SANTA CRUZ — Unhoused residents who have been living adjacent to Highways 1 and 9, must leave the area by 8:01 a.m. Monday, according to a Caltrans notice posted near encampments Friday.
The notice gives people 72 hours to pack up and leave the area. On Monday morning, cleanup and evictions will be handled by Caltrans in partnership with the CHP, according to Kevin Drabinski, Caltrans public information officer.
Wayne Bloechl is a pancreatic cancer survivor whose treatments have left him wheelchair-bound. He’s been camping near the highway for a couple of nights after leaving a medical care facility.
“Nobody wants to have humanity sitting on the side of the road,” Bloechl said. “If you can hide us, that’s the best thing for everybody, but unfortunately there’s too many people.”
Bloechl has lived in Santa Cruz County for 35 years, is a geologist by training, and formerly taught at Cabrillo College. The 60-year-old said after years in hospitals and long-term treatment facilities, he was itching to be outside.
“I just couldn’t take being in that anymore, it’s a slow death and I just wanted to be out in the world while I can,” Bloechl said.
“Everything I’ve had is gone, it’s hard to keep your chin up,” Bloechl said, tearing up. “I don’t know what to do.”
The eviction has been a long time coming — Highway 1 and River Street are set to undergo construction to widen the area. The city’s public works project will include the building of additional traffic and bicycle lanes, among other public works improvements.
Still, many residents of the highway encampments, such as Bloechl, don’t have a clear path forward.
According to Jason Hoppin, Santa Cruz County communications manager, there are currently more than 800 people staying in various shelter types. That includes COVID-19 state-funded Project Roomkey, where motels are rented out to unhoused people who are at greater risk of the virus, as well as semi-congregate shelters at Veteran’s Halls, and the National Guard Armory shelter.
“We don’t have really a great deal of capacity in that system, and we still have hundreds and hundreds of people on waiting lists to get into that system,” Hoppin said.
Those accepted into various shelter programs are prioritized based on medical need, Hoppin explained.
“There’s not enough shelter in the county, and the city is doing the very best we can with the resources we have available, within its purview — like the Benchlands, where we have 120 people camping,” City Communications Manager Elizabeth Smith said.
The Benchlands is a city-managed camp in San Lorenzo Park, but Smith said there are only a “few spots” left there for the unhoused.
While both city and county officials deferred to Caltrans when asked if additional spaces were being created for those evicted, Caltrans Public Information Officer Kevin Drabinski said their efforts go so far.
“We have long worked with, and continue to work with the city and county of Santa Cruz,” Drabinski said. “When we say we’ve been working with city and county, and trying to get people into safer situations as available, we mean through those resources.”
Brent Adams, who runs Footbridge Services, providing showers and other services to unhoused people, more recently opened up a managed “agreement camp” at Harvey West. Residents must opt-in to the community’s guidelines to be able to stay at the camp.
More should have been done to assist highway campers in transitioning to different living situations, Adams said.
“The city, county and state play hot potato with this issue,” Adams said, adding the community at large is also a part of addressing homelessness in Santa Cruz.
“I think ultimately, we as community members, don’t find ourselves responsible for this, and they’re our neighbors. We’ve all let these people down,” Adams said.
“We all had an opportunity to do something before this moment and we didn’t, so here it is.”
