San Benito County working on homeless encampment cleanups

SAN BENITO COUNTY, Calif. (KION) - The county has been allocated more than $200,000 to support clean-up efforts along the San Benito River.

Hundreds of people live in encampments at the Fourth Street Bridge. On Monday, the county said they got everyone out, placing former encampment community members in shelters or other living situations.

Now, several agencies are cleaning the huge amount of trash left behind. They say it's been a safety and environmental concern for some time.

The San Benito County Sheriff's Office tells me they have been giving the people who lived in the encampments a heads-up on the clear-outs months ahead.

Monday marked a major turning point for more than 100 people who lived in the 20 encampments across San Benito County after the county and partnering agencies came to clear the encampments.

Some people who once called this area home are going into shelters or other living situations.

"There is bed space that's available that's being offered," San Benito County Sheriff's Office Sheriff Eric Taylor said.

The next step is cleaning up.

"RVs will be very difficult to get out of the riverbed. The vehicles that sometimes are deep in the mud, that will be a challenge," Integrated Waste Manager Celina Stotler said

Stotler said these living conditions cause serious pollution along the riverbed.

"You'll see litter spread out through all of the trails and near the encampments. There is feces that we're dealing with, bio waste and sharps, medication, and so a lot of tires, mattresses, bulky items, general garbage."

Sheriff Taylor said the encampments were also a safety concern.

"We definitely have had some violent crime down there, some sexual assaults, and a lot of drug activity.

Sheriff Taylor says he discovered that people were afraid to call for help, worried it could lead to eviction.

"We don' want people living in an environment where they feel that they can't reach out us because the fear is that we're gonna go down there, take a report and then kick everybody out"

Past encampment clearings haven't always worked.

"We do these mass cleanups, and then the camps get reestablished. So, I leaned on the county to fund a deputy sheriff position to have a deputy sheriff full time in the river area," Sheriff Taylor said.

Deputy O'Day has taken on that role. He drove me through several former encampment areas, saying that throughout the years, he's gotten to know the people who live here on a personal level.

He also says that if they return, he will turn them over to different services. Yet, if they refuse...

"When we've exhausted all other options of trying to help people and they refuse that, our only other option to be on the side of the landowners and the county and the city is to enforce trespassing," Sheriff Taylor said.

The cleanup will be divided into five phases. Stotler tells me they hope to start phase two in two weeks