San Diego River teeming with homeless despite city clean-up efforts following hep A outbreak

Sunlight shimmered though tree branches Tuesday afternoon, dappling a shady homeless camp along the San Diego River in the midst of uprooting.

Deep in the Mission Valley Preserve, Mike McCraken gathered up his possessions, preparing to move his four-month-old camp.

Along with tents, folding chairs and bikes, the area, inhabited by about a dozen people, was covered in dirty clothes and trash, including an overflowing garbage can and a bucket used for defecating.

A frown made its way across the 62-year-old’s tanned, creased face as he held up a pink “special notice” from the city. McCraken said a park ranger had posted it at his camp two days before, given him and his friends 72 hours to vacate or have their belongs confiscated.

“You move, and then they’ll come and tag your tent again,” he said. “I asked (a police officer) for advice about where I should go since I’m homeless and stuff, and he said, ‘out of sight, out of mind.’”

City officials have recently turned their attention to the San Diego River amid the ongoing hepatitis A outbreak that has killed 20 people and afflicted 536.

County health official have said the contagious liver disease is being passed from person to person through fecal contamination, and that homeless and illicit drug users have been those primarily impacted.

Following a law enforcement crackdown in September on those living on the streets in the East Village, Mayor Kevin Faulconer’s office announced efforts to clean up homeless encampments along the river.

City officials said clean-ups have taken place on two dates in locations around the stadium, with more to come. Homeless outreach teams with the San Diego Police Department have also conducted outreach efforts in recent months along the river that included offering hepatitis vaccinations and access to shelter services.

“Our crews will continue to make progress cleaning the city’s portion of the San Diego Riverbed,” said Mario Sierra, director of the environmental services department. “Many areas are challenging because of topography, vegetation and access, but we must do what we can to ensure the river is as free from debris and trash as possible.”

Late last month, behind a Kaiser Permanente medical office building, a well-entrenched homeless camp of about five tents sat tucked out of sight along the San Diego River.

“With them cracking down downtown so bad, we’re getting over populated down here,” said a 27-year-old living on the river who identified himself as Rabbit.

Rabbit pointed out bags of trash piled up around his tent and the colorful mess that is a typical river camp — evidence, he said, that folks have tried to keep the area somewhat tidy.

“I know I’m sitting here talking about it being clean and there are piles of trash everywhere, but it could be way worse,” he said.

“It makes no sense trying to move everyone around,” he added. “All it does it stir the pot.”

It’s not clear what the recent influx of homelessness on the San Diego River represents other than the perpetual game of Whack-A-Mole the city has been playing for years with its transient population.

However, the San Diego River Park Foundation found that camps along the river nearly doubled in the past year.

The small nonprofit, which is dedicated to restoring the river, counted 116 encampments in October, up from 61 in the same month in 2016. This year’s total was by far the highest since the group started keeping records nearly a decade ago.

“Right now, there’s just a Band-Aid on the situation,” said Tiffany Swiderski, a staff member with the foundation. “It takes more of a coordinated effort and more of a partnership between us and the city and the land managers and all the different stakeholders in the area. You can’t just do one thing and walk away from it.”

Swiderski and others with the foundation, including a handful of volunteers, were out on Tuesday conducting their weekly assessment of trash along the river. The group surveys the watershed from the ocean all the way to Santee.

Walking along a series of trails behind the YMCA in Mission Valley, foundation employee Benjamin Downing documented the precise location of trash and encampments using GPS.

“Ultimately, we’re hoping to have a system of trails that span from the mountains to the ocean,” he said of the foundation’s long-term vision. “As we start to develop this system of trails and open spaces, it will encourage people to use them and the presence of people will mitigate some of the problems.”

A homeless woman pulling a cart walked by Downing and the group. The trolley rumbled overhead on elevated tracks. Needles and bottles of oxycodone seemed to be scattered everywhere, as were old clothes, coolers, plastic jars and boxes of dog biscuits.

In response to the hepatitis outbreak, the foundation has scaled back its larger clean-up efforts, but it still conducts weekly abatement activities with staff and a core group of vaccinated volunteers.

Downing will share his data with the Metropolitan Transit System, which owns this particular section of land and routinely conducts its own clean-up activities. The foundation has a cooperative agreement with the agency allowing its members to operate in the area.

Asked whether the river could ever stay clean while people are living on it, Downing looked stumped: “I have no idea. That’s a really hard question to answer.”

Employees and at least one shopper at the Fashion Valley Mall on the north side of the river said they have seen people who appear to be homeless in parking areas after dark.

Meanwhile, San Diego City Council members Lorie Zapf and David Alvarez on Monday plan to propose using the former San Diego Chargers training facility on Murphy Canyon Road as a temporary housing for the homeless living on the river. In addition to other environmental and safety issues, there is concern about the rising river and flooding of homeless encampments with the rainy season approaching.

Despite all the challenges, the river park foundation has made a significant difference on certain sections of the river, Swiderski said.

“A long time ago, Mission Valley Preserve was awful,” she said. “So much trash, just the stuff of legends. Then over time through a coordinated effort of working on enforcement and cleaning the area up, Mission Valley Preserve overall is looking great now.”

Minutes later, she ducked through a tunnel of bushes to find 69-year-old Daniel Potet sleeping on a dirty blanket under a beach umbrella. His small dog barked at her approach and the homeless man, frazzled, slowly pulls on his pants.

It’s a common encounter for foundation staff, who said they do their best to make friends with the homeless living on the river.

“I travel up and down the river,” said Potet, explaining that he found this spot about a week earlier after being chased by police out of a camp under the bridge at Hazard Center Drive.

Asked whether Swiderski thought the river could be permanently cleaned up without kicking out the homeless, she paused and then offered, “I don’t think so. People have been living in the river bed for a really long time, and it’s just a complex issue, so I don’t know.”

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Email: joshua.smith@sduniontribune.com