Watsonville can begin clearing a large homeless encampment on Airport Boulevard after the City Council on Tuesday unanimously approved a resolution to allow city officials “abate the public nuisance.”
The council declared the parcel a public nuisance on Nov. 18.
The 2.75-acre wooded property lies adjacent to Corralitos Creek and across the street from the Freedom Centre shopping plaza that includes Safeway. It has no fixed address, and is known by parcel number 014-021- 01.
While the decision allows for immediate action, City Manager Tamara Vides told The Pajaronian that nothing is likely to happen until mid-January, after a contractor to clean the site has been selected and approved.
As many as 40 people call the area home. It has been a thorn in the side for neighbors and city officials for the past few years, as piles of garbage and discarded belongings regularly accumulate. Shelters cobbled together from tarps, tents and rudimentary houses dot the landscape, and vehicles driven into the property leak fluids onto the ground.
“The unhoused population bathe, wash their clothes and discharge bodily fluids in the creek, contaminating our waterway,” said Watsonville senior code enforcement officer Ruben Vargas. “Alcohol and drug use is prevalent in this camp. Used needles can be seen scattered through the piles of trash and debris.”
In a staff report, Vargas said that the conditions “are untenable and require abatement.”
He told the council that the property owner, Fremont-based KDS Dhaliwal Investments, has ignored multiple requests to clean the area.
KDS vice president of operations Karam Singh said he delayed in enforcing the trespassing order because the city balked in helping him in his plans to build either a car wash or a store at the site.
“They told me, ‘we don’t have time for you,’” Singh said.
Singh added that his company plans to put up a fence around the property after it is cleaned, but said he was skeptical that the city would give him time to do so.
The city has so far spent $150,000 to clean the property, and has not been reimbursed. Officials reckon it will cost another $150,000 to clean the current mess.
City Attorney Samantha Zutler said that if KDS does not reimburse Watsonville, the city will be recorded against the property.
A handful of homeless people who stay on the property attended the meeting, asking that any enforcement action be coupled with help with housing and other needs.
“This isn’t the first time we’ve been kicked off somewhere,” said Kara Brewer.
But during the last sweep at the encampment, residents were promised either housing and other assistance that never materialized, she said.
Brewer said that many of the residents have mental health and addiction issues, and tend to accumulate a lot of things.
“But we’re trying to work with them, and some of us do try to keep it clean, because it’s our home, literally,” she said.
“We need some type of help and direction or something, because we’re wondering what we’re going to do,” she said. And it’s kind of scary not to know what you’re going to do or where you’re going to be sleeping at when we do get kicked out of there.”
