CITY CLEARS OUT HOMELESS ENCAMPMENT IN POGONIP
Randy Grisback knew his deadline to get everything he owned packed and moved by 9 a.m. Monday, but came up short.
Standing outside at the city's edge on the side of Highway 9 later that day, Grisback said Santa Cruz police had showed up, as promised and on time. Now, he only had left the clothing on his back and was staying at a friend's tent.
“This is going on my seventh year now. But I'm closer than I ever have been, they've gotten me closer than I ever have been to getting housed,” Grisback said of his time spent on the streets. “I see a light at the end of the tunnel, so I'm sticking it out. But I always have hope, I never give that up.”
Grisback also was among the hundreds of individuals displaced when the city made its final shutdown of the entrenched San Lorenzo Park Benchlands encampment in November, despite stated city efforts to find shelter and housing for each of the hundreds of occupants. Many of those who were not placed elsewhere traveled up the river to land on either side of Highway 9 in an area that collectively falls within the Pogonip open space. The move raised concerns and even the ire of the Ocean Street Extension Neighbors across the river, who petitioned the city to clear the encampment due to reasons such as environmental degradation, fire risk and noise complaints.
In the meantime, Grisback moved from riverside space near a large vehicle pullout on the east side of the highway, which city officials refer to as Sycamore Grove, west to the steep hillsides of the Pogonip area. According to city authorities, there were an estimated 6575 occupied tents on the Pogonip park side counted last week. The smaller Sycamore Grove encampment was split into two areas, which were noticed and cleared on two successive Mondays.
The Santa Cruz City Council voted last week to approve an up-to-$250,000 environmental cleanup contract for the Pogonip portion of the encampment, a request triggered because the city was spending more than $100,000 on an outside vendor. Occupants were given notice Monday that in one week, on May 22, a phased encampment closure will begin on their side of the road, as well. According to city officials, the pending Pogonip closure was based
heavily on concerns about seasonal vegetation management needed ahead of fire season, as well as general health and safety concerns.
Santa Cruz Homelessness Response Manager Larry Imwalle said that the rugged hillside nature of the Pogonip encampments will require a more flexible approach to closure — on both timeline and proper spacing between cleanup crews and remaining occupants — than the flat Benchlands camp. The phased approach may extend through the month of June, he said.
The goal, Imwalle said, is to close the encampment “safely and respectfully” with plentiful notice and outreach workers regularly on site.
“We're working with the available capacity we have up at the Armory. We're also working with partners like Housing Matters to avail the capacity that's available,” Imwalle said. “Based on experience, we know that not everybody is going to be interested. But our aim is to connect everyone who is interested in an alternative.”
Linda Ann “Miss LA” Hanson said she had been living, somewhat offset from the larger encampment, along a creek in Pogonip for some 15 years. With one leg paralyzed after surgery six years ago, Hanson said she trained herself to walk again by moving around the encampments, collecting garbage and tending a large garden. The numerous bags of trash she left by the roadside for pickup ultimately led to her getting one of many illegal camping-related citations.
“I've cleaned this area, I mean spotless, four times,” Hanson said. “Literally from the tracks to the highway because it's my home and I believe in taking care of my home and showing gratitude and appreciation.”
Asked about the lack of available shelter space for all those to be moved out, Imwalle said that the city is “certainly aware, given the Benchlands,” that not all will move to sanctioned shelter sites.
“Generally, we anticipate that there will be disbursement into other areas,” Imwalle said. “I don't think we want to predict precisely where that's going to happen, because I'm not sure we could necessarily accurately forecast that. … Our role will be to sort of address where that happens and continue to do our daily outreach work with folks and continue that process of trying to get them connected to services as part of our ongoing encampment response.”