SANTA CRUZ — The second wave of Santa Cruz’s phased closure of a longstanding homeless encampment moved ahead Monday, affecting dozens of occupants caught between chain hyperlink fence borders.
Just like the scene ultimately week’s preliminary “Zone 1” closure, personnel from the Santa Cruz Police Division and Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Workplace have been readily available as remaining occupants moved their possessions in the course of the enforced clear-out on the San Lorenzo Park Benchlands. Of the 54 people counted final week in “Zone 2,” 15 accepted presents to maneuver to the town’s Overlook tent encampment on leased land on the Nationwide Guard Armory in DeLaveaga Park, stated Larry Imwalle, metropolis homeless response supervisor. Others have been seen carrying their possessions away from the town park or deeper into the encampment. In the meantime, native homelessness rights activists gathered to look at and help occupants all through the day.
Occupants of the subsequent slice of encampment scheduled for closure — “Zone 3” — will likely be notified Tuesday of the third spherical of camp clearout, set to happen Sept. 27, Imwalle stated.
Sizeable homeless encampments have remained a steady presence at San Lorenzo Park since shortly after the coronavirus pandemic started in March 2020. A previous metropolis effort to shut the camp in December 2020 was halted by a federal courtroom injunction.
Deputy Metropolis Supervisor Lisa Murphy instructed the Santa Cruz Metropolis Council throughout an replace in August that the camp’s closure “will likely be seen” throughout the group and metropolis officers would work to forestall the re-establishment of comparable giant encampments. Murphy instructed the council, nevertheless, that there was not sufficient area to shelter the town’s homeless inhabitants. Based on not too long ago launched outcomes of the 2022 homeless point-in-time depend, of the roughly 2,299 people experiencing homelessness countywide, an estimated 1,439 resided inside the metropolis of Santa Cruz’s borders.
As a way to shutter the Benchlands camp, Santa Cruz declared the world “a big risk to public security, public well being and group welfare.” Metropolis administration introduced plans in latest months to shut the world, occupied by greater than 200 individuals on the metropolis’s depend, as various shelter areas opened.
As of Monday, roughly 50 city-sponsored shelter areas remained unoccupied, based on Imwalle. Equally, large-scale operations have shuttered unsanctioned encampments elsewhere within the metropolis, in places reminiscent of behind Santa Cruz Memorial cemetery, Sycamore Grove and alongside state-owned Caltrans rights-of-way, up to now two years. The encampment closures parallel Santa Cruz metropolis efforts to beef up native homelessness response with a one-time $14 million state grant, new workers, enforcement ordinances and planning efforts.