SAN ANTONIO – It’s not the first time a homeless camp under I-37 has been cleared out, but the Texas Department of Transportation is hoping it may be the last.
TxDOT and City of San Antonio employees, along with SAPD, were at the site near Brooklyn Avenue Thursday morning, where dozens of people have been camping out - close to services they use. As the people staying there packed up what they could, city crews cleared out anything left behind.
“This morning I woke up at 7:14, and it was like the cops were right there and we had to hurry up and go,” Sipriano “Tony” Martinez told KSAT.
Spokespeople for the city and TxDOT both said there had been previous sweeps of homeless camps in that area - a process the city calls “abatement.”
However, this time, TxDOT spokeswoman Laura Lopez said the state agency is putting up fencing on much of the area between Nolan Street at the south up to a little north of Hays Street - work that was already ongoing Thursday.
The agency has received complaints from nearby businesses and homeowners, she said, and this would “hopefully” be the last abatement.
By Thursday evening, though, tents were already popping back up underneath the interstate. And there are plans to lease out part of the state’s right-of-way under the interstate near Brooklyn Avenue, which Lopez said would not be fenced in.
Roland Martinez, a spokesman with the city’s Department of Human Services, said homeless outreach coordinators had been to the camp ahead of time, offering to connect them with services and encouraging them to go to local shelters.
Coordinators were out at the camp again on Thursday during the abatement, as were other community members looking to help.
Although the city’s abatement of homeless camps is a common practice, it’s also one that draws criticism.
“It is extremely traumatic to forcibly displace people without proper and sustainable solutions for them to go to,” said Hannah Taylor, who leads the mutual aid group, Uplift SA. “This is a centralized location with a lot of resources from the community, from a bodega. We have (Corzaon Ministries), we have showers, we have health clinics, we have (Christian Assistance Ministry). We have a gas station down the way, bus stops. So where is - where are, like, people supposed to go? Except to where the resources are?”
With his belongings loaded onto two cars, and with two small dogs in tow, Martinez said he would “probably not” go to a shelter. However, he didn’t know where he would go instead, either.
“There is no plan B, plan C. So I have to entrust myself in God’s hands and see what happens,” he said.