NEWS
Multiple Motels
The City purchased the Rainbow Motel and plans to convert it into temporary housing By Jack Harvel will be used for two to three years before it’s transitioned to a different use. The motel cost $4.55 million and sits on just over an acre of land in Bend’s Central District on Franklin Avenue. It’s just blocks away from the Second Street emergency shelter operated by Shepherd’s House— Bend’s low-barrier overnight shelter with 90 beds, and near a growing encampment on Second Street. The Rainbow Motel will likely open sooner than the Bend Value Inn on Division Street. The City purchased the Bend Value Inn with Project Turnkey Funding, a state grant for renovating motels into temporary shelters. “It will be a low-barrier shelter with a 28-room capacity. A contract with NeighborImpact is being developed to operate it. The earliest possible use of this facility would be this winter, with renovations occurring in summer 2022,” Councilor Perkins said of the Bend Value Inn space. The City had an open house planned for Jan. 25 to share plans for the remodel and a timeline to complete the improvements. Converting motels are just part of the Council’s goal to increase shelter capacity. At its regular meeting Jan. 19, it reported that they’ve met or are on track to achieve
Reawaken America Tour
Jack Harvel
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The Rainbow Motel on Franklin is the City’s second motel-turned-shelter purchase. Its sale was confirmed at the City Council’s regular meeting on Jan. 19 for $4.55 million.
86% of goals. An online dashboard tracking each goals’ progress shows one goal is completed, three need attention, 11 haven’t been started and 68 are on target. Bend’s Recovery Strategy and Impact Officer Carolyn Eagan said the City doubled
the number of available shelter beds in town over the last 18 months. The annual Point in Time Count for 2021 estimated that there were about 1,100 houseless people in Bend, a number that’s consistently ticked up 10-12% each year over the past several years.
Too Woke to Reawake
A tour featuring prominent vaccine and election-skeptic speakers moves to Salem after community backlash By Jack Harvel
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Clay Clark’s Reawaken America Tour is going to Salem after being asked to commit to mask mandates.
hat do a retired general who believes in QAnon, a self-proclaimed prophet and a convicted felon who served as an advisor to Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign have in common? None will be in Redmond on April 1 and 2, as previously planned. The Reawaken America Tour booked two days in early April at the Deschutes County Fairgrounds and Expo Center featuring over 40 speakers from the right-wing media sphere, including former Trump employees Roger Stone and Michael Flynn. Stone, a campaign advisor to Trump in 2015, and Flynn, a national security advisor in the Trump White House, both were convicted on felony charges during Robert Mueller’s investigation into alleged interference in the 2020 election and pardoned by the former president. The event moved to the River Church in Salem after the tour was asked to sign a contract addendum agreeing to follow mask mandates. The host of the tour, Clay Clark, said the decision to move the event was due to a preference to perform in churches, but a ticket salesperson for the event told the Source that the tour was
moving to avoid mask mandates. The River Church pastor Lew Wooten has been critical of mask and vaccine mandates, and in September 2021 helped organize a statewide work walkout in protest of them. Emails obtained by the Source revealed Troy Smith, a planner for the event, claimed he’d been assured by Deschutes County’s two Republican commissioners that mask-mandates wouldn’t be enforced, and that the Sheriff’s Office would deal with potential disruptions. Commissioner Tony DeBone said he spoke with event organizers but never gave any assurances mandates could be skirted, which Commissioner Patti Adair echoed in a text message to The Bulletin. The tickets cost $250, but discounts were offered to anyone who asked under “scholarship” pricing. Clark said the event will not distribute refunds or transfers, which ticket salespeople again contradicted, stating they could be transferred to any events that haven’t sold out. Clark defended the no refunds, no transfer policy to KTVZ, “Because I’m in charge. I’m a capitalist,” but added he’d offer refunds to people who didn’t understand the policy.
VOLUME 26 ISSUE 04 / JANUARY 27, 2022 / THE SOURCE WEEKLY
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he Bend City Council authorized the purchase of the Rainbow Motel at its regular meeting Jan. 19, saying the property has potential as a temporary shelter for people experiencing homelessness as well as longer-term goals. It’s the second motel the City is converting into a shelter after receiving $2.97 million in state grant funding to convert the Bend Value Inn in July. The City Council is aiming to add 500 new shelter beds by 2023 to augment the 280 beds currently available year-round. General funds paid for the Rainbow Motel so it could eventually be used as something other than transitional housing. “Buying the motel is an opportunistic public investment that can meet a variety of short-term and long-term community needs, including but not limited to an immediate need for transitional shelter, as well as future possible site for city hall, affordable housing, a civic plaza or other public uses,” City Councilor Megan Perkins said in an update on housing strategies. The motel will be operated as a low-barrier shelter by a nonprofit selected through a competitive process. The motel is expected to open its doors in late spring or early summer, will have 40 to 60 shelter beds and
