The city ordered six people to clear out of a four-tent encampment in Edgewood Park after working with them to find indoor places to stay.
The eviction took place this past Friday afternoon on a clearing off a trail in the park near the tennis courts and down an embankment from West Rock Avenue.
The first of the tents appeared there months ago. The group living there included two couples and two single individuals ranging in age from around 19 or 20 to 60+ years old, according to city outreach worker Shaunette James.
The city had worked for months to try to convince the group to accept help finding temporary housing. Meanwhile neighbors complained to the city about trash left in the area along with pubic defecation and urination.
Eventually the city decided to order the people to leave because of public-health and safety concerns, especially with temperatures falling below freezing, according to city Director of Community Resilience Carlos Sosa Lombardo.
The group received 72-hour advance notice of an eviction set for this past Friday at 11 a.m. That morning they asked the city for four more hours to move their stuff. The city said yes. By 3 p.m. the people had removed their tents and most personal belongings, leaving behind about a trash bag’s worth of debris for a public works crew to gather.
James said the city crew worked with the COMPASS outreach team to try to help the campers find help to work toward stable housing. They transported two of the campers to the home of a family friend with whom they’d arranged to stay in the Amity neighborhood. Another was taken to the warming center at Varick Memorial Zion Church, a fourth to a warming center on Orchard Street. The remaining couple told the city “they would figure it out,” James said.
Sosa Lombardo said the city receives notification daily about mini-encampments.
“Our primary goal is to handle these things with empathy,” he said. They try to work with the campers to find places to stay or other help. If an encampment is near a school, or public health concerns arise, the city is more likely to require the campers to leave, he said. Friday’s eviction was the largest such operation since the August removal of a Lamberton Street encampment.
The City continues its policy of compassionate eviction without permanent housing alternatives.