On Halloween night in West Salem, account executive and outreach volunteer Jennifer Benavidez joined a small group outside a Dollar General to talk with people living outside. One of the people they met was 30-year-old Carmen Sanchez — six months pregnant, pushing a wagon with her belongings, and sleeping at Wallace Marine Park.
Carmen’s slide into homelessness was fast. She had been living in a group home, then moved in with a former friend who agreed to add her to his lease. After an argument, she says he kicked her out within two days. A friend dropped her at Wallace, where the baby’s father had been camping. With nowhere else to go and hoping for protection, she stayed in the tents along the river.
From Carmen’s point of view, Wallace Marine Park is “cynical and very dark.” She believes hundreds of people are camping there and describes trash, neglected dogs, untreated illness and open drug use. As a pregnant woman, she says even food and water often came with conditions and “manipulation tactics” attached, and nights were filled with screaming and fear.
When Carmen and her friend Stephanie came out of the store that night, Stephanie was talking with Jennifer about life on the street. Carmen joined in and explained what it felt like to be pregnant and unsheltered. Jennifer asked if she liked the life she was living. Carmen said no. When Jennifer asked if she was ready to leave it, Carmen said yes — a simple answer that set off a chain of decisions.
Outreach worker Josh Lair, who was with the group, called Bridgeway to check for an open detox bed. Later that evening, Carmen phoned to say she was ready, and Jennifer ordered a ride-share to take her from Wallace to the facility. When Carmen arrived, staff told her they could not complete the intake unless she brought certain medications that were still in a tent back at Wallace. Jennifer says an initial call to Salem Police brought the answer that this was a civil matter, but after more calls to contacts in local agencies, several deputies met her at the park and escorted Carmen into the encampment to retrieve her medications. They returned to Bridgeway, where staff finished her intake and kept her through the weekend in detox.
For Elizabeth Infante — a commercial real estate broker who has worked in the criminal justice system since she was 17 and served on local public safety committees — that night exposed how fragile the path off the street can be, even when someone is desperate to leave. “The biggest barriers are the systems,” she says. In her view, people who are ready to change need “navigators… from point A… to point B… to point C,” not one more phone number to call on their own.
By Monday, Jennifer and Lair had arranged the next step: a room at Her Place, a Salem home for pregnant women in recovery. There, Carmen says, she finally found stability. She now lives in a sober setting with mentors and counseling, and believes that with this structure she can raise her baby without child welfare stepping in. She calls herself a musician and wants to become a local artist who uses what she earns to give back to charities.
Benavidez does not see Carmen’s story as rare. As a former foster child, she says many women are one crisis or one paycheck away from the street. With the cost of living rising and mental health and addiction often untreated, she says she meets women in Carmen’s position “everywhere.” In a written reflection on that night, she said that when someone reaches out to escape a dangerous situation, “every single moment matters.” Carmen trusted her, and Jennifer argues that trust demands action — not a business card, not “come back tomorrow,” but real help in the moment.
For Carmen, Wallace Marine Park is now the place she left behind. She says she still has friends there who want out but do not yet have a clear path or someone willing to walk with them through the first hard steps. Asked what she wants Salem residents to know, Carmen keeps it simple. She calls on people to support efforts that create real exits from camps and, above all, to stop judging the people they see in tents. “They have their own lives that they have had, a background that we don’t know about,” she says. “It’s just best to be kind.”
