I have been a private investigator in Eugene, Oregon for nearly ten years. After hundreds of cases, I’ve come to specialize in a few areas. One such area is locating homeless individuals, often for concerned family members. The Holidays and cold weather often spur estranged and disconnected family into investigative action.
But how to find someone that doesn’t have a regular address?
If you find yourself for example googling:
“How do I find a family member who is homeless in Eugene, Oregon?” there is little specific information. Eugene, Oregon is a very specific place, with specific neighborhoods, service centers, encampments, and record keeping agencies. Navigating such granularity of circumstance and information is the glory of this profession, but it is earned by experience and grit.
I can break down what finding a homeless person might look like. Let’s use the Eugene, Oregon example.
Create a Profile of the Subject:
Not a social media profile. I’m assuming that as a family member you have already checked social media for clues.
Instead, write a list of things about the Subject. Start with the certainties, last known addresses, date of birth, their hobbies, their full name, (although it is not uncommon to trace Subjects that have legally changed their name.) etc.
Then list the information that is uncertain. Perhaps a mutual acquaintance heard that the Subject was living in a van somewhere on the coast six months ago. This hear-say type information, while often fragmented and unreliable, can be crucial to piecing together a timeline when no other crumbs of information are available.
Search the records:
Records are the next stop. If you don’t have a professional subscription database, don’t worry. Lots of records are public, although accessing them can seem opaque and confusing.
One might begin by searching Lane County Circuit Court records in person. A word of advice: leave the nunchucks at home if you go to court.
At the courthouse, they have records terminals and you can view not only statewide County case dockets, but often the scans of the citations if they occurred in the same County of that Courthouse.
If your Subject is sleeping outside or car-camping, there’s a good chance they received a citation at some point. Be warned that County Court records are not the whole picture, there are also District and Municipal court records with their own criminal case dockets that must be searched by different channels. As for citations, they can contain valuable clues, such as license plate info, and by checking the address where the citation occurred, you can often get an idea of where next to look and ask questions: With license plate info you can use that to look up the VIN number to the vehicle, which you can use to run a Car-fax report, which may show a recent service record, leading you closer to the Subject.
If County records turns up nothing, check Municipal Court records.
Follow the leads:
Who has seen this person last? The officer that cited them? The friend that heard they’re in a van on the coast? Get in touch with those who have had the last known contact and pick their brains, see if they can remember anything else. Remember, when someone is the last known person to have contact with someone, that’s often meaningful and vital information may have been exchanged.
Field work:
You will collect more than gum on your shoes if you follow up at some of these locations. If it’s Winter, dress heavy, and walk around with a bicycle. Or carry a big backpack with your nunchucks. Check the closest encampments relative to the areas that they were last seen. Call the Mission, request to leave a message for the Subject in case they’re staying there. There is a men’s center and a women’s center at the Mission. Make sure to dial the extension right. Visit the service stations, ask questions, show their picture around.
Chances are your primary informers will be homeless people. You are more likely to be trusted by homeless persons if you are perceived to be a fellow survivor of the streets. Generally, the code of the homeless is not to provide information to police, private investigators, lawyers, or others that can bring legal problems. For a concerned family member, if you can convey that you are genuine, many homeless people appreciate that someone is out there trying to help someone else get off the streets.
Other field locations include soup kitchens and warming centers. Often staff will indicate whether they have seen this or that individual. Again, by showing your intentions are good, people will help.
Persistence.
Follow up with leads, go back to the locations of interest at different times, different days, talk to different people. Above all keep your eyes peeled. On one occasion I was complaining to an acquaintance (one of my trusted, go to informers) that I couldn’t find my Subject. I had searched for him for weeks at certain homeless camps. I told my acquaintance all I knew was that he walked around with a big dog. My acquaintance pointed across the street. “You mean a guy with a dog like that?” he said. Standing right there was a homeless man matching the description of my Subject. I immediately ran across the street, calling my Client. Due to my acquaintance’s quick perception a family was reconnected.
Next steps: Consider what it really means to locate a family member that is homeless in Eugene, Oregon. Do you have a plan if you find them in the throes of addiction or a mental health crisis? What are the options, legally and medically? Have you considered transportation? Do you have a cheap prepaid phone they could use in the transitional process? A motel they might stay at to wash clothes and shower? What about that dog? The answers to these questions may be situation dependent, but it is important that once contact is made, arrangements for continued communication are in place, otherwise you may have to find them all over again.