SAN JOSE (KCBS RADIO) – San Jose has begun clearing at an encampment of unhoused residents near the city's international airport, and many of the people living there are experiencing trauma despite knowing it was coming.
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The large encampment sits in the flight path of the airport and has to be cleared out under Federal Aviation Administration rules. It will take about a month.
"I woke up to a bunch of badges and official-looking people tell me, pretty much, to get up and get out," Luke Ebling, 42, told KCBS Radio in an interview. Ebling, who said he struggles with addiction, slept in a van missing wheels and windows that has since been impounded before receiving a housing voucher.
Advocates were on hand to help on Thursday, including Unhoused Response Group co-founding member Shaunn Cartwright. She estimated that as many as 200 people were still at the encampment on Thursday, which didn't include residents who had already fled.
Cartwright likened Thursday's experience to "watching a human tragedy unfold," especially ahead of an excessively hot weekend.
"People are left with absolutely nothing," Cartwright said. "Some people have been, like, left with just, like, a garbage bag of belongings when they had, like, a whole home that was built here."
Heavy equipment destroyed unpermitted housing structures, loading debris into large green dumpsters. Work was scheduled to stop on Thursday once the temperature reached 88 degrees, with no additional cleaning scheduled for the Labor Day weekend.
"Believe it or not, this is the smoothest abatement I've ever been (to)," Gail Osmer, an advocate with Agape Silicon Valley, told KCBS Radio on Thursday, adding she was impressed with the city's beautification efforts and that police officers weren't harassing the unhoused residents.
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