I have to say I agree that this is a disfunctional protest. Way beyond the learning curve mistakes I usually see people new to non-violent civil disobedience make.
I am a Saturday Market employee, and I know that many of the artisans hurt by this action are one foot into homelessness themselves the economy has been so bad here.
One of the minions under the tree I procecuted for scratching the window glass of the Saturday Market office. He is a minor who has cost tens of thousands of dollars of property damage this way downtown.
He makes his money selling cheap Canadian import bud. Bags light in weight, and too high in price - by the standards of a "ring his doorbell" dealer of cannabis. He allows the street kid who sells the most "kind buds" to sleep in his motel room at the end of the day.
When I worked overnight guarding our infrastructure during the Eugene Celebration - an annual event - they were drunk, scrapping, and intimidating people getting in their cars. One woman was so scared at being rushed at, she went the wrong way on Oak Street to escape them.
Traveller, the man in the tree is from Wisconsin, not here. These guys are wagging the dog on this issue for personal gain.
They want to live in a twisted urban Never-Never land. But in their version, Peter Pan is the villain, not the pirates.
Protesting using non-violent civil disobedience is to elevate discourse on an important issue, and this is happening here. But they are more interested in creating a Eugene "dignity village" more then they are in creating a fruitful, and responsible diolog with those they set themselves up in conflict with on the full spectrum of homeless issues. And they certainly seem to be blind to important elements of the homeless problem because homelessness is not the root motivation for this protest.
There are pictures in the LINK to this story if anyone wants to post them here. (I am on a University computer that has "view source" off limits.)