New Homeless Camp to Bring more Transients to Ashland

There is a plan in place to secretly purchase a 5 acre piece of land on the South side of Ashland off of Washington street to build a large homeless encampment. The long term plan is to build a new building for the Ashland Resource Center, and more than a dozen tiny homes (all without plumbing). All right next to the freeway. While it seems like a altruistic goal, the funds are not there to create anything there other than to possibly buy the land. So with no long term funding, it is hard to see how this is going to be anything other than a place for the transients, both those local, and more disturbingly those that travel into Ashland because the tourist economy is known for being easy pickings for those who have chosen panhandling as their profession. The attempt to purchase the property has been held in secret without using the name of the Ashland Resource Center, which is the ultimate purchaser. This is with money that the City of Ashland has pledged to the Ashland Resource Center. The question I pose is do we really encourage the City to fund the purchase of a plot of land conveniently located next to the I-5 corridor, especially when the ARC has started the process without consulting with the city? With no funding other than a plot of land that is privately owned by a group that will use it as a place for the transients to pitch tents? How does making a place that makes it easier to be a transient in Ashland not encourage the addition of more transients to the community? And why is the ARC choosing to do this purchase in secret?