NO ROOM AT THE REST AREA

Every freeway traveler knows about Rest Areas. They are one of the most valuable things our taxes provide. We keep waiting for the government to take them away and privatize them. They wouldn't dare.

The subject came to mind via a Wall Street Journal article about the problems truckers are having. They are supposed to get off the road every 11 hours, I think, and sleep. What if the Rest Area is full? You have no doubt seen 18-wheelers, most often at night, lined up along the freeway and overpasses. We're all glad to have sleepy drivers off the road.

It’s illegal, of course, but not heavily enforced. The police either ignore them or get them to move on. People are beginning to get upset about the problem. Why aren't there more places for truckers to stop and rest?

The usual problems crop up. Nobody wants those big rigs coming and going in their neighborhood if they can possibly help it. Large parking places are expensive and hard to find. Locations in proximity to major trucking destinations are especially difficult. And so on.

On the same day there was an article in our local paper about a fire in one of our local homeless camps. It might have been an accident, but there is suspicion that someone was unhappy about the existence of this camp. A lady named Jennifer, who is the manager of a drop in center called “Circle of Hope,” and lives in the camp said, “Don't call us ‘homeless.’ We're just ‘houseless.’” I remind us that these folks are in honorable company. Jesus was “houseless,” once saying, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man has nowhere to lay his head.” He counted on finding space in some rest area.

How to deal with people who don't have a proper place to rest is an ages old problem. It was an ethical and human issue in Old Testament days where arrangements were made for those without houses and food to find food and shelter. It was an obligation to be met by those who had crops and orchards and food and enough to eat. Hospitality was, and still is, an honored tradition in less urbanized societies.

Care and concern for those with shelter and hunger needs is not absent in our cities and communities. It only seems that way when you become aware that some don't fit inside the system. Like those whose shelters were destroyed in that fire.

Truckers have more clout and a higher approval rating because they are engaged in making money and performing a recognizable task. They are mostly free of alcohol and drug addictions and probably are not among the untreated mentally ill.

Most of us don't think that standing on a corner with a “Homeless ─ Need Help” sign is desirable. The early morning can scavengers, who count on the fraternity trash bins for beer and pop cans worth a nickel, are a bit more respected. Low end capitalism, some call it. One fellow has a corner on the recycle dumpster behind the Co-op where he fills a bag with enough marketable cans and bottles to get him through the day. I didn't ask him where he spent the night. He could have been the same man I saw curled in a sleeping bag behind the Rest Room at the north end of First Street near the Harrison Street Bridge. Or he could have been one of those urged to move off the porch of a downtown church when it opened in the morning.

There are people in our town with a heart for this community of people living in our midst, with no place to sleep at night. We opened a mid-winter shelter for a few months, but it is now closed. There are no Rest Areas for this part of the “houseless” population in our town. These people will tell you that Corvallis is “home.” They find warmth at the Library. They know where public rest rooms can be found. They know where the free lunch today is served at St. Mary's or First Christian. Those mid-day “Rest Areas” always have room.

Some are looking for a new home for the Circle of Hope drop in center. It fills a big need for this segment of people. Nobody seems to want such a place in a business area as it is now, or a neighborhood. Locating proper Rest Areas is always a problem. Maybe if there was money enough a property might appear. And there is always a search for a place where people might sleep safely without offending citizens and the law.

Some places have solved the problem to some degree. If it were only a place to sleep it might be easier. There are all sorts of issues.

Maybe the “houseless” folks and the truckers could form a coalition. They could get towns to open vacant lots at night for truckers if the truckers would open empty trailers for people needing a safe, dry place to sleep. OK, it’s not a great idea, but it’s shameful that we can’t put our minds and resources together to offer a better solution than telling people found sleeping in the wrong places to “move on.”  Every tired person needs a Rest Area.    ─ Art Morgan, May 4, 2007