Jeffrey MacLeod doesn’t want to resume raising his 12-year-old daughter, Kadyn, in a four-door SUV.

Debora Parlin already lives in her vehicle, a decrepit 1988 Chevrolet van, and she hopes to swap it for an actual home.

Jodene Layton wants to quit spending $30 every day and a half on propane, the only source of heat in the 30-foot trailer that is her home.

And Mark Misiura, whose south Baker City home was destroyed by a fire less than a week ago, has no idea where he’ll go when his motel vouchers run out.

Those four were among the local residents who attended the annual Point-in-Time count, a census of people who lack a permanent home, Wednesday afternoon Jan. 29 at Community Connection of Baker County.

The event had a dual purpose.

In addition to giving local officials an estimate of the homeless population, the noon-to-4 p.m. resource fair brought together representatives from several agencies to help people fill out housing assistance applications, learn about other social services, including for veterans, enroll in the Oregon Health Plan, or just pick up a warm stocking cap or a couple bags of chips and a bottle of water.

MacLeod, 61, lived in Baker City from 2009-13. He has two daughters — Kadyn, 12, and Dianna, 16.

He said the girls’ mother is not involved in their lives.

MacLeod said he moved to San Diego, where he had previously lived, in 2013. He left to care for a longtime friend who was ill.

For about 11 years he and his daughters lived in his friend’s home.

MacLeod said his sole source of income is disability payments through Social Security. He also receives cash payments from California to support his daughters.

After his friend died on March 10, 2024, MacLeod said the home’s new owner allowed him to stay, with his daughters, through the end of the school year in May.

But then the trio had to move into a 2017 Mitsubishi Mirage, a compact car.

“Not that big for three people,” MacLeod said.

He and his daughters stayed in San Diego through the summer and fall.

Then a friend from Baker City called and offered to let them stay in a home here.

MacLeod and Kadyn drove to Baker City, in their newer, slightly larger Volkswagen Tiguan, arriving on Dec. 5. Dianna stayed with a friend in San Diego, where she has started high school and has a group of friends she didn’t want to leave.

MacLeod learned recently that he has to move out of the home where he and Kadyn have been living.

The deadline is this Saturday, Feb. 1.

He shudders at the prospect of moving with his daughter, a seventh-grader who has joined the wrestling team at Baker Middle School, back into a car.

“I love my daughters more than anything,” MacLeod said.

He said he has managed to maintain a healthy credit score.

He’s optimistic that the housing aid application he filled out during the resource fair Wednesday will lead to long-term housing.

MacLeod said he definitely can’t afford rent payments with only his disability payments.

The aftermath of a fire

Misiura didn’t think he would be attending a resource fair for homeless people.

He has owned his home, a 1973 single-wide trailer, at 2246 Miller Ave. for about 19 years.

Misiura, 63, is a retired construction worker who relies on Social Security disability checks.

“I worked hard my whole life,” he said.

He retired about a year ago.

About three months ago he was diagnosed with cancer.

Then, on the evening of Jan. 23, his trailer caught fire.

Misiura was left, he said, with literally the clothes he was wearing.

He said it was difficult to find insurance for the half-century-old trailer, and he couldn’t afford the available policies anyway.

Misiura said he has children and grandchildren in South Carolina, where he lived for much of his life before moving to Baker City.

He doesn’t want to burden them.

During the resource fair he picked out a few pairs of underwear and stuffed them into his backpack.

Misiura said he hopes to find a friend who has an RV or camper he can live in until he finds permanent housing.

He’s been living in a motel since the fire.

He said he feels fortunate that at least he owns property, even though it will cost money to clean up the fire damage before the parcel could be sold.

Angry about housing scams

Debora Parlin grew up in Baker City. She had been living in North Powder, using a federal housing subsidy, when she said she was “screwed” by the homeowner and left homeless.

That was in early February 2024, almost a year ago.

Parlin, 62, said she has spent most of the past year living in her 1988 Chevrolet van, often parking it in Haines.

The vehicle has no heat, she said.

Parlin, who said she earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology at Eastern Oregon University when she was 50, said she has struggled to find a job at which she can use her education.

She said she worked hard before being physically disabled in 2018. The disability checks aren’t sufficient to pay for long-term housing.

Parlin said she’s also been frustrated by the prevalence of housing “scams” on Facebook Marketplace, where people claim to own rental homes but instead take unwitting people’s deposits.

Parlin said Community Connection has helped her by providing motel vouchers since Christmas.

But she fears that if the application she filled out Wednesday doesn’t secure housing for her, she’ll be forced to return to her unheated van, living there with her two dogs.

“I don’t want to give up,” Parlin said, tears dripping down her cheeks. “But it’s hard not to give up. I used to be somebody.”

No electricity or water

Jodene Layton said she owned a home in Huntington for about 20 years, until her husband left her about five years ago.

She has been living in a 30-foot trailer for which she has no tow vehicle.

Until last summer she parked the RV on a friend’s property where she could connect the vehicle to water and electricity.

But now she lacks even that.

Layton, 61, said she shivers even while spending $30 every day and a half to fill the propane tanks that she also uses to cook meals.

“It’s really cold,” she said. “I’m really sick from it.”

Layton said her ultimate goal is to move away from Baker City with her son.

But in the meantime she hopes to find housing.

It’s hard to afford rent, she said, on her disability payments, which is her only income. She previously worked at several jobs in Baker City.

“After the first week of the month my money’s gone,” she said.

A total of 18 people participated in the annual Point-in-Time homeless county from noon to 4 p.m. on Wednesday, Jan. 29, at Community Connection of Baker County.

Of those, 13 filled out a survey and were counted, said Joe Hayes, Community Connection manager.

That compares with 11 people in the 2024 survey, and six in 2023.

Hayes attributes the larger number in part to Community Connection’s more aggressive promotion of the event, in particular through social media.

But the biggest change this year happened outside.

Five two-person teams from New Directions Northwest toured Baker City as well as Haines, Richland/Halfway, and Huntington/Durkee.

A total of 51 people filled out a survey, said Andi Walsh, grants and public relations manager for New Directions.

This is the first year the homeless count has included traveling teams.

Most of the people who completed a survey — 47 — are living in Baker City.

New Directions teams also talked with two people in Haines, and one each in Halfway and Durkee.

The teams distributed lunches, hot cocoa and hot coffee. They also offered a “home in a bag” that consists of a tent, a roll-up mattress, sleeping bag, stocking cap, gloves and socks, snacks, handwarmers, wound care kit and Narcan kit, Walsh said. Two people accepted one of the packages.

She said New Directions teams heard from some unhoused people who said that during the recent frigid nights, with temperatures dipping into the single digits, some people walk through the night to stay warm and then sleep during the day, when the temperature rises.

New Directions Northwest in Baker City had been planning for months to participate for the first time in the annual Point-in-Time count of homeless residents.

Andi Walsh, grants and public relations manager for New Directions, said officials were convinced that the tally from the previous two years — 11 in 2024 and six people in 2023 — severely underestimated the population.

“We felt this year we needed to do something different,” she said.

Mike Dunn, who served as team leader for the group that canvassed Baker City on Wednesday, Jan. 29, said New Directions employees already know many local residents who are defined as houseless because they lack permanent housing.

These are New Directions clients, he said, who rely on the organization for mental health or substance abuse counseling, and in some cases for both.

“We know a lot of these people,” Dunn said.

The four New Directions employees who focused on Baker City started with a list of names and locations, including motels and homes, Dunn said.

New Directions also talked with other local agencies, including the Baker City Police Department, Baker County Sheriff’s Office, Baker County Juvenile Department and Baker School District, among others.

Even with those preparations, Dunn said the New Directions team visited several homes where there were multiple residents, but only one filled out the survey, meaning even the final tally underestimates the actual population.

Marji Lind, New Directions clinical director, said the number is important.

Many state and federal money sources, for New Directions and for other local agencies, have formulas that include the number of houseless residents, she said.

Counting that population more accurately could result in more public dollars coming to the county, Lind said.

Vehicles and ‘couch surfing’

Dunn said the vast majority of people the New Directions team talked with either live in a motel, a friend’s home or in a vehicle.

“There are very few who actually live on the street, say in a tent,” he said.

Many people surveyed have been in a similar situation for three years or longer, Dunn said.

It’s common for people to move from home to home, with occasional stints in motels — what’s known as “couch surfing,” Dunn said.

The reasons that people gave for their being homeless were “all over the board,” he said.

Common factors included disputes with family or friends, mental health challenges and substance abuse, and associated loss of income, Dunn said.

He said several of the people surveyed are working, but most rely on Social Security disability payments, for either physical or mental issues.

Most said their income is not sufficient to pay for rental housing — including, in some cases, people who qualify for a federal housing subsidy.

Timing, and future surveys

Walsh said she thinks it’s “ridiculous” that the annual Point-in-Time count, which is done nationwide, happens in mid-winter.

That might make sense in a metropolitan area such as Portland, where homeless people are likely spending more time in shelters due to the weather.

But Baker County has no shelters. And Walsh believes it’s likely that some homeless people locally didn’t come out of whatever shelter they have on Wednesday, when the temperature dipped into the single digits in Baker City.

Walsh said she would like to see another survey done during the spring or summer.