Under an overpass in Roseburg, Oregon, six-foot privacy fencing surrounds a cluster of tents. In some ways, it looks like an average homeless camp: wooden picnic tables, bikes, port-a-potties.
But this camp is different. It's cleaner than most. It has a shower, trash bins and a game table. There's even a library, which consists of a copy of Alcoholics Anonymous's The Big Book and The Hunger Games.
"We try to make it feel more like a family thing, like everybody's family," said a man who calls himself Bear. He's lived here for two years. "We live really close together. There are times where we do get on each other's nerves, but by the end of the day, we got each other's backs."
This isn't the usual homeless camp, organized by a nonprofit or city, or pitched ad hoc in the woods. It, and two others in Roseburg, are run by Elk Island Trading Group, a local landowner.
Operations Manager Bernie Woodard has been running these camps for two years, on land Elk Island owns or leases.
"We knew that we would never be able to do anything with our properties unless we came up with a solution ourself," he said.
As Roseburg wrestles with how to manage homelessness, Woodard has stepped in to fill the gap. Some call his camps a much-needed solution. Others see them as a symptom of a broken system and worry he's exploiting the very people he wants to help.
There are a lot of rules at these camps, some from the city's tent camping resolution and some from an agreement each camper must sign before staying there.
For example, each camp can have a maximum of 10 tents, and residents, like Bear, are deputized to oversee each one. The agreement stipulates no drugs or alcohol on site, no fighting and keeping your area clean. People who cause trouble have to leave. And campers are required to work three hours a day, unpaid, on Elk Island's properties.
Woodard sees this model as a unique remedy for the city's increasingly visible homelessness problem.
"Ultimately, our goal is cleaning up our waterways, our city parks and our city commercial areas from homelessness," he said.
But there's another goal too: develop Elk Island's properties, revitalize downtown Roseburg and make money.
No one else stepped forward
Many residents see these camps as a practical answer to Roseburg's homelessness problem. The county's most recent tally totaled over 260 people experiencing homelessness.
The city owns a low-barrier shelter with a navigation center and pallet houses, which is operated by the nonprofit UCAN, but many unhoused residents set up tents in public parks or other unauthorized spaces.
Roseburg city councilors have considered and rejected multiple sites for an urban campground and recently canceled a deal to buy property meant for that purpose. Mayor Larry Rich says that's for two reasons: city councilors can't agree on where to put a campsite, and the public is never happy with the suggested location.
In 2022, the city passed a tent camping resolution allowing nonprofit, public and commercial entities to run homeless camps.
Rich said the city didn't expect a business to do it.
"No churches stepped forward. No nonprofits stepped forward," he said. "Bernie is the one that said, 'Hey, I have some vacant lots, and let's put them there.'"
Woodard's camps are the only authorized ones in town. He said Elk Island spends thousands of dollars each month to run them.
Meanwhile, the cost of inaction is adding up. From 2021 to 2024, Roseburg spent almost $270,000 cleaning up over 3,000 homeless camps, including disposal and dump fees.
Woodard said his camps help offset some of those costs. Campers sometimes clean up illegal camps around town.
'More exploitative than generous'
However, not everyone is happy about Elk Island's camps.
In July, several campers were raking and clearing brush on Elk Island, which the company owns, as part of their mandatory three hours a day.
Three camp residents said Woodard doesn't actually care about his campers and is just doing this for public attention. They wished the camps were cleaner and better managed, but felt there's no better option.
"It's either pretty much work like slaves for literally nothing, or go be somewhere and get locked up for trying to have a place to lay your head," one camper said.
The requirement that campers work three hours a day, unpaid, could be a problem.
Eric Tars, senior policy director at the National Homelessness Law Center, called this arrangement "very disturbing."
"A program where an individual is offering a place to stay, but with this condition of unpaid labor, that makes it feel much more exploitative than generous," he said.
A representative from the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries said work must be paid at least the minimum wage, and deductions for housing can't result in zero pay. Three hours of work, seven days a week, would be worth about $1,200 a month in Roseburg.
The bureau representative said it's unlikely this situation would qualify as volunteer work — and that for-profit businesses generally can't accept volunteer labor. Anyone who worked for Elk Island under these conditions might be owed wages and can file a complaint with the bureau.
The bureau had no records of any complaints or investigations into Woodard or Elk Island as of mid-July.
Campers said they were sometimes paid $15 an hour to work construction jobs for Elk Island, but only after they had put in their unpaid hours.
Woodard said in a written statement that he sees this as a landlord-tenant arrangement, not employment. He said no campers have been removed for not working and paying them would force him to close the camps.
"Our intent remains simple: to maintain safe, respectful and structured environments that help people transition out of homelessness — not to create employment relationships," he said.
Campers may work outside jobs, but that doesn't change the work requirement. Woodard said they're allowed to make up that time on a day off.
Tars takes issue with this structure.
"With that requirement, it really does limit the time that you can spend either working for wages or looking for work," he said. "It makes it feel like they are in this kind of indentured servitude that there are barriers to them getting out because they have to spend that time working."
Woodard said the campers should be grateful and sees the work requirement as crucial to the camps' success.
"How can you not make them work? That's what got them out there," he said. "Come on, let's do something that's different right now."
Controversy with city staff
The relationship between Woodard and the city is also contentious.
There have been lawsuits back and forth. One lawsuit, filed by the city against Woodard, claimed he violated city code by building on Elk Island without proper approval. It was dismissed.
Another case, filed by Elk Island against the city, is ongoing. It alleges, in part, that the city's actions "effectively [concentrated] 200-400 homeless individuals adjacent to Plaintiff's land," which then experienced theft and vandalism.
Community Development Director Stuart Cowie wrote in a statement to Mayor Rich that Woodard isn't a credible developer. He said Woodard would rather create controversy than submit complete applications.
"City staff spends a significant amount of time involving Bernie, records requests, emails, media inquiries, development proposals, violation concerns and issues involving the way in which he is operating his tent camping locations," the statement reads. "After nine years of dealing with Bernie, I don't think he is capable of being able to address real development issues."
Cowie declined to comment further due to the pending litigation.
Mayor Rich finds Woodard untrustworthy.
"Me personally, in terms of, do I call him a liar? Yeah. Do I call him a fraudster? Yeah," he said. "Some of them call him the snake oil salesman. And so I haven't done that yet. I just call him a fraudster."
Woodard, meanwhile, said the city is "jealous" of his work and has threatened him with legal action. He said the city is the biggest barrier to solving its own homelessness crisis.
"Does [Mayor Rich] just want to stop us because we're actually the ones creating camps?" he said.
There have also been safety concerns about Elk Island's camps over the years.
In 2024, police said one camp resident was presumed drowned after boating to the island to work on a dock. Woodard disputed that account, claiming the three men involved had stolen the boat and gone out there to smoke weed.
The police have been called to the camps for things like trespassing, vagrancy and disorderly conduct. One of them – next to Deer Creek Park, where homeless people often camp – had almost 300 calls in less than two years. The other camps had 17 calls and 1 call, respectively, during the same time period.
Airian Retallack, who lives at one of the camps, feels secure there.
"You get a lot of safety here that you don't get anywhere else," he said. "You don't got to worry about your stuff being taken."
These numbers, however, pale in comparison to the almost 2,200 calls made in the same time period to The Point, a public area where homeless folks camp illegally.
'Fox in charge of the henhouse'
Woodard argues his approach is better than the nonprofit model. He said nonprofits create revenue streams based on the homelessness crisis and therefore aren't incentivized to actually solve it.
"If you put nonprofits in charge of something like homelessness, then you're putting the fox in charge of the hen house," he said.
But despite his criticism, Woodard has launched his own nonprofit, Alternative Living Solutions, aimed at addressing homelessness.
"I'm looking at, okay, how do we make this sustainable?" he said. "Maybe it could be us utilizing our nonprofit business more."
The organization is still in its early stages, but Woodard said his goal is to build shipping container homes and huts for homeless people who don't want to, or aren't able to, live in traditional housing. He thinks he could do this for cheaper than other nonprofits could because homeless folks would help build the homes themselves.
Despite his critiques that nonprofits are in it for the money, he can't explain how his will be different.
"Do I want to make money off of this in the end? I don't know," he said. "All I'm really trying to do is figure out, how can we do this and make it work?"
Partially addressing the problem
The question of who is best suited to address Roseburg's homelessness crisis, and how, remains unanswered.
As a private company, Elk Island isn't subject to the same rules and requirements as nonprofits.
"We, UCAN, are often charged with a lot of the compliance requirements around our regulatory funding," CEO Jordan Jungwirth said. "There are more hoops and more complications there than I, quite frankly, ever imagined entering the nonprofit field."
UCAN and other nonprofits receiving federal funds must collect data on demographics, housing outcomes and services.
By comparison, Woodard doesn't have any data showing that his camps are actually getting people out of homelessness.
"A lot of people have gotten apartments," he said. "I don't know the number because I don't even keep track of that. My thing is, try to get as many people in the camps that need a safe place, teach them what we're doing and keep doing positive things."
One camp leader estimates at least 20 people have gotten housed, but there's no official count.
Some people think having a private company, like Elk Island, step in is good.
Gene McVae, director of recovery, community and development at the health care provider Adapt, said he wishes more people would do what Woodard has done.
"If Bernie is in a situation to be able to fund that himself, I wish more people had the ability to do it because I think people would do it," he said. "My hat's off to him."
Tars sees a contradiction in Woodard's role as both a developer with Airbnb properties and an operator of homeless camps.
"There's definitely a paradox there that his means of profiting, which is driving homelessness in the community," Tars said. "He's also providing this alternative way of partially addressing that problem, but not really addressing the underlying need for more affordable housing."
Tars said Woodard's approach is unconventional, but not unheard of. He sees these types of camps as useful, but not a permanent solution.
"This shouldn't be the duty of a private citizen or even of charitable organizations," he said. "The government has a responsibility to its citizens, to its residents, to make sure that their basic needs are met. And they haven't done that."
Meanwhile, Woodard's camps are still up and running.
On Monday, Grants Pass awarded Elk Island a $1.2 million grant to help address homelessness there, as long as the company is able to secure land.
Emma J Nelson contributed reporting.
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