Needles, human waste, soiled bedding among hazardous materials found in encampment
Crews in full body suits began cleaning out hazardous materials at the massive homeless encampment in Santa Cruz on Monday.
“We’re finding soiled bedding a lot of human waste, we’re finding discarded needles, we’re also finding compressed gases. Propane tanks, butane tanks, discarded foods and other items,” said Santa Cruz Fire Department Chief Jason Hajduk.
People who lived at the camp were allowed back in Monday morning to claim more of their belongings while a hazmat crew looked for anything considered hazardous.
Most of the items left at the camp now will be thorwn away, but not before the Police Department does through to look for anything valuable, “those items might include ID’s, birth certificates, and any other documents we might need to collect for safe keeping.”
They will store anything of value they find for 90 days before it is thrown away. They are also going through items with serial numbers on them to determine if they are stolen, including dozens, if not hundreds of bike parts.
The city began notifying people last week that they would need to leave the camp by Friday. But some people say the 72 hour notice was not enough time.
Michael Lacey says he had friends living there who only left with the clothes on their back, “it was like get out of here, get what you can and get out of here, whatever you can carry in your hands.”
He says while some of the stuff may look like garbage, it might be important to someone else, “you can just tell by looking at some of the stuff, it’s not something you just throw away. Even with the type of people, you know they’re homeless but it’s valuable to them.”
