A new homeless campground planned for west Medford will feature 60 tiny fold-up shelters at a cost of $586,350.

Medford City Council Thursday night unanimously approved an ordinance that allows for an exemption to the normal competitive bidding process to purchase the structures from California-based Foldum Corporation.

The 18-by-8-feet fold-up units will have a dividing wall to create two separate small living spaces for a bed and other belongings that can be rapidly erected, similar to a large origami.

The city will order 30 of the structures by June 30 to qualify for a state grant. Each structure has separate doors for the two spaces, air conditioning and heat, as well as a carbon filter for smoky days. The cost of each unit is just under $20,000, which includes shipping.

“This will be providing a space that is more robust than a tent, but also much easier to set up and more rapid than a stick-built structure,” said Eric Mitton, city attorney.

The urban campground, also known as Rogue Retreat Crossings, will replace the temporary campground off Biddle Road. The existing campground has 118 tents and other units for homeless people and is usually full.

The new campground, located at 842-860 W. McAndrews Road, could open later this year and will likely have 150 or more sleeping units, though the details are still being worked out. The Foldum shelters will provide roughly a third of the total units needed for the new campground.

The city is using two grants to pay for the units.

Senate Bill 5561 provided $1 million to the city to support the lack of affordable housing and for homelessness. The Navigation Center, another homeless facility in Medford, received $590,000 of that grant.

The remaining $410,000 will pay for 20 of the duplex shelters, but the conditions of the grant require it to be spent by June 30.

This tight timeframe prompted the council to exempt itself from the normal competitive bidding process.

Research by city staff and Rogue Retreat found the Foldum units are durable and provide enough features to hold up longer.

At the existing urban campground, tents haven’t held up well with wind, rain and snow.

The remaining money for the other 10 units will come from federal American Rescue Plan ACT dollars.

The low-barrier urban campground is often the first shelter homeless people enter on their road to recovery. They receive shelter plus help with employment, food and nutrition, substance use treatment, child care, mental health, education and other aspects of life.

Many at the campground sleep in tents with canopies to help keep them dry.

Rogue Retreat housing includes Rogue Retreat Crossings, the Kelly Shelter, the Hope Village tiny house community, apartments and group houses.

Sam Engel, executive director of Rogue Retreat, said the Foldum units will be a better alternative than tents, offering a more durable structure.

“We definitely want to test them out,” he said.

He said his hope is that the new urban campground will turn into more of a transitional housing opportunity, potentially adding more tiny house units as grants become available.

“We never really have many vacancies,” Engel said. The hope is to add as many more units to the new site as possible, he said.

On Thursday, Engel said two residents at the urban campground moved out into transitional housing. A third resident enrolled in a rehabilitation program.

While tent camping in parks, the Bear Creek Greenway and other areas has dramatically been reduced over the past month because of council action to enforce a tent-camping ban, Engel said it doesn’t mean the issue with homelessness has gone away.

He said many of local homeless people, including women and children, are largely invisible to the public.

“There is the perception that people don’t want services,” Engel said. “Actually there is more demand for help and services than what is available in the valley. If we can deal with mental health more effectively, we would have less homelessness in the country.”