No deal reached in battle over Santa Cruz homeless camp

Settlement discussions between the City of Santa Cruz and homeless advocates ended without a deal on Friday at a federal courthouse in San Jose.

Santa Cruz wants to remove the roughly 200 homeless living at an encampment behind the Ross at the Gateway Plaza on River Street to clean up the location.

But a federal judge earlier this week slapped a temporary restraining order on the city after homeless advocates filed a lawsuit.

Both groups spent the day Friday trying to reach a settlement.

“We had some settlement talks. We were not able to come to a reasonable settlement,” said Alicia Kuhl, an organizational plaintiff and liaison for Ross Camp residents.

“The city provided some settlement options for the process, and at the end of the day, they did not accept those terms,” said Martin Bernal, the city manager of Santa Cruz City.

Those terms included providing alternative shelter options, transportation and storage services. But Kuhl says the city knows these terms have a short lifespan and that other sites for camps to go up will not be available.

“1220 River Street is set to close at the end of July and the Benchlands was only set to be open for five to seven days,” said Kuhl. “Other than that, this city has almost no long-term shelter options.”

City Manager Bernal did confirm the temporary homeless camp site at the Benchlands will close next week due to upcoming events. But they will open up the shelter on River Street when that closes.

The city maintains conditions at the Ross Camp are dangerous.

“The fire hazard is considerable, it has gotten even worse with the dry season. So it’s a disaster waiting to happen,” said Bernal.

Kuhl and her advocates, however, believe there are no other viable locations the city can put the homeless, and they will continue fighting to stay.

“That was basically our main demand: that you work with the residents at the Ross Camp in a way that would not require them to move and you address the health and safety issues and keep this camp as it is,” said Kuhl.

The hearing will continue in federal court on Monday at 10 a.m. in San Jose. The judge is expected to rule on whether to keep the temporary restraining order in place or allow the city to go ahead with its plans.