RIDGEFIELD — With the sun fading, Bonita Cheek settled in for the night by queuing up the second half of “Titantic” in her pajamas. Her tablet rested right in front of her while she watched Rose try to save Jack from going down with the ship.

Cheek’s 90-pound pit bull, Apollo, sat in the back seat of her car on a pile of fleece blankets. It was still early in the evening, so the parking lot at the southbound Gee Creek Safety Rest Area was primarily filled with drivers passing through.

Starting at around 6 p.m., the rest stop near Ridgefield populates with people parking for the night, like Cheek.

“There’s a lot of us, actually,” she said. “This is one of the safest places to stay.”

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The rest stop has lights, restrooms and people, which Cheek said makes her feel safer than sleeping in her car by herself on a random street. Campers watch out for each other and share food.

There just aren’t many other options in north Clark County.

Areas far from Vancouver don’t have any shelters, aside from one in Washougal that opens when the weather is particularly bad. Unincorporated Clark County and most of the small cities lack ordinances that address camping in public. Still, these more rural areas offer some things the big city doesn’t: quiet woods, rest areas along Interstate 5 and state campgrounds with showers.

Kate Budd, executive director of Council for the Homeless, said homeless people out here are more likely to be survivalists, making do with what’s available away from the major resources.

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Cheek, 67, and others at the Gee Creek rest area on a recent Thursday said the southbound rest stop has a reputation for being safe. The northbound side is closer to the highway, so it’s loud as cars whiz by. A few people also said the northbound rest stop has more people using drugs while staying the night.

Cheek has been homeless on and off for the last five years. She’s on several waiting lists for housing. She can’t get into shelters because the vast majority don’t allow dogs, and Cheek won’t go anywhere without Apollo.

When Cheek gets her monthly check for $750, she takes care of him.

“The first thing I do when I get my check is buy his food and treats for the month,” Cheek said. “Would I like to get off the streets? Yes, I would. I don’t like to be out here.”

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Far from paradise

Besides sleeping in her car, Cheek occasionally showers at Paradise Point State Park just outside La Center or at Battle Ground Lake State Park. The two state parks are popular places to stay — at least for people who’ve got the money to do so.

Paradise Point has 58 tent spaces, 18 utility sites and two yurts. Battle Ground has 25 standard campsites, six hookup sites, 15 primitive sites that require campers to hike up to half a mile from the parking lot, and four cabins.

The price for camping at both parks is the same: primitive and water trail campsites are $12 a night year-round. Campsites cost between $25 and $45 from May 15 to Sept. 15, $20 and $40 from April 1 to May 14 and Sept. 16 to Oct. 31, and $20 and $30 from November through March. Yurts are $45 to $59 per night, depending on the season. Cabins range from $45 to $79.

That means the cost to live at a state park is anywhere from $360 to $2,370 per month.

Of course, people can only camp out for a certain number of nights in a row depending on the time of year, so many jump back and forth between the two parks. People also have to be at the campsite at least an hour a day, said John Michael, which can be difficult.

The 76-year-old stays at Paradise Point in his van sometimes, while his friend and co-worker sleeps in a tent on their campsite.

“He’s worried about me. I’m worried about him,” Michael said.

They work at a car auction in Clackamas, Ore., so commuting back and forth every day can be difficult. Michael hasn’t had a permanent home since 2014. He wants to get back on his feet and eventually return to Packwood near Mount Rainier, but he doesn’t want any handouts to get there.

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The pair have met other people at Paradise Point who are in similar situations, including a working family that was staying in a yurt and had to deal with bed bugs. School buses stop at Paradise Point and Battle Ground Lake when there are schoolchildren living there and the family requests it.

Camping in town

Not everyone stays so far away from town. Some people camp downtown around City Hall in Washougal, the only small city to legalize camping in public.

In December, Washougal adopted an ordinance that allows camping from 9:30 p.m. to 6:30 a.m. It’s similar to Vancouver’s ordinance, which in 2015 allowed camping in public places during the same time frame. Washougal’s ordinance was going to expire at the end of this month, but the city council recently voted to keep it in force. The first few months were sort of a trial period to see if it worked.

“We’re trying to balance the needs of everyone,” said Rose Jewell, assistant to the city manager and mayor.

People need a place to lay their head and sleep, but other residents also need to be able to use the downtown area without having to step around people and their belongings, she said. According to the ordinance, people can sleep on city-owned or maintained property, such as City Hall or the library, along with any street or public parking lot.

Nancy Crew parked her Dodge Stratus at the Walmart parking lot in Battle Ground. She spent her days at the library and nights parked by tractor-trailers. Police would check on her regularly.

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While the 64-year-old was living out of her car with her cat, she saw other regulars sleep there and some people just passing through town. Mostly she was left alone, although teens hanging out at Walmart sometimes harassed her. If her windows were open, they’d occasionally throw things at her, including one time when they threw beetles at her. She didn’t notice one that burrowed in her cat’s litter box. When she went to clean it out the next day, she saw the beetle moving around in the litter.

“I let out a war hoot,” she said. “They pick on homeless people because they know they can get away with it.”

Crew has since gotten an apartment in a senior housing complex in Battle Ground near her grandchildren, thanks to help from Council for the Homeless. These days she advocates for other people still on the streets, and tells them about available services.

“I’m very grateful to be alive,” she said.

‘I didn’t exist’

Some people on the streets want to remain hidden. Dan Biscoe once did. He constructed a blind to obscure his camp behind Walmart in Battle Ground, where he was working at the time.

“It’s almost like I didn’t exist,” he said. “I only existed when I had to.”

For Biscoe, staying hidden was partially because of how harshly others judge the homeless, and partially for safety reasons. He didn’t want his belongings stolen while he was at work, and he didn’t know how people would react when they saw him living on the streets. He had a best-case scenario play out when a family moved into a home and found him living in a wooded area of their property.

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Biscoe was lying in his tent when he heard two teens running through the woods chopping at branches with machetes. He remained still and quiet, hoping they’d turn around. Then he heard one say, “Hey, look, a tent.” The footsteps raced toward him.

Biscoe stepped outside his tent with his arms up, introduced himself and told them he had been living in the tent there for about a month. The boys said their family just moved into the house, and Biscoe told them to go tell their parents about him. A half-hour later, their parents came out to talk with him, offering hot dogs and other snacks. Biscoe told them he’d leave if they wanted, but he felt like he was maybe two months away from securing housing. They told him he could stay, so long as he moved his tent a bit farther into the woods and didn’t come near the house.

When he got his apartment, Biscoe thanked the family. The younger boy asked if he could keep the tent, so Biscoe gave it to him.

“I was going to throw it away,” he said. “I didn’t want to look at it anymore.”

Patty Hastings: 360-735-4513; twitter.com/pattyhastings; patty.hastings@columbian.com
Adam Littman: 360-735-4518; adam.littman@columbian.com; twitter.com/a_littman