Human feces, an air fryer and needles are some of the items strewn about on a private property in City Heights near the Interstate 805 freeway.
It is estimated that roughly a dozen people lived at the encampment at some point. The issue is the encampment was in a homeowner’s backyard.
“We think this particular encampment is about three months old. We’ve had issues for at least a year that we’ve communicated with Caltrans of people coming onto this property,” Homeowner Shelly Stewart said.
Most of the people are gone but the trash remains.
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The homeowners said that encampment migrated from the neighboring property, which is owned by Caltrans.
“I believe Caltrans came through and cleared their side of the property about three months ago which is in essence when everyone hopped the fence and ended up on our side,” Jason Stewart said.
Now they're left figuring out how to clean their property and who will pay for it.
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The only way to bring in heavy equipment needed to clear the area is by passing through Caltrans property.
“They informed us we have to get a permit from Caltrans to be able to get access down here to even clean it. So, I have to apply for a permit. I have to pay for a permit, then but they may waive the permit, which they offered potentially and the city offered to waive the dump fees and they’re trying to help us find grants to clean this all up,” Stewart said.
The Stewarts said a neighboring homeowner has been in contact with Caltrans for years trying to solve the ongoing issue of encampments popping up on their property.
The City of San Diego does not own property bordering the Stewarts' home but they are assisting them with the clean-up and protecting the area.
“The San Diego Police Department’s Neighborhood Policing Division (NPD) is aware of the concerns in this area. Specifically, trespass, encroachment, illegal lodging, and other violations have been, and will continue to be enforced by NPD and patrol officers as appropriate,” City of San Diego Spokesperson Matt Hoffman said in a statement to NBC 7.
The Stewart family is working to solve the problem, but they are still empathetic to the people in this situation.
“It’s not even just fed up, but it’s not going to go away. We as individuals don’t have a solution and we as a community don’t have a solution to address it and just running around to clean up the encampments isn’t going to work,” Stewart said.
NBC 7 reached out to Caltrans but they did not return our request for comment at this time.
