‘Nobody should be living in this’
Cleanup at homeless camp part of larger effort targeting diseases
Police officers, garbage trucks and a team of city workers started early Wednesday and worked most of the day on what Mayor Sylvester Turner called a “deep cleansing” of the homeless encampment in Midtown under the Interstate 69 bridge.
People who live in the camp moved their tents, clothes and other belongings out of the way so city workers — some wearing plastic suits and breathing masks — could pick up trash, remove human waste and clean an area the city has declared a public health nuisance twice in the past three months.
Nicholas Hudson, 31, moved his tent and air mattress to the outer edge of the camp, then started helping others pick up their belongings. He’s been sleeping at the camp since Harvey rains flooded his northside apartment.
The city comes out twice a week to pick up solid waste, Hudson said — but still, there are “mosquitoes and flies from the human waste, because we don’t have (toilet) receptacles. That’s the big problem.”
“It’s a ripe breeding ground for communicable diseases, and it must be abated.” Marc Eichenbaum, the mayor’s special assistant for homeless initiatives
Sure enough, flies swarmed by the hundreds, buzzing around a heap of feces that festered just a few feet from where people sleep. A dead mouse lay in the grass nearby.
“It’s a ripe breeding ground for communicable diseases, and it must be abated,” said Marc Eichenbaum, the mayor’s special assistant for homeless initiatives.
Power washers cleaned the columns that support the bridge, which have been treated as bathrooms in the camp. Workers used machines to dig up the dirt in those spots — which the Harris County health department says is contaminated — and take it away.
Houston police and city health department employees went from tent to tent, explaining the cleanup and asking people to separate trash from the belongings they wanted to keep.
Some of the furniture and mattresses were trashed because they might be infested, Eichenbaum said. People could opt to have their smaller personal items taken to a storage facility downtown, where they’ll be kept for 90 days at no charge.
Second cleanup in 3 months
“We want to make it nice and clean for you,” Eichenbaum told a man who was refusing to move his tent and collection of possessions, which included a treadmill, an office chair and a small cooler. “We can’t tell what’s trash and what’s not trash, so will you tell me what’s trash?”
People who live in the camp would be allowed to return when the cleanup is completed, he said.
This is the second major cleanup of the camp in three months; the last “deep clean” was in early August. The camp has been the site of controversy since last spring, when Turner tried to get rid of encampments with a city ordinance. The ACLU of Texas filed an emergency motion to block it, and in August a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order that prevents the city from enforcing the anti-encampment ordinance.
Turner said last week he is eager to get a ruling from U.S. District Judge Kenneth M. Hoyt on whether the temporary injunc- tion will be made permanent. In the meantime, he said, the city will do everything it can “within our parameters” to fix the problem.
Residents of the neighborhood have complained about the camp, which has seen a rash of violent crime in the past several weeks; last week, a manwas shot to death in a parking lot. And the city health department last week warned that the human waste that piles up in corners and around columns could help spread disease, including Hepatitis A.
Notices were posted in advance so camp residents would be aware of the cleanup. Still, at least one holdout refused to move from his spot, and a few residents protested loudly as the city workers came through.
Camp is ‘a terrible thing’
Camp resident James Harris, who has lived in Houston since 2009 and spent time at shelters, said the area would stay much cleaner if the encampment could just get a portable toilet set up nearby. “That would help a whole lot,” he said, reducing the kind of filth that spreads disease. He has tried to make a makeshift bathroom for everyone using an old tent lying on the ground, but his effort didn’t reduce the flies or the smell.
The entire Houston region has about 3,600 homeless people, Eichenbaum said, and twothirds of them are in shelters on any given night.
That leaves about 1,200 people outside of shelters, and only a small percentage stay in the city’s two encampments, the one in Midtown and the another on Chartres Street near Minute Maid Park.
The Chartres camp will get a similar deep clean Thursday morning, the mayor’s office said.
“Nobody should be living in this,” Eichenbaum said. “This is about protecting the health of not only the residents around here, but especially the people who are living here.”
Sgt. Steve Wick, who leads the Houston Police Department’s Homeless Outreach Team, rode his bike around the camp, which he visits regularly. For most of the people who stay here, he said, this is a more attractive option than a shelter: “It’s nasty, but they’re still getting their needs met.”
Wick has researched and visited emergency shelters that work in other cities, including San Antonio’s Haven for Hope and Austin’s Mobile Loaves and Fishes. These programs are able to temporarily shelter people without allowing them to live in filth, he said.
“This is not a good thing,” he said, nodding at the camp under the bridge. “This is a terrible thing.”