City of Albany settles with homeless to leave landfill

A Northern California city has reached a settlement with a group of homeless people who filed a federal lawsuit to prevent their eviction from a waterfront landfill.

The city of Albany says Wednesday that it will pay 28 homeless people $3,000 each to leave the Bulb, a 40-acre site along the San Francisco Bay to be used for park land. Another two-dozen or so homeless people who stay at the site and are not covered by the settlement also must leave.

The settlement calls for the homeless residents and their pets to leave by Friday and stay away for a year.

A group of homeless people and the nonprofit Albany Housing Advocates filed a federal lawsuit against the city in November after the Albany City Council voted to clear the site in October.