California will pay to clean up homeless encampments along Fresno’s busiest highways
The city of Fresno committed to an agreement Thursday with the California Department of Transportation to allow local crews to remove and clean up homeless encampments along highways while the state picks up the bill.
Caltrans will put up $400,000 for the effort along Highway 41. The agreement includes access to all the highways that run through the city, according city staffers.
“That gives us in the city of Fresno the authority and the ability to go on the state property and freeways to be able to remove those individuals, to provide services to them, and to clean up whatever tents, etc., that they leave behind,” Mayor Jerry Dyer said on Tuesday. “So that’s an important step.”
Cleaning up freeway embankments has been a sticking point in past years as the city had not been allowed to enter the highways, which are state property, to remove encampments. The city has partnered in recent years with the state for Project Off-ramp, an effort to convince people sleeping on embankments to accept help from the city.
Crews last week from the city and Caltrans cleared encampments along Highway 180, including one near the westbound Highway 180 connector to northbound Highway 41.
While the new agreement applies to all local freeway embankments, the initial target effort is on Highway 41 between the off-ramps from Shaw Avenue to Friant Road, according to Phil Skei, assistant director of Fresno’s Planning and Development Department
“This stretch from Shaw to Friant is the most concentrated area of service requests that we have city-wide on all freeway systems,” he said.
The city has taken a multipronged approach to dealing with the unhoused often touting those who have accepted services and longer-term housing. But Fresno’s leaders have also taken criticism over an anti-camping law that is about a year old that allows police to arrest anyone who is living on the street and does not accept services offered by outreach workers.
