Bend service provider uses blend of training, personal experience to help homeless people

After several bouts of homelessness, Jessica Gamble founded the Home More Network. More recently, she drew upon her law enforcement training to mediate between campers and U.S. Forest Service rangers during the China Hat sweep in May.

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By DAVID DUDLEY

ForJournalism Lab

Jessica Gamble spent May 1 at the newly-blockaded entrance to the woods at China Hat Road.

Jessica Gamble pauses while cleaning up a campsite off China Hat Road a week after the area was closed by the U.S. Forest Service. “This is a monumental day for me,” Gamble said. It was nearly 6 years ago Gamble had camped nearby off China Hat Road. While she was living there in her vehicle, she said the U.S. Forest Service asked her to clean up her campsite. She said the cleanup was challenging while she lived there, but she vowed to return and help. Photo by Joe Kline.

While U.S. Forest Service (USFS) rangers worked to remove the area's remaining campers, Gamble told a brief version of her story to advocates and concerned citizens who had gathered to help those who tried to get their vehicles and belongings out of the forest.

"I know many of these people," she said. "I know their struggle. I know, because I lived here, too."

Gamble, 37, said she lived with her partner and two young children in the China Hat woods in the summer of 2019. The four of them slept between a Subaru Forester and an adjacent tent. There were only about 19 people camping there at the time.

But that was before pandemic-era exoduses from urban centers flooded Central Oregon with new residents. More than 17,000 of them arrived to the area between 2020 and 2024, according to Census Data. The new arrivals quickly depleted the available housing supply, leading to a 37% increase in fair market rent prices between 2019 and 2023, according to a Construction Coverage analysis. 

The number of homeless people in Deschutes, Jefferson and Crook Counties has increased by 89%, from 1,116 to 2,108, during the last five years. That's according to the most recent local point-in-time count, administered by the Homeless Leadership Coalition. The report also found that 80% of respondents had been homeless for more than a year. Even with assistance, homeless people struggle to find housing, a situation Gamble said she knows all too well.

"It was an uphill battle," she said. "There were so many hoops to jump through, and not enough supports. That's why I decided to do something to help people in similar situations."

Gamble founded the Home More Network in 2022 while living in a hotel. But her heart for helping people find housing began beating much earlier.

Two steps back

Gamble grew up between various areas around California. She said she experienced untold abuse as a child. Then, at age 18, she fell out with her mom, leading to her first stint living unhoused.

"I slept in my Subaru," Gamble said. "I didn't know anything about the resources available to unsheltered people. I lived on a box of crackers and block of tofu."

Gamble said she had a formative experience at age 20. She was working as a housekeeper at a Lake Tahoe ski resort. Driving to work with her supervisor one morning, Gamble talked about her difficult childhood. Her supervisor listened, then uttered a harsh truth.

"She said: 'You know, you've got a real victim mindset,'" Gamble said. "'That needs to change.'

"It stung," Gamble added after a pause. "It stung, but she was right. I needed to change the way I saw myself."

Jessica Gamble and a group of volunteers clean up a campsite off China Hat Road a week after the area was closed by the U.S. Forest Service. The clean up was organized by Public Land Stewards of Bend. Photo by Joe Kline.

Gamble began reflecting on the things that gave her joy and lent her life a sense of meaning. Hiking, nature and water topped that list. She needed to focus on those things, she said, to acquire a new sense of agency and autonomy. She decided that forestry would bring her closer to the things she loved, while providing a livelihood.

To help her get a job in the forestry sector, Gamble attended the Public Safety Training Center at Santa Rosa Junior College in California. Transcripts show that she earned a Type II Law Enforcement Commission, which would enable her to work as a seasonal law enforcement officer for the National Park Service, in May 2009. But it wasn't meant to be. In the wake of the Great Recession, the Obama administration began cutting park services across the country.

Navigating a labyrinth

The years that followed brought a whirlwind of change. After working another stint at the ski resort, she returned to school to earn a veterinary technician's license. She worked graveyard shifts at a veterinary clinic, and she ran an antique store that specialized in refinishing custom heirloom furniture.

Then, in 2018, she moved with her then-husband to Bend to be closer to family. She taught art classes to kids and adults for Bend Park and Recreation. She also worked as a dog-sitter who, along with her husky, went hiking in the China Hat area with her clients' dogs. That came to an end, she said, when a large dog playfully ran into her husky — which broke her husky's back.

"He was paralyzed," Gamble said. "He declined rapidly after that. I had to pay for his medical bills out of my pocket. That led to financial hardships and uncertainty."

On Mother's Day weekend, 2019, her grandfather sustained life-threatening injuries after falling from a horse. Gamble said she traveled to Arizona to say goodbye to her grandfather.

When she returned to Bend, she didn't have a home. With nowhere else to go, she decided to camp in the China Hat woods.

"Between my law enforcement training and my time hiking in the China Hat area, I felt safe," she said. "I thought it would only be temporary."

After camping there for about three months, Gamble rented a house in southwest Bend. She, her partner and their two kids lived there until 2021. But that, too, came to a sudden end.

"When it was time to renew our lease, the landlord raised the monthly rent from $2,500 to $3,000," Gamble said. "I could not afford that."

Jessica Dodd carries her dog, Tinker Bell, while walking near her vehicle on the shoulder of China Hat Road on the morning of the closure of the area. Dodd left her camp as the U.S. Forest Service was closing the gate to the area. Her vehicle remained parked off China Hat Road as she figured out where to go. Photo by Joe Kline.

Economic reasons are the leading cause of homelessness, according to the recent PIT count. Think sudden rent hikes, unexpected health care expenses, or the death of a loved one. Gamble experienced all three in the 3-year span, which led to another bout of homelessness.

Gamble said she worked with various service providers to apply for more than 50 rentals over the following two years. During that time, she lived at forest campgrounds and hotels, occasionally spending the night in truck stop parking lots.

Though she was approved for an emergency housing voucher in the amount of $2,200 a month, Gamble said she was denied housing by a number of property management companies.

"There are property management companies and private landlords that discriminate against people with vouchers," she said. "They won't tell you that. Instead, they say that they rented the home to a 'more qualified tenant.'"

Gamble said the process of applying for rentals while moving from one hotel to another began to wear her down. She became desperate, but she didn't give up.

"I believe in accountability, optimism and perseverance," said Gamble. "Those beliefs helped me get through some hard times. Through my own experience, my own suffering, I decided to try to help others."

'We're the lifeboats'

By 2023, she'd found another home. That same year, the Home More Network was awarded a grant in the amount of $111,000 to provide services to people camping in the China Hat area.

"The funds are meant to help with outreach, flex funding for vehicles, and case management services," she said. "We were helping people before the closure was announced in January. Since then, we've worked nonstop to help people get out of the China Hat woods."

Vehicles line the shoulder of China Hat Road on the morning of the closure of the area. Several former campers had their vehicles in need of repair towed outside the gate prior to the closure so they could fix them and determine where they would go. Photo by Joe Kline.

A few people remained behind the gates as storm clouds gathered overhead on May 2. One camper wasn't answering his camper door when rangers knocked. Another was upset when thunderstorms drenched laundry he'd hung out to dry, and he became agitated while trying to move his chainsaw.

Those campers were in crisis, which put the rangers on edge, said Gamble, who offered to mediate.

"I asked them if they'd seen 'The Titanic,'" Gamble said. "They had. I said: 'We're the lifeboats. Let's get these people out of there.'"

Drawing upon training she received at the academy and her experience living in the woods, Gamble said she sought to de-escalate tensions between the rangers and campers.

In the end, there were no arrests, fines, standoffs or violence. Gamble, in addition to several other service providers, contributed to those outcomes.

"It's a testament to what's possible when we work together," she said. "The world becomes a better place when we approach each other with love and compassion."

A perfect storm

While the notion of love and compassion drives Gamble, elected leaders across the United States appear to be going in the opposite direction.

Local officials are already planning sweeps of Juniper Ridge, in Bend, and a large encampment east of Redmond. Which begs the question: Where will the campers go? 

The high cost of housing will ensure that many will struggle to find homes. It follows that demand for assistance will increase. However, President Donald Trump's most recent budget proposal seeks to cut over $26 billion to state rental assistance grants administered by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Jessica Gamble speaks at a press conference on the morning of the closure of China Hat Road by the U.S. Forest Service. Photo by Joe Kline.

This is all deeply troubling to Gamble, but she's unwavering in her mission to help people find homes.

"When I was going through all that grief and trauma," she said, "I asked myself: 'Why am I going through this? What's the purpose?'

That purpose, she added, is to help homeless people, "to be the change she wishes to see in an increasingly volatile world."

Homelessness: Real Stories, Real Solutions (realstoriesrealsolutions.org) is a journalism lab funded by Central Oregon Health Council under FORJournalism (forjournalism.org), an Oregon nonprofit dedicated to supporting journalism statewide. Sign up for weekly newsletters to receive updates.