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 to “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 with 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 record a lien 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.”
Anyone I encourage people to come visit it is nothing like the article says a very few people have a mess most of us have it clean you just took pictures of the worst. Persons camp here and there is only 2 vehicles which are no where near the waterways. There are a few people who suffer with addiction but they keep that behind closed doors of there tent.
I have never seen needels or trash just scattered only in some individuals personal space. I encourage the reporter to come and visit my home and my close neighbors. Your report is very incorrect. False reporting!
I have never seen needels or trash just scattered only in some individuals personal space. I encourage the reporter to come and visit my home and my close neighbors. Your report is very incorrect. False reporting!
I have never seen needels or trash just scattered only in some individuals personal space. Can the reporter come and visit my home and my close neighbors. Your report is very incorrect. False reporting!
If someone was to go the bathroom in the creek we would kick them out of here we keep the creek clean we care about the waterways more them mist people there are ducks on a daily crawdads,and fish in the creek you have you information wrong. There are portable bathrooms in the field right next door also Safeway and a bathroom that’s open 24 hrs on freedom to use the restroom so e. Yes some of us that cook use water to clean our dishes, but we don’t put the dirty water back into the creek it seeps into the ground or use to water plant. Only 3 of use cook and we take turns.Very few use water to shower but we don’t shower naked or clothed in creek we have a shower set up. Solor bags . That water from showerung also just soaks into the ground.. we are people pretty normal just living outside. Rent is outrageous and everything is expensive. I only moved my truck down a little nowhere near the water and it dose not leak oil it just has broken windows cause somebody discriminatiing against us broke all my windows and it was going to get towed from Safeway. It runs perfectly well I just can’t afford to fix windows. . And police did nothing when I reported the guy breaking my windows. They said ” isn’t there enough of you down there to figure out how to handle the situation yourself” . After I called police the rest of my windows got broke. They did nothing.
That is a crazy amount of money to spend to clean up the encampment couldn’t that money be directed towards helping the community here I don’t understand just bring a couple dumpsters and we’ll clean up the whole mess we don’t mind cleaning it up we’ve said that before just bring us the dumpstei and we’ll clean up every single encampment and just direct that money towards something that could help us more permanently. That is ridiculous to hire a contracto.r why would you do that we could clean up our own messes. We are adults not little kids.. last year they just came with bulldozers and just buried everything in the ground we even slowly taking everything out of the ground and clearing everything out of the creek from with the mess that they made before when they did the cleanup they did not clean it up correctly how did they spend that much money
We probably could have sued the city last time because they just bulldozed all our stuff they didn’t help a store anything they didn’t have no help for us after they told us they would have helped for us if they do that again this time we will push an issue cuz that’s not fair we lost everything the last time give us a chance we’ll do it ourselves work with us direct that money for the encampment towards something to beneficial
DON’T BE SCARED OF US—BE SCARED OF A SYSTEM THAT TREATS ITS MOST VULNERABLE PEOPLE AS DISPOSABLE.
The system has failed us. This county’s high rent costs are unsustainable. A person needs to make between $40 and $80 an hour just to rent a basic two-bedroom apartment ($1,000 to $4,000 a month), not including utilities or food. With a minimum wage of $17.00, the balance is fundamentally broken.
We are not bad people; we are financially burdened. We are somebody’s children, mothers, fathers, and local community members. To hear people dehumanize us is incredibly painful.
You see “trash,” but often the large items next to dumpsters are household discards left by housed residents avoiding dump fees. While unnecessary to you, we are repurposing and recycling these items. My own dwelling is built entirely from repurposed materials—a necessary act that diverts waste from landfills, which are giant, methane-producing time bombs.
The world is in a trash epidemic. Californians alone create nearly 7 lbs of trash per person per day. The unhoused community is actively recycling what you carelessly throw away, often perfectly good items.
We have a fundamental right to survive and to life. Our civil rights protect us. Yet, as a social group, often including people with disabilities, we are being discriminated against because some refuse to look at how the system they love is failing. It’s easier to label us as “degenerates” or “addicts” than to admit this system could throw you out like trash next to a dumpster if you lost your job or got evicted. I challenge you to look up the statistics: how many people are truly one paycheck away from being us?
I agree these homeless people don’t deserve all their clothes or portable stoves, groceries and nessities just shoved into the ground that does more harm to the water system than washing a few dishes or their selves. 17,000.000 I would like to see an itemized statement on what the dumpsters were garbage bags and gloves and the people who live there would do the cleaning. I think that is alittle much and if that was charged I would like to see proof.
I’m 100% with you. Greed has completely hijacked the housing market, and Watsonville (my hometown) is getting crushed worse than most. I grew up there back when it was still a place of apple and strawberry fields and tight-knit neighborhoods. Left in ’97 for Sacramento, then moved to Idaho in 2022, thinking I’d finally escape the insanity. Nope. Same corporate greedy landlords, same insane rent jumps—just hitting the Treasure Valley now.
Watsonville used to be a real working-class town, and now it feels like it’s being priced out of its own soul. You’re not disposable; you’re the people who’ve always kept this place running. Watsonville still has the power to fight back—and the money is already there:
-Pass real rent stabilization (cap increases at something sane instead of 30–50%) using state Tenant
Protection Act tools and new 2025 emergency rental relief funds.
-Strengthen inclusionary housing so new units aren’t all luxury—tap Measure J funds and HCD’s Local
Housing Trust Fund grants.
-Cut fees and fast-track ADUs for actual affordable long-term rentals—CalHFA’s $40K ADU grants
and state-mandated fee waivers are ready to go.
-Spend the millions in state housing money before Sacramento takes it back—like the $8.3M still
unspent from HHAP in Santa Cruz County and the new 2025-26 homelessness prevention dollars.
If enough of us (housed and unhoused) show up to council meetings, we can make them use these tools instead of letting the money vanish. Watsonville’s small enough that when the community gets loud, things actually move.
You’re not the problem; the broken system is. Watsonville needs to protect its own people instead of letting greed win. Solidarity from someone who grew up there and is now watching the same nightmare repeat in Idaho. We’ve got to do better—for all of us.
I have been too this community of about 23 people living there. I drop off food and nessesitys sometimes,these people are some of the most sweetest people I have ever met so generous and kind and care about eachother. Some may need a little direction and some are hording alot of unessential trash. But majority of the people have welcoming little unique homes they made themselves . The cost of clean up I would imagine no more than $1000 in dump fines.. WHOS GETTING ALL THAT MONEY $150,000 ,THE CONTRACTOR OR THE CITY.
Fraud all of it has fraud writen all over it. Fraud. This needs to be investigated. Why are they still living there yu would think they would of put all these folks in some kind of housing they were kicked out of there before and still homeless. Why aren’t they being helped. Your worried about garbage.