Crews were out on Tuesday morning clearing homeless encampments, including 40 tons of trash from the San Diego Riverbed, NBC 7’s Audra Stafford reports.
The city of San Diego is starting to clear out the homeless encampments at the San Diego Riverbed after posting notices early Monday telling people who live there that they have to collect their belongings and leave.
It’s a coordinated effort with multiple agencies — the first of its kind at the riverbed, the culmination of months of outreach efforts paid for by millions of dollars in state funding.
The bright green notices posted early Monday indicated the city planned to perform the abatement within 24 hours.
Outreach workers from People Assisting the Homeless have been in the riverbed for months, working to find housing and offer supportive services to those living there.
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“The abatement is going to happen no matter what like it was going to happen. So it was: Do they abate and keep doing the same thing that they've been doing, abating ticketing, arresting and throwing people's stuff away so we have to start over?” said Autumn McCann, of PATH. “Or do we partner together and provide the case management services first and try to get people everything that they need?”
San Diego Riverpark Foundation’s latest census numbers, released last month, show an estimated 423 people were believed to be living along the riverbed.
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McCann spent all Monday in the riverbed near where Interstate 5 and Interstate 8 intersect to try and get those remaining there into some form of shelter, like to the city’s safe sleeping sites or into temporary housing.
She said MTS, lifeguards, Caltrans and the city will all be involved in the abatement Tuesday morning, with a lifeguard boat brought in as well as a crane that will lift loads of debris from the riverbed.
“I really don't want to see any of my clients being ticketed or arrested,” McCann said. “I don't want that to happen, so I'm a little stressed and pressed, but I am feeling confident that we can help the majority of the people that are still left out there.”
“It gets depressing, and I'm already depressed, so it just makes it more worse,” said Joseph Miller. He’s been living on the streets for six years and came to the San Diego Riverbed about a month before the notices went up.
“I didn’t think this was going to happen, you know?” he said. “They’re washing us out.”
“This is about providing assistance, providing resources and then going in and doing the abatement, doing the cleanup, restoring this area back to what it was,” said city spokesman Matt Hoffman.
The effort is paid for with $3.6 million in state grants awarded the city of San Diego from California’s Encampment Resolution Funds. That’s part of a total of $17 million in grants awarded the city, San Diego County and the city of Santee under those funds last June.
The funding used to clear the riverbed can be spent on rental subsidies, outreach work, supportive services and more.
“This is about building and providing resources that people need to get out of homelessness and not return to homelessness,” Hoffman said. “That's part of the benefit of this grant. These funds are flexible so that somebody something doesn't work for someone, we can try something else.”
Sarah Johnson was one of the last to leave. She moved to the riverbed five or six years ago with her now ex-boyfriend.
“I don’t like down here, because my feet hurt from the sand,” she said.
Last year’s heavy rains also presented some challenges. Many living along the riverbed had to be rescued when the water level rose.
“Oh, a big mess,” Johnson said. “Both my kayaks, both my carts got down the river. We got ‘em, but it was a nightmare.”
The city said, after months of outreach, individuals still in the riverbed Tuesday morning will be handled on a case-by-case basis.
Officials said the timing of the abatement process – beginning on Election Day – was a coincidence, put into motion when the city applied for the Encampment Resolution Fund grants in 2023. The abatement process will continue all week as the city looks to get ahead of the king tide and the upcoming rainy season.
Miller said he planned to take the offer to go to O Lot, one of the city’s safe sleeping sites. He said he plans to take care of some medical issues then look for work — still hopeful he can get back on his feet.
“I couldn't pass up this, you know? Land of opportunities out here,” Miller said. “There’s a lot of things to do out here in San Diego.”
