Tent City Folds After Police Step Up Enforcment

Goodbye, tent city in Santa Cruz's San Lorenzo Park. Hello, stay-away orders to all the people camped out by the river.

“I’m gonna have night shifts down here, all night—hard,” Santa Cruz police Sgt. Scott Campbell told two community services officers Tuesday at the park, in what appeared to be more of an daytime intervention than a raid. “Anyone down here gets cited or goes to jail.”

He said people found camping along the San Lorenzo River bed at night will also have their camping gear confiscated.

Deputy Chief Steve Clark said the crackdown at the city park on Dakota Street is a “recent phenomenon due to enforcement in other areas.” 

But as one young woman yelled as she folded up her tent, “Where can you go when it rains?”  

Dale Kenville, a homeless man ordered to leave, said he has been “just kicking around” since he got out of prison and his wife died a few years ago. He says he has had some good times during his time living without a permanent residence.

“I [biked] all the way down to Ocean Beach in San Diego and back a few years ago,” said Kenville. “But don’t try and buy a beer down there—$5.50 for a 24 [ounce].”

He says he was born and raised in Santa Cruz and has lived here all his life. He's on the streets for various reasons, he said, mentioning that the Rowland and Pat Rebele Homeless Shelter is chronically full.

Many campers claimed they “pick up their trash,” but the three officers on the scene spent considerable time photographing a large trail of assorted debris, from food packaging to beer cans in the bushes close to the river and in the water.

 “This is a problem that is bigger than the police department,” Clark said from the lobby of the police department. “It’s a social problem.”

Clark said he understands that shelters are often full but added that many who are not sincere about getting their lives back on track are often the cause of the homelessness problem in Santa Cruz.

He pointed to many issues such as drug addiction, mental health problems, and lack of accountability at some of the places people go for services

“It’s sad when they dry up and exploit the resources [meant] for the people who really need them,” Clark said. “ When the accountability mechanism is not there, we get abhorrent behavior that is unacceptable, like public defecation, drug use and aggressive panhandling.”

One place that has a set of accountability measures that go along with receiving benefits is the Homeless Services Center, a public-private partnership that offers many things aimed at getting people off the streets beyond a bed to sleep in.

Monica Martinez of the Homeless Services Center says one of the center's resources is a “clothing closet,” which distributes donated clothing to people to raise “their self esteem so they can look good and don’t look like a stereotypical homeless person.”

The center also has computers to write and print resumes, search for jobs and network with other struggling people as well as the community.

“We encourage neighborhood clean ups, and other projects, to develop a sense of normalcy and build relationships to build self esteem,” said Martinez. And to help someone who has become recently homeless, she said, the center helps pay one month's rent.  

To keep people accountable, she said, they must show an eviction notice and proof of income, or documents that show their income and where they plan to move into. In 13 months of the program, she said it boasted a 95 percent success rate with the 290 people who have been enrolled for short-term assistance.

“That is almost 300 people that would [otherwise] be on the streets,” she said.