‘Clock’s ticking’ for cleanup at this Fresno homeless camp, creating danger for neighbors
Piles of trash and makeshift tents made from tarps and chicken wire are hidden from drivers on Highway 99 near the California Avenue overpass in Fresno.
The large homeless encampment near Monterey Street and California Avenue in south Fresno isn’t technically on a freeway embankment, so it hasn’t been targeted for cleanup and services by Mayor Jerry Dyer’s Project Off-Ramp.
But the camp has become a danger and nuisance for residents who live across the alley. Neighbors see drug use, prostitution and fights at the camp. Loud music plays through the night. Fire hydrants are broken. There are abandoned vehicles and used needles. The piles of trash — and stench — drift into residents’ yards. Last week, a man was shot to death there.
“It’s like living in a third-world country,” Marie Ramirez, who lives nearby, said of the camp.
Councilmember Miguel Arias took city code enforcement and police officers there Thursday afternoon. He wants the camp cleaned up within three weeks when school starts at nearby Kirk Elementary.
“The clock’s ticking,” he said.
Arias said it’s time to prioritize the homeless camps within the city, not just those on the freeways visible to drivers, which Project Off-Ramp has done.
“There’s the perception that the homeless problem has been taken care of,” he said.
Since the beginning of the year when Project Off-Ramp launched, nearly 430 people have moved into shelter from the street, city officials reported. H Spees, Dyer’s director of housing and social services, said earlier this week that Off-Ramp is 90% complete. The next step, he said, is launching an outreach team to tackle other homeless populations in the city.
Sontaya Rose, the city’s communications director, said the city administration is aware of the camp at California and Monterey, and it’s been cleared several times.
“The situation here is complex. It is private property, and only one of the private property owners has provided access to date,” she said in an email. “In addition, there’s a high level of criminal activity occurring in and around the encampment. Therefore, the Fresno Police Department is investigating in order to take necessary measures to assure the safety of outreach workers prior to them engaging the area.”
Arias said code enforcement notified in April the property owners of the land where the camp sits about the conditions. Now it’s time for abatement to begin, he said. The city also is responsible for the conditions since the alley is a right-of-way.
Neighbors near the encampment said there’s been problems in the neighborhood for years, but the camp became out of control in the last few months. Ramirez said problems started about three years ago when the homeless moved into a vacant home and it burned down.
Another neighbor, Sylvia Erevia, said bullets went through her neighbor’s fence on Friday when the deadly shooting happened.
“What if my grandkids had been playing outside?” she said.
The trash at the camp also attracts rats and cockroaches, she said.
“I clean my side, I pay rent and keep the lights on. It’s not right,” she said.
Ramirez said neighbors have been afraid to speak up because they worry the people at the camp will harm them. Some neighbors said they have had their dogs poisoned and killed by campers trying to steal bikes.
“These people don’t have nothing to lose,” Ramirez said.
This story was originally published July 23, 2021 at 7:35 AM.