The initial months-long process ended when Geodomestic, the company set to receive the grant, withdrew its application. The organization had claimed partnerships with other service providers, but later acknowledged it had not spoken with them.
City councilors also raised concerns about incomplete information, a lack of transparency and improper communication.
On Wednesday night, the council voted to restart the process. Councilor Indra Nicholas cast the lone vote against it.
"I’m really disappointed because it seemed like we were progressing, and we were gonna choose a nonprofit, and I count on my colleagues here to be open-minded and fair," she said. "The RFP process turned into a fiasco because things were leaked out."
City Attorney Stephanie Nuttall said at a workshop Tuesday that she has been involved with grant applications but never seen anything like this.
"One of the things that we've seen is a lack of experience by some of the applicants in not meeting requirements or having partnerships and some of the lobbying efforts that we have seen outside of the established process," she said. "Those are things that you don't normally see in a grant proposal, and it's made this process much messier."
The revised grant process requires applicants to submit a preliminary site plan and a visual representation of their project. Applications will also be open for public inspection once shared with the council, which will now review applications and interview applicants. It also bars applicants from contacting the mayor, city staff or council members about their proposals.
Nuttall is finalizing revisions and will bring the plan back to the council in two weeks.
The city expects the chosen applicant to be up and running in May.
Officials hope the grant will allow the city to close its homeless camps downtown.
Neighbors of the camps say the delays have been frustrating.
"I can’t even begin to tell you how disappointing it is that this grants process was derailed, in part by inappropriate and unethical ex parte communication from members of this council, which has directly corrupted this process and has put this nightmare in our front yard for now another three months," said Mike Servant, who lives across the street from one of the camps. "I don’t have any confidence that you’re going to get out of your own way to fix this, and I don’t think the voters have any confidence left in you either."
One of the four original applicants, Bernie Woodard with Elk Island Trading Group LLC, said the council should award the grant to his company, which runs three private homeless campsites in Roseburg.
Woodard said Elk Island is the last applicant left, although Nuttall previously stated that the review panel found Geodomestic was the only applicant that met the minimum criteria. On Wednesday, she added that Elk Island's application didn't have partnerships established with other entities or meet code requirements.
"The grant was already good the way it is," Woodard said. "It should play out until the last applicant standing, which appears to be clearly Elk Island Trading Group LLC. [...] Don’t change it, just finish it."
Councilor Kathleen Krohn expressed optimism about restarting the process.
"I think we learned a lot from the first go around," she said. "It’s going to be better this time."
But other councilors weren't so upbeat.
"I’m not sure that I trust my council members here — no offense — to do the scoring because we know some have their minds made up already," Nicholas said.
This debate follows a court-approved settlement in which a Josephine County judge dismissed a lawsuit against Grants Pass after the city agreed to provide at least 150 accessible camping spaces, drinking water and $60,000 in grants to a nonprofit. In June 2024, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the city's camping ordinances, ruling that municipalities may enforce such bans even when shelter beds are unavailable.
