SAN DIEGO (KGTV) – It’s been roughly one year since the City of San Diego and others worked to clear a massive homeless encampment on the San Diego River.
“You would have seen anywhere from 75 to 100 individuals living in this area all the way across,” Franklin Coopersmith of the City of San Diego’s Environmental Services Department said.
“There were 91 on this island,” Ketra Carter of the City’s Homeless Strategies & Solutions Department said.
“The Island” is this piece of land on the San Diego River off Friars Road and Old Sea World Drive.
The area’s been free of homeless encampments since then, as people have been connected to a variety of resources.
“So, when we came, we removed over 76 tons of trash. We were able to remove over 1300 pounds of biohazard and hazardous waste from this area, as well,” Coopersmith said.
It was cleared after months of outreach from the City of San Diego and PATH San Diego, a homeless outreach non-profit, as a part of a state grant, which is called an Encampment Resolution Funding (ERF) grant, working in collaboration with the County.
“I feel really proud of what my team was able to accomplish, the people that we were able to help get housed, get into shelter, and even get connected to the essential resources that they needed,” Autumn McCann, PATH San Diego, said.
ABC 10News previously reported on the encampment clearing, the ERF grants the City has utilized, and those who lived in the riverbed who accepted outreach and assistance last year.
“At the end of the day, to know 59 individuals are in permanent housing that otherwise were sleeping, living, eating, their own community was right here and to know that they have something that is giving them an opportunity for something better in their life, just make, I swear, it makes me giddy every time I look at it,” Carter said.
The City is doing what it can to make sure people don’t come back to the island.
“This area has and will maintain to be a closed-off area for encampments. So, when we do find out that there is one in here, we take action immediately to offer services, but then they do have to leave the area,” Coopersmith said.
“So, I think that people would say the City kept its promise to not only they offered us something, they're following through with it, but then that the city actually said this won't return to what it was.”
