SANTA CRUZ — Displaced by fire, police enforcement and pending closure of a city-run encampment, the city’s homeless population is once again on the move.
Visible homeless encampments around the city, particularly near the Gateway Plaza and Highway 1, and Main Beach, have swelled in size. In other areas, encampments have ebbed and flowed according to police and park ranger enforcement sweeps. In the days after the recent Rincon and Pogonip fires, the Harvey West neighborhood — home to the city’s only permanent homeless shelters — saw a temporary dramatic uptick in parked vehicles and tents lining the sidewalks.
By Monday, few remained in the area, however. One man, Rick Garibaldi, was sweeping the sidewalk and street outside his recreational vehicle. The Redwood City native who grew up visiting family in San Lorenzo Valley said he has been in Santa Cruz for the past three years. Due to struggles with his health and financial difficulties, he has been unable to leave the city while waiting to be approved for Social Security benefits, he said.
Garibaldi said he believed the recent fires had forced some of the area’s homeless population — usually without their own vehicles — deeper into the woods, rather than out into Harvey West and the downtown, where vehicle dwellers often reside. He said law enforcement officers typically do not hassle him too much, though he sees enforcement of the 72-hour parking laws often.
“I don’t want to be here as much as people don’t want me to be here,” Garibaldi said.
Winter’s approach
This week, the annual North County Emergency Shelter Program is set to launch, with shuttles picking up as many as 60 people between 4:30 and 6 p.m. daily at several locations, then returning after 7 a.m. each morning, per a $378,000 contract between Santa Cruz County and the Salvation Army. At the same time, the city of Santa Cruz is set to begin a phased closure of its River Street Encampment, hosting about 50 people around the clock in tents for the past nine months for about $70,000 to $90,000 in monthly costs.
Brent Adams, operator of the mostly volunteer-run emergency coldest/wettest night shelter, the Warming Center Program, as well as the free Day and Night Storage Program at 150 Felker St. Suite H, said he was concerned about living conditions that do not include bathrooms, hand-washing stations or trash receptacles for those congregating near the Gateway Plaza. About 15 tents were set up there on Monday afternoon.
Last year, a hepatitis A outbreak that spread through Santa Cruz and was concentrated in the city’s homeless population prompted the city and county to take steps, including setting up temporary sanitation provisions at a large-scale homeless encampment at San Lorenzo Park’s benchlands area.
“If they’re not going to allow people in encampments, they don’t want people in these parks, they don’t want people in the upper levee. Where do they expect people to finally go to,” Adams said. “The way it had been, people were just kind of lightly all around. That’s part of the policing difficulty, it’s also difficult for the population. I like to see the population in small groups that can help each other. But, when you have one area like San Lorenzo Park, it becomes difficult for many of the people who are not in the community of drug purchasing and using.”
Enforcement balance
Adams said Monday that he also had seen an uptick in clients making use of his free storage program in the past week, though he did not know the cause. He said he had observed what he dubbed a police “blitzkrieg” of enforcement near the upper river levee, north of Highway 1 in what was once dubbed “Camp Paradise” several weeks earlier. That enforcement seemed to have faded away recently, however, Adams said.
During the Oct. 15 Santa Cruz Public Safety Advisory Committee meeting, Santa Cruz Deputy Police Chief Dan Flippo said that he had notified department patrol officers on Sept. 13 that the city’s ban on public camping was not enforceable, per the U.S. District Court of Appeals 9th District ruling against the city of Boise.
In response to questions from committee member and Santa Cruz City Councilwoman Richelle Noroyan, Police Chief Andy Mills said officers were enforcing trespassing on private property and other laws, however.
“We are enforcing park hours, but there has to be more to it than just ‘park hours,'” Mills said. “So, what we’re doing is we’re taking a look at the general context of what’s taking place and then having patrol make a decision when they’re in the field. However, we’re not going to go around the 9th Circuit Court by trying to find a different mechanism to do the same thing that we were doing before.”