Dirt World used to be relatively quiet when Krista Bahr first started living there with her boyfriend around six years ago.

Aside from a few other camps further south on the property — a dusty, undeveloped 1,500 acres in northeast Bend, owned in large part by the city, and known in official parlance as Juniper Ridge — their site was one of the few.

“When we came out here, there was nobody around here,” Bahr, 42, said. “If you ran into somebody, it was because they were lost.”

Bahr, who’s lived in Central Oregon since age 15, had been living for about a year at the hotel she worked at, but ended up back at Dirt World this summer after she lost the job.

“I just happened to lose my job (and) my vehicle with everything I owned in it all in one day,” she recalled.

Her return to Juniper Ridge brought her to an area that was much different than it had been the first time.

Now, a maze of bumpy, unofficial roads weaves across the property between junipers, campers, tents, trailers with makeshift fences and built-up structures resembling ad-hoc houses.

Between 200 and 250 people now live in the juniper-dotted forest, a patchwork of city, county and federal lands, according to Colleen Thomas, Deschutes County’s homeless outreach supervisor. That’s grown in the last several years — city officials estimated that between 150 and 200 lived on the property in 2020.

The population there decreased as the city completed a sewer project on the property’s south end in 2020, but began increasing again as the Oregon Department of Transportation cleared camps from its properties and people living on Hunnell Road received negative attention, Thomas said.

“We have definitely seen it increase over the past six months, plus,” Thomas said. “At least amongst the junipers they have a little more privacy.”

Bahr has noticed the growth.

“It’s been crazy. It’s definitely different from there not being anybody out here,” Bahr said. “There’s a lot more problems.”

Despite those problems, Bahr typically feels safe at Dirt World. Her camp is in a relatively secluded part of the property and includes some of the things one could need: Various materials make up the sturdy walls of her living structure, which has insulation, a camping stove on a table, a few pieces of furniture and a wood stove.

Bahr’s boyfriend, who works as a painter in town during the day, built much of the structure. The newest additions include a makeshift shower outside the front door, and Titan, the couple’s 3-month-old pit bull and bull mastiff mix.

Still, life in the woods isn’t easy, Bahr said.

“It’s awful living out here and making it the best that you can, living as best as you can,” Bahr said.

Wildfire is a constant concern, too. Bahr described the sound of popping propane tanks from a motor home that was burned on Sept. 24. The Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office confirmed that a 40-foot motorhome had been set on fire that day and was considered a total loss, and that a 39-year-old man was arrested on arson charges.

She also recalls evacuating the area when the 2020 Juniper Ridge fire tore through 39 acres nearby.

As it came close to her structure, she loaded her cats in their carriers and hurried to the highway, waiting hours before she could return to her camp to find that her belongings had been spared.

“That was scary, really scary,” Bahr said.

After that fire, city officials told The Bulletin they were keeping a detailed map of where individuals were living throughout the property and developing an emergency management plan for the area. Much of that work is now done by the Sheriff’s Office, according to Shelley Smith, a city management analyst. The city coordinates with a handful of local nonprofits that connect directly with residents, as well as county and federal agencies to do wildfire prevention projects in the area, Smith said.

“What we’re facing right now as a region with houselessness, lack of housing and shelter, we’re trying to balance the needs of humans that we see out there with what our responsibility as a city is about managing public lands,” Smith said, noting that the city doesn’t have imminent construction plans on much of its portions of the property.

Transportation out of Dirt World is Bahr’s current challenge. She hasn’t gotten a job since her car broke down, but she’s hoping a donated bike will make it easier to get to a new one.

“This bike’ll help out quite a lot,” she said after chiding Titan for teething on the new bike’s tires.

Who are the real people impacted by skyrocketing housing prices, decisions about homeless shelters or plans to sweep informal camps? The Bulletin wants to offer insight by telling their stories through the series Faces of Homelessness. Every two weeks this year, Bulletin reporters will introduce readers to a different homeless person. We are here to tell their stories.

For suggestions on how to help the region’s residents experiencing homelessness, contact the Homeless Leadership Coalition by email at info@cohomeless.org.