San Jose city officials have until the spring to clear out a massive homeless encampment just south of the airport. The issue has become even more pressing as safety hazards arise.
The latest incident at the sprawling 40-acre site was the explosion of a propane tank that started a fire, torching two RVs.
"It is not safe out here," motorhome resident Scott Largent told KCBS Radio. "It's rare to see law enforcement come through here at night and you're just kind of left alone in a way."
There's an added pressure on the city from the FAA to clear the camp, which provides a home for 200 to 250 unhoused people, as it sits directly under the path of planes.
City officials have indicated there are no plans to do anything to make the camps safer, Largent said. They installed concrete barriers as a temporary solution to keep people from returning to their previous campsites, but he believes the k-rail barricades have made conditions worse, creating a single exit where residents have continually gotten stuck in the mud.
"We had all these k-rails in front of us, so there was no driving out onto heading, so the other route is to go back into a field and then to hang right where everybody is trying to get out," he explained.
The city has started the process of moving people from one side of the encampment to another to try to avoid the FAA's flight path.
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