The future of a large homeless encampment in the city of Santa Cruz is up in the air after a federal judge lifted an injunction barring the city from clearing out the camp because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The ruling was made by U.S. District Court Northern Distric Magistrate Judge Susan van Keulen, who ruled that high accessibility to the vaccine for people living in the encampment “significantly ameliorated the state-created danger that is the underpinning of the preliminary injunction.”
An emergency order in December prevented the city from moving forward with its plan to empty the more than 100 person encampment at San Lorenzo Park. Van Keulen ruled at the time that the COVID-19 pandemic was too dangerous for the city to force out the homeless.
“We accomplished our objective,” California Homeless Union President Alicia Kuhl said in a release, according to the Santa Cruz Sentinel. “We knew the injunction could not last forever, but we succeeded in stopping the city from destroying the encampment at the height of the pandemic. This is our victory because we know we saved lives.”
For the past year, the camp has sat behind the county government building in Santa Cruz. One of its residents, Melody, told KCBS Radio that prior to the encampment she lived a few blocks away before being kicked out by the city.
“Honestly the way they handled it is not even legit. The COVID thing is still in place, then they were kicking us out of there and for a while they were supposed to provide us with housing,“ she said.
A city spokeswoman said the city has no immediate plans to clear the current encampment and services there will continue.
“The city in the past has a really bad record of bad faith in terms of their promises about alternate shelters for people,” said activist Robert Norse, who wants campers to resist the possible changes upcoming.
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