With pitchforks, shovels and a backhoe, Vancouver Public Works employees on Wednesday cleaned up blocks of trash left behind after police ordered a large homeless camp to disperse earlier this week.
City crews conducted rolling, temporary street closures on West Lincoln Avenue from West Mill Plain Boulevard south to West 12th Street during the work, which began around 10 a.m. Portions of West King, West 13th and West 14th streets also were barricaded temporarily.
On Monday, police began enforcing the city’s illegal camping ordinance that had gone into effect Oct. 21. The law prohibits camping in public spaces, except overnight from 9:30 p.m. to 6:30 a.m. Social service workers had spent last week conducting mental health, drug addiction and housing assessments and signing people up for shelter bed space at Share House and two Winter Hospitality Overflow shelters at local churches. The Council for the Homeless gave motel vouchers to more than a dozen people deemed the most vulnerable, such as the elderly, disabled, and physically and mentally ill, some of whom have pets that aren’t allowed in shelters.
At last count, nearly 150 people were camping along the roadsides in the area. When they packed up their tents and cleared out, they left a huge trail of garbage in their wake.
Block after block, sidewalks and grassy planting strips were piled with discarded mattresses, chairs, coolers, shopping carts, blankets, clothing, tarps and wood scraps. A team of about 10 city workers pushed the trash into piles for the backhoe to crush, grab and place into four 40-yard drop boxes. Then the workers scraped the ground clean with shovels, revealing fresh earth.
Two ServiceMaster Clean employees dressed in white coveralls stood at the ready. Their job was to clean up any biohazards, such as needles and feces, mitigation technician Andrew Newkirk said.
“Obviously, we can’t pick up pee, so we just lay some lime on top of it. Gets rid of the smell,” he said.
About 15 Vancouver police officers were present Wednesday to keep an eye on things, answer questions, help the remaining homeless people connect with social services and help them carry their belongings out of the barricaded area.
“There’s an emotional component to what’s going on today,” police spokeswoman Kim Kapp said, observing the activity from a street corner.
Spectators from the neighborhood also gathered to watch. They were glad to see the cleanup effort, said Darrin Williams, house manager for Giving Grace Ministries, a Christian-based clean-and-sober facility.
“I think they (the homeless) deserve to be able to sleep, but they also need to be able to take care of the area they sleep at,” he said.
By 3:30 p.m., the streets were swept clean and all signs of the former encampment were gone. A man who lives on West 12th Street admired the new scene, uncluttered by the rows of tents, bicycles and shopping carts that had been accumulating in greater numbers for weeks.
“Now I’m afraid my rent will go up,” the man joked.
Under a city ordinance adopted in 1997, camping or storing camping equipment in public places had been a misdemeanor at all times. Under the revised rules that went into effect last month, people can pitch their tents at night, but camping in public isn’t allowed from 6:31 a.m. to 9:29 p.m. Parks remain off-limits to camping because they close from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m.
The city council unanimously voted Sept. 14 to change the ordinance in response to a federal Department of Justice opinion stating that it was unconstitutional to outlaw camping in all places and all times, including when shelter space was unavailable, because people have a right to sleep.
