Transients fill Galt’s Dry Creek area
Galt residents voice concerns about nearby homeless camp
Galt resident Sean McPherson walked carefully down a makeshift stairway carved into the dirt under the Lower Sacramento Road Bridge on the Sacramento-San Joaquin county line on Thursday evening. McPherson was making his way to a homeless camp in Dry Creek near Parker Creek neighborhood in Galt, where he has lived with his family since 2016.
“There are, like, little shanties all through there,” McPherson said “They’ve worked a little path (through the brush).”
McPherson pointed out rocks under the bridge covered in garbage such as broken glass, empty boxes and old couch cushions, as he headed deeper into the homeless camp on the San Joaquin side of the county line.
“They all come from here and go into Galt, even though they live in San Joaquin County,” McPherson said. “They steal our neighbors’ water and prowl around the neighborhood. You hear them yelling in the middle of the night at people who aren’t there”
Tires, bicycles, shopping carts and more garbage littered the winding path on the way to a clearing where a group of transients gathered around tents and tended to campfires while McPherson warned of discarded needles and broken glass.
“You go back into the area, and it’s just maze, camp, maze, camp, all the way to Dry Creek Golf Course,” McPherson said. “In the wintertime, when the water comes in, they kind of disperse, but they always come back.”
San Joaquin Delta College owns much of the property on the San Joaquin County side, McPherson said, although he and his neighbors feel that the City of Galt could do more to address the issues on the Sacramento County side.
“A couple of times a week, we run people out of the dumpster down there. We’ve had people take the ends off of hoses and fill up jugs,” John Smith, one of McPherson’s neighbors, said as he pointed down the street from McPherson’s house. “You can’t leave your garage door open around here anymore, My thing is, it’s the City of Galt’s problem because we’re residents of Galt. We’re at the end of our ropes. If the mayor and the chief of police lived here, it would have been eradicated a long time ago.”
Galt Mayor Lori Heuer recently said that city staff are looking into who owns the Dry Creek property before hopefully working with groups such as the San Joaquin County Sheriff ’s Office, private citizens and others to clean up the camp.
“I think, as a community, we’re doing the right thing,” Heuer said. “The police department is definitely doing the right thing to address the human issue.”
“I get a little bit of a different perspective because I work swing shifts, so I see a lot of riff-raff in the mornings that most people don’t see,” Noah Caldwell, another neighbor, said. “The last couple (of transients) I’ve noticed have been a little different. They stared me down in an aggressive manner when I was working outside.”
Smith and his friends used to ride their bicycles in Dry Creek when they were children, he said, although he and his neighbors feel that the area is no longer safe.
Vanessa McPherson, Sean’s wife, said she has lived in Galt for approximately 20 years, but it was only when she and her family moved to Parker Creek two years ago that she began to feel unsafe.
“Every time there’s a bump in the night, I’m waking up my husband,” Vanessa said. “We came home one day and we found swim diapers by our trash cans and the swim diapers were three sizes larger than any of our kids. We don’t take walks because I don’t want our daughters to see any of this.”
The McPhersons and their neighbors believe the City of Galt is not doing enough to clean up the camp as much of the San Joaquin side of Dry Creek is owned by San Joaquin Delta College, although neighbor Joe Bitondo, who purchased one of the first Parker Creek homes, said the Galt Police Department does respond when transients cause problems in their neighborhood.
“While they were building everybody else’s houses, (transients) would be out here and tools went missing,” Bitondo said. “(Galt police) have been great about running them out of here, but something needs to be done. They need to go down there and clean it out. I don’t care if they use my tax dollars to clean up San Joaquin County’s mess.”
San Joaquin County Supervisor Chuck Winn said the San Joaquin County Sheriff’s Office is working with Delta College police to clean up the San Joaquin side of the camp.
“The issue of homelessness is rampant throughout the state,” Winn said. “I think the solution I’ve seen that works best is when we collaborate with cities outside of the county, because it’s not just a San Joaquin County problem.”