‘Which Bad Decision Do You Make?’ Greenbelt Sweep in Eureka Displaces Dozens, Removes Tons of Trash

An officer unloads bags into a dumpster at Saturday’s cleanup of a property belonging to the Humboldt County Office of Education. [Photo by Ryan Hutson]

Saturday morning, a homeless encampment sweep and environmental clean-up took place while a thick blanket of fog still lay over the city. Eureka Police Department’s Community Safety Enhancement Team, trash-picking volunteers, and a seasoned clean-up crew converged on the greenbelt bordering northbound Highway 101 as it exits Eureka which is owned by the Humboldt County Office of Education. Groups of displaced campers hovered just outside of the wooded area with their belongings and dogs while protesters sympathetic to their situation chanted slogans and held brightly colored signs. The effort mirrored several others in the County over the last three decades–from the clearing of the South Jetty in the late 90’s to the purging of the Devil’s Playground in 2016.

As the 2019 Humboldt County Grand Jury pointed out, “In Eureka, evacuating encampments simply dispersed problems from a contained location to a wider area of the city.” Yet, at the same time, law enforcement says the camps become the center of criminal activity, community members are outraged by the mess, and many environmentalists worry about the polluting of waterways with trash, feces, and drug detritus.

Crystal Stewart and Rico playing as they wait outside the encampment after being evicted. [Photo by Ryan Hutson]

One woman who lost her camp on Saturday, Crystal Stewart, unknowingly echoed the Grand Jury’s concerns as she stood outside the chain link fence surrounding her former home with a large dog on a rope. “What are we supposed to do?’ she asked plaintively. “Where are we supposed to go? You thought we were an eyesore back here, but now we’re out in the public? We are really going to be an eyesore now that we’re out in the public!”

As the large dog pulled the small homeless woman down the center of the street. Crystal Stewart explained to the large brindle dog, “What they’re doing – they’re destroying our house, Baby!

[All photos and Videos by Ryan Hutson]

Noting that because she has a dog, she’s not able to go to the shelters, she told us. “I asked the officers, I said, ‘Can I come to your house? Can I eat off your plate? Can I sleep in your bed? Can I wear your pajamas?’

Stewart said she got a heads up “about two weeks ago” that the cleanup was happening, but she didn’t know where to set up a safe place to camp. Standing on the side of the pot-hole dotted street next to a one ton-sized dumpster holding piles of broken belongings, soiled clothing  and loads of trash, Stewart alleged, “Out here, I heard an officer or a security guard or whatever he is say, ‘We should put bear traps out to keep the bums out.’”  Visibly upset, Stewart continued, “Put bear traps? Is that necessary because we’re homeless?”

As Crystal Stewart walked away with Rico, her dog, Eureka city councilmember running unopposed for mayor, Kim Bergel, made her way across the street with an empty trash bag ready to be filled. While Stewart had managed to cope with the stress of the day without shedding a tear, Bergel was visibly upset.

She explained the difficulty in the task at hand while taking a break from the cleanup. Clearly enduring what was an emotional and troubling task, the city representative explained that although the housing situation is difficult, the cleanup is environmentally necessary when taking into account the location of the encampment on a wetland.

Kim Bergel was assisting Eureka Police, John Shelter of New Directions, along with the Pac-Out Green Team volunteer litter removal program organized by Arron Ostrom of Pacific Outfitters with the event which was underway following intermittent warnings and notices to the area campers for several weeks prior. Although she displayed empathy for those displaced by the city’s efforts to clean up the property, when asked why there were no portable toilets or dumpsters on site while there people living on the property with no apparent other place to go, Bergel explained, “This is a private property, so it would be up to the property owner to put bathrooms or to put dumpsters out there for people.”

Bergel said she didn’t know if the City had had conversations with HCOE about providing dumpsters and porta potties. The City official known for her approachability and candor especially when addressing issues related to housing insecurity, drug addiction and mental illness acknowledged that the chore of cleaning up was difficult, but necessary, and required community involvement and creative solutions.

One of the areas in the greenbelt. [Photo by Ryan Hutson]

“I mean certainly people, all people have value, and we need to work with people, but we can’t allow this kind of environmental degradation to be in our waterways and in our Greenbelts, either,” she said. “And so what is the solution? You know, we’ve been working on it vigilantly in the city at least for the last eight years–creating programs like the CSET, Uplift Eureka, Pathways to Payday, working in [partnership] with Betty Chinn, working with Waterfront (Recovery Center)… .”

The city official explained that she just returned from a state-wide conference, and proudly said that Eureka has actually been on the front lines of considering new solutions to a burgeoning problem across California. While the situation Saturday clearly showed the need for improvement in the process, Bergel expressed pride in Eureka’s efforts and hope for the city’s future ability to tackle the challenges head on while continuing to set an example for other areas that are just now attempting solutions that Eureka and Humboldt County have begun to offer already.

As an example, Bergel noted that the city is hiring three mental health workers to go out with police, and the county’s MIST program (Mobile Intervention & Services Team), which she added, are just “not enough” even though there are more services than have been available in past years.

And, yet, the notion that Eureka and Humboldt County are leading the way in homelessness intervention may be, for lack of a better term, odd, when taking into account what community members see and experience on a regular basis – including the labyrinth of pathways carved under freeway overpasses and bridges, the tents and stray shopping carts overflowing with all manner of personal possessions, the broken down vans and motorhomes dotting side streets, the corners occupied by folks unable to get comfortable while holding a hand-written sign asking for charity, and the occasional syringe in the gutter.

On Saturday, as the volunteers and government employees removed the nest of tents and tarps, forlorn furniture and broken dreams, chants of “Where were the bins before!” and “Nowhere else to go!” rose from protesters outside the fenced area around the greenbelt. The streets were busy with college students protesting, environmental stewards on scene to assist with clean up, disheveled folks gathering with their collection of possessions salvaged from their former homes. There were cars and vans along West Avenue with signs of weathering and mechanical distress, some obviously broken down, and people with varying degrees of mobility trying their best to navigate the bike lanes, sidewalks and intersections in order to sort their belongings or simply get out of the way as police utility vehicles towing trailers chock full of belongings intermixed with garbage navigated out of the greenbelt.

A banner held by protesters at the perimeter of the sweep reads, “DEVIL’S PLAYGROUND NEVER ENDED!” in reference to the infamous homeless encampment located behind the Bayshore Mall in Eureka at the edge of Humboldt Bay. [All photos and Videos by Ryan Hutson]

Humboldt County counts over 19% of residents living under the poverty line, according to 2020 census data. In spite of local efforts to address the issue of unhoused camping spaces, and the the California Department of Housing and Community Development stating “[N]o individual or household may be denied emergency shelter because of an inability to pay,” Eureka has offered few alternatives in the form of “emergency shelter” to community members displaced by city-sanctioned maintenance or litter removal actions.

Many unhoused folks come with baggage, not travel-ready carry-on style wheely-bag suitcases, but mental health disorders or addictions that prevent them from being eligible for certain services. For example, at Eureka’s Waterfront Recovery Center, “active, uncontrolled mental health illness will preclude admission to withdrawal management and/or residential treatment.”  Considering this requirement, it is possible that some of the folks who were made to leave the greenbelt this weekend will not be capable of accessing these types of programs, and so continue to search for a safe camping location.

Protesters at the event called attention to a lack of resources being made available to those evicted. Livestream of the situation as it unfolded includes footage of the trash removal, as well as several interviews with bystanders who expressed dismay at the forced removal of personal property including tents, cooking wares, and basic hygiene materials. They pointed out as well that no alternative camping location was offered to those removed.

Activists underscored the lack of actionable solutions being offered by local leadership on the issue of housing insecurity for the already unhoused community, and recovery services for those seeking treatment.

One activist, Moxy Alvarnaz, an Environmental Sociologist with EPIC, (Humboldt’s own Environmental Protection Information Center) told us, “We have a term for what it means to shroud crimes against humanity in environmental terms – it’s called eco-facism, and I’m here today in support of this community. We have better solutions here, these bins could have been here sooner, there are ways to protect the watershed as well as our community, and I encourage everybody to work with people who live in these spaces to find workable, livable solutions with humane outcomes.”

A lack of political will was cited by activists, as well as by the Executive Director of the Northcoast Environmental Center (NEC), Caroline Griffith. She expressed disappointment that there was not more effort to involve allied agencies such as NEC which prioritizes watershed clean-ups and trash removal in sensitive coastal areas, including amidst encampments of unhoused community members.  “There are solutions to a lot of what is happening here, there’s just not the political will to do it,” Griffith surmised.

She wrote a piece on “Compassionate Cleanups” just two days prior to the evictions–evictions which the NEC was not made aware of in advance, and so was caught off guard Saturday morning when members learned of the clearing out in progress. According to Griffith’s recent piece for NEC EcoNews, “The most recent Point in Time count by Humboldt County, there are at least 1,656 people living on the streets in our county. Due to the limitations of the count and the fact that it only includes a 24-hour period, this estimate is undoubtedly smaller than the actual number of unhoused people who live in our community.”

Eureka Police Officer Swanson who was also at the clearing of the property Saturday estimated roughly 15 to 20 people were thought to have been living in the encampment. However, he stated that it was difficult to know exactly who lived where. “Liar!” shouted some nearby protestors who disputed the number of displaced homeless people.

A handful of folks from different circumstances told us the estimate of an average head count on any given night is said to range from 40 to upwards of 60 people. Some describe these tent encampments as a safe environment while others described a volatile and dangerous scene.  Domestic violence, drug use, and prostitution were said to be common in the community that hid out of sight, flanked by expansive school administration buildings and another Eureka City school campus.  

An EPD officer walks through one of the camps in the greenbelt slated for cleanup. [Photo by Ryan Hutson]

While Humboldt County experiences drug addiction and overdose deaths at a rate nearly quadruple the state, officials say there is an ongoing struggle to meet the needs of those requesting such services. At one point, as Sergeant Leonard LaFrance and Jacob Rosen, the City of Eureka‘s Managing Mental Health Clinician, walked from one side of the property being cleared to the other, they traversed deeply hidden pathways that wandered between trees, punctuated by graffiti and littered with various remnants of debris and defunct clothing. There were occasionally visible bright orange needle caps, indicative of intravenous drug use. In one area that LaFrance explained had yet to be cleaned out, he pointed to a table with a couple plates, and a vase of dying flowers next to a mostly gone bottle of Sunny D, calling attention to the pile of needles sitting on the table.

Amongst ground cover tarps and collapsed tents sits a dinner plate carefully set aside holding a pile of needles, after police and cleanup crews had done their initial sweep, but not completed their overhaul of that section of the greenbelt encampment, following the removal of camp residents.  [All photos and Videos by Ryan Hutson]

Pointing out that the area is considered a school zone, the Sergeant explained that the level of pollution was distressing. “When you actually experience it, it’s different than just hearing about it in the news,” he said.

When asked about demonstrating compassion for those community members being ousted from the bushes and onto the streets, Sergeant LaFrance and Jacob Rosen both expressed that the job was a necessary evil of sorts. Having to make the decision to prioritize the watershed over the needs of the homeless people relying on the Greenbelt for security, the city went forward with the forced cleanup.  Rosen told us, “As difficult a decision it is to have to move people, when they don’t have somewhere to go, I mean it’s difficult because it’s kind of a ‘which bad decision do you make?’ and in this case the right decision is to try to reduce as much trauma and reduce as much impact on the community as we can.”

Sgt. LeFrance and Jacob Rosen stand inside a cleared area of the encampment. [Photo by Ryan Hutson]

Asking what trauma he referred to, Rosen indicated that human trafficking is known to take place at the location, and that violent crimes have occurred, including sexual assaults and other physical violence between campers.

Sergeant LaFrance noted the presence of several 18th Street gang tags spray painted on trees and on the sidewalk outside the fence where an entryway had been made for access into the Greenbelt area, and called the area a “hotbed of crime” as he recalled a stabbing incident and other examples of trouble encountered in the greenbelt area.  LaFrance mentioned that in this particular encampment, the ratio of females to males was about an even split, and said that prostitution is known to occur in the area.

Sergeant LaFrance reflected on what it would take to transition from such a debilitated state of living into something healthier, LaFrance said, “ I wish, I really wish the homeless could be better advocates for themselves, because we want to advocate for them. We want to bring resources, we want to bring housing, we want to bring more mental health support, addiction support,” he said, “And so, how do we advocate for them, but also teach them to advocate for themselves?”

Sgt. LaFrance explained that if and when somebody from the greenbelt indicated they were in need and ready for a detox program, for example, or a space at either the mission or with Betty Chinn’s Day Center or Homeless Foundation, that he had the ability to make the calls to set it up.

“We have those connections,” LaFrance said, as he explained what options might be available if a person was ready to receive services, and if they were able to meet the standards of whichever program was being used, such as meeting sobriety requirements in order to be eligible for a housing assistance program.  “If they want to go to Betty’s, I called Betty for someone today. If they want to go to the Mission, we have that available. If they want to go to the Salvation Army, we have that,” added Sgt. LaFrance.

Brian Hall, Executive Director of the Eureka Rescue Shelter and the attached Women and Children’s Shelter, told us that while the Women’s Shelter side of the Rescue Mission is currently full while being remodeled and expanded, Hall was unsure as of yet if there had been any men who checked into the Men’s ward, at the Eureka Rescue Mission in Old Town. Hall said that they do have a number of open beds and plenty of good food and support if anybody shows up from the HCOE eviction. As long as people are not intoxicated or obviously on drugs – as to not “disrupt tranquility,” people with mental health struggles or substance addictions would be welcomed with open arms, as long as space allowed.  “We work with all the services in town,” Hall said, explaining that the Rescue Mission is generally more tolerant of mental illness than other local shelters, “as long as people are not creating an unsafe environment.”

In 2019, the Humboldt County Civil Grand Jury (HCGJ) reported on homelessness and related complications, writing in their summary that, “Humboldt County is very fortunate to have several excellent nonprofit service providers offering emergency and short-term shelter for the homeless. Some have existing infrastructure that could be leveraged to serve more homeless if they were given financial or other support.”  Beyond that, the report suggested there have been studies done to survey for homelessness in the community, and perhaps, ironically, the HCOE has compiled data on the percentage of unhoused students, finding that Eureka has the greatest percentage of homeless students, counting up to 12% of the student population as “homeless” in the 2017-2018 school year.

According to the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness, “The forced dispersal of people from encampment settings is not an appropriate solution or strategy, accomplishes nothing toward the goal of linking people to permanent housing opportunities, and can make it more difficult to provide such lasting solutions to people who have been sleeping and living in the encampment.”

In making a recommendation in 2019 to the county for situations such as an encampment removal, the HCGJ explained, “To address the immediate needs of Humboldt’s unsheltered homeless, local service providers and advocates have proposed alternatives to conventional shelters” including safe parking programs, sanctioned camping areas, and tiny home villages.

After considering various methods and socially responsible approaches to addressing the nature of housing-challenged community members, the Humboldt County Grand Jury of 2019 wrote that, “[T]he goal is to quickly help people stay in a safer, more sanitary environment without the risk of being arrested or cited. Focus Strategies recommended against solutions such as sanctioned camps because they divert resources from creating affordable housing and implementing Housing First. That said, cities and counties have found it necessary to create temporary shelter despite their commitment to Housing First.”

By removing waste from the banks and perimeter of a watershed area connected to Humboldt Bay, the City is acting to protect the environment, but in doing so, faces the ever-challenging conundrum of where to relocate the upended, and how best to accommodate their range of needs, including addiction treatment and mental health support systems. The report from the 2019 Humboldt Civil Grand Jury argues that more money needs to be spent on where to relocate those who are displaced by cleanups.

Saturday’s Gallery:  [All photos by Ryan Hutson]

Jacob Rosen surveys the scene along with EPD Officer Sergeant LaFrance, following the informal eviction of dozens unhoused campers.

A sign along the outside of the Myrtle Avenue edge of the property reads, “be true to the one love that for real is urs.”

A large tree has been tagged by the 18th Street gang, in the middle of the HCOE greenbelt property.

The sidewalk outside a broken down fence lets passersby and those entering the fenceline know that the block is part of 18th St. gang territory. 

18th Street gang tags in Roman numerals were seen frequently within the sprawling undergrowth. 

Rico Suave was holding down the Corning of West Ave and 6th Street where campers had to stow their belongings while deciding where to go after being forced to leave the HCOE greenbelt. 

Down on the corner, at 6th and West during the removal of trash and eviction of campers.

A tote set trash ready for removal holds cooking gear and is labeled “random shit we use every day.” 

A split scene shows the view from behind the peeled back chain-link fence and, to the left, a relatively trash free sidewalk.

This article is written by Ryan Hutson, a local freelance journalist. Follow Ryan at Humboldt Freelance Reporting on Facebook, Insta and YouTube. To support Ryan’s award winning reporting, please consider donating.

Please note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly gave Jacob Rosen’s first name. Our deep apologies for the mistake.