Major homeless encampment sweep under way near Pajaro River levee

By Zoe Hunt

Click here for updates on this story

    PAJARO, Calif. (KSBW) — A major homeless encampment sweep near the Pajaro River levee got underway Monday morning.

According to officials, it could take four to six weeks before it is completely finished.

“I don’t know where everyone’s going to go. I don’t even have an answer for anybody,” said homeless advocate Monike Tone.

Tone used to live on the levee for several years.

She said she came back out on Monday to support the people she calls family during this encampment clean-up.

“The tents and stuff like that, we purchased those last year for people to have, so they can have some kind of roof over their head and be warm,” Tone said. “They just take them; they just bulldoze them.”

While the sweep is being pushed by the state, the Pajaro Regional Flood Management Agency, the lead agency for this sweep, said it would have had to happen regardless. The clean-up is necessary to protect the stability and safety of the levee, especially going into the rainy season, which can bring flooding.

“We have to take care of levee systems, take care of the river channel. That’s our day-to-day work, and our priority when it starts raining,” said Mark Sturdley, the executive director of PRFMA. “It’s not safe for people to be out here in the river, especially when it is raining and flooding.

Over the past several days, outreach organizations, such as the Community Action Board of Santa Cruz County, have spent time going through the levee in an attempt to connect people to housing resources.

However, the main issue is that there is a lack of shelters in Watsonville and Pajaro.

“There is unfortunately not a plan or space for all of the roughly 140 or 150 people that are out here on the levee. There is going to be an influx of folks into Watsonville as well as anticipated into Pajaro,” said Mike Kittredge with the Community Action Board of Santa Cruz.

PRFMA said their goal was to line up this sweep with the opening of the tiny home village at Westview Presbyterian Church, known as Recurso de Fuza.

However, that temporary housing project has faced delays, and PRFMA said they could not wait any longer for the sweep.

“There’s people out here who have dogs,” Tone said. “I don’t know what’s going to happen to those animals.”

PRFMA said their goal is to move to a patrolling system for the levee to prevent encampments from popping back up, rather than using these costly, large-scale sweeps.

Please note: This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.