles that were destroyed. So a lot of them no longer exist.
Miller: How did the Forest Service respond to these allegations?
Dudley: The Forest Service, whenever I was originally reporting this story, they respond via PIOs and representatives, and the language is often circular. It just kind of folds back in on itself and you go, what are you even saying? Like, what does this mean exactly? I don’t get the sense that they feel a lot of regret about how it was handled, but again, a lot of folks are not happy with the way that they were treated and losing their things. And again, these are unhoused people, right? What little they have is literally all they have in this world. And to be made to leave that area without having an opportunity to retrieve a lot of those things, there are some people that are still very, very upset by this, even a year later.
Miller: What are the challenges that a land management agency faces as it’s forced to confront more and more non-recreational camping?
Dudley: That was one of the questions that I asked a year ago and my colleague Danielle Dawson asked recently. What training do your rangers and law enforcement officers have to handle this sort of thing? And their response was, well, we don’t have training, we don’t have the resources to do that part of it. We manage the forest, we need other folks, we need community partners to step in and to help us deal with this appropriately.
And they said that they reached out to Deschutes County, the city of Bend and several nonprofits in the area. I witnessed a lot of those folks helping. They’ve never told me exactly what their partnership with the Forest Service was, but I saw people from Deschutes County Behavioral Health helping some of those residents get into more permanent situations. I saw all manner of nonprofit and and services organizations out there doing everything that they could to help these folks, if not get into permanent housing, at least to move to another area where they can camp. Long term might not be the right word, but something where they can stay there for the time being.
Miller: Well, but that gets to you and your story. You note that many of the people who had been living on this Forest Service land have moved to a city-sanctioned campsite in Bend called Juniper Ridge, but that is supposed to close in a little over a year. What happens then?
Dudley: That’s the big question. A lot of those folks who are out there came from China Hat and whenever I ask them, whenever Juniper Ridge closes a year from now, where are you going to go, they have no idea. And this is a growing problem, right? The homeless population in Central Oregon has grown from just shy of 800 to over 2,100. And the most recent pit count, it’s not out yet, but I’m very interested to see how much that population has grown or not over the past year.
So it’s a growing problem there. I don’t see any permanent solutions being offered. So it’s something I’m watching very carefully.
Miller: David, thanks very much.
Dudley: I appreciate you, Dave. Thank you.
Miller: David Dudley is a reporter with the FORJournalism Lab.
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