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Home > The Jefferson Exchange > Roseburg’s private homeless camps blur lines between business and charity
Podcast: The Jefferson Exchange
Episode:

Roseburg’s private homeless camps blur lines between business and charity
Category: News & Politics
Duration: 00:14:50
Publish Date: 2025-11-05 18:25:46
Description:
A homeless camp has privacy fencing, wooden picnic tables, tarps, tents, and tools.
One of Elk Island's homeless camps in July 2025. (Jane Vaughan / JPR )

Three homeless camps operate in Roseburg, but not by the city. The camps are owned and operated by Elk Island Trading Group, a landowner that flips blighted real estate.

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.

JPR reporter Jane Vaughan joins the Exchange to discuss her reporting on this story.
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