Editor’s Note: Courtney, an unhoused individual referred to in this piece, identified herself by first name only and is referred to as such throughout the piece. Courtney Lindberg, the Watsonville director of public works, is identified as Lindberg after her introduction. They have no affiliation with each other.
A fleet of Watsonville officials, including the Watsonville Police Department, ambulances, bulldozers, and various county workers line the dirt roads leading down into the Pajaro River Levee in preparation to sweep the houseless encampment in July.
This is the scene Courtney, an unhoused individual residing in the levee at the time, described to City on a Hill Press reporters when asked to speak about her experience being swept.
The sweep and subsequent clean-up began late July and lasted through Aug. 2, removing and displacing upwards of 100 unhoused individuals from the river bank, according to video coverage by KSBW Action News 8. The site was the largest houseless encampment in Watsonville at the time.
“The day that it happened, basically all of us were carrying all that we could out of here, and [the Watsonville officials] tell you straight up, ‘take what you can grab and go,’” Courtney said. “But at the same time, if they have nowhere for us to go, it doesn’t make any sense … They just come down, and they bulldoze us all out of here, and they’re sending the cops here telling us we can’t come here anymore.”
The sweeps were conducted to make way for construction for the Pajaro River Flood Risk Management Project. With the US Army Corp signing on to assist in late 2023, the $599 million project aims to improve the levee’s integrity and provide 100-year-flood risk reduction after the devastating floods that shook the City of Watsonville and parts of Monterey County in March of 2023. Following the disaster, the city prioritized the project, which would necessitate the clearance of the levee encampments in order to prepare the soil for the project’s set start date of 2025.
Courtney Lindberg, director of public works for Watsonville, manages the maintenance of much of Watsonville’s public property and collaborates closely with the police in coordinating encampment clean-ups on city property.
“We really want to focus on the protection of critical city infrastructure and environmentally protected zones,” Lindberg said. “When we have a levee that protects our city, that is [the city’s] utmost importance — to protect that.”
In April, a solution was offered by the counties of Monterey and Santa Cruz to accommodate the unhoused individuals camped along the levee: the construction of a ‘tiny home village’ at the Westview Presbyterian Church to “address encampment of unsheltered individuals living along both sides of the Pajaro River.”
Photo by Kyle James Allemand.
County officials proposed to use a $8 million Encampment Resolution Funding state grant to hire contractors for the construction of the tiny homes, dubbed ‘Recurso de Fuerza Village,’ which would contain 34 housing units and include amenities such as showers, a dining room, and an exercise yard for pets.
Despite the village’s original purpose, the encampment sweeps occurred before it had even broken ground. The construction was supposed to begin around June 1, 2024 with the projected date of its first occupancy being in the late spring of 2024-2025, but it was delayed. This was due to the Watsonville City Council’s opposing views on its construction and an appeal filed by a neighbor of the Westview Presbyterian Church property, the project’s proposed site, on Oct. 2. The neighbor cited “recurring concerns of safety” for those living near the church, and also said that the zoning approval was “defective and improper.”
Unhoused community member Courtney also questioned how effective the project would be, stating that 34 homes is not nearly enough for the Watsonville unhoused population of nearly 700. Instead, she emphasized the need for immediate care.
“I think there needs to be a 24/7 homeless resource center that’s open where you could go and if you have a problem, like if you need to use a restroom, you could go there,” said Courtney. “If you just need [to take] a shower, if you need something to eat, it’s there for you, and you can always go … because it’s not fair that we don’t have basic fucking needs like our basic necessities of life.”
Who Gets a Say?
Following the sweeps, officials from the City of Watsonville and Santa Cruz County held a city council meeting on Oct. 5, presented as a “Homeless Workshop” to brainstorm ways for the city to address houselessness as a community within their budget limitations. This was the second meeting of its kind, with the first occurring Apr. 9.
Despite the conversations in the meeting surrounding how to best accommodate the unhoused community, there was no presence from anyone in said community. This meeting was open to the public, but Courtney mentioned how difficult it is for unhoused individuals to find out about events without access to the internet, or to get places in general.
“There needs to be someone from the homeless community that is able to go to these things [city council meetings] and is able to participate in stuff,” Courtney said.
SLIDE 1: Throughout the workshop, attendees met in breakout groups to discuss 4 aspects of Watsonville’s unhoused policy: Prevention, Housing, Enforcement, and Services.
SLIDE 2&3: While all attendees participated in these discussions, not all wrote sticky notes to share their ideas. Slides 2 and 3 show attendee’s responses to the question: “What does solving this homelessness problem in OUR community mean to you?”
Photos by Reggie Sasaki.
In the meeting, Watsonville shone a spotlight on their newly funded ‘Navigator Pilot Program,’ which sends a police service specialist to communicate with unhoused individuals during and prior to sweeps, informing them of the imminent relocation and distributing pamphlets with available resources.
These resources include information regarding organizations the city collaborates with, such as Janus of Santa Cruz. This wellness center focuses on mental health and helping its residents through recovery from drug and alcohol abuse. There is a Janus location in Watsonville, but its closest location is 1.6 miles away from the Pajaro River, and is only open from 5 a.m. to 10 a.m., with varying hours.
“[The Navigator Pilot Program] is going to focus on the hidden homeless,” Police Captain Radich said. “If they have a drug problem [the navigators] can work with Janus for example, and they can get them connected to services there, get them into treatment, get them back on their feet.”
According to Courtney, these navigators could be doing more to help the unhoused community, and the resource pamphlets they hand out could be more practical.
“They give us the same resource paper every time, if they even give it to us … [it’s a] resource paper that basically says that there is another shower here – it’s at Manresa Beach [State Park], [which] is way far,” she said. “You can go out there [only] during these times and these times, but when the winter comes, how are we all going to get out there? We can’t even go out there now.”
According to Courtney, the Manresa Beach showers are the only other free showers available other than those offered at Watsonville First Presbyterian Church, which are able to be used only on Mondays during specified hours.
Housing Later or Aid Now: How Should Funding Be Dispersed?
Unhoused individuals, aid groups, and certain county officials agree that for housing-first models to be successful, there needs to be improvement and more focus on immediate relief rather than strictly long-term solutions.
Lian, an unhoused individual who’s been residing in the county of Santa Cruz for about a decade, expressed concerns over the lack of space within shelters and the difficulty of securing a spot due to overcrowding and waitlists. He also said that the rigid structure of some shelters, such as the City Overlook at National Guard Armory or Stag Hotel, can make unhoused people feel isolated.
When asked if he would rather be in a shelter than outside, Lian was conflicted, saying, “Over this?” he asked, gesturing to the park he resided in. “Yes. Do I want to be in a little box and I can’t bring my friends over? That’s troublesome.”
Heather Rogers, a Santa Cruz Public Defender, believes that the county should commit to housing-first models. As stated by Rogers, with the proper funding, shelters can be improved to better accommodate the unhoused community’s needs.
“We can all encourage our governments to convert underutilized hotels and vacant buildings into single or family occupancy housing with shared spaces for cooking and recreation and on-site supportive services,” Rogers said. “I would love to see us promote shelter programs that allow people to live safely in vehicles and that provide basic sanitation in the areas where people naturally congregate.”
Darlene D. Torres is the director of community health services for Salud Para La Gente, a non-profit healthcare organization based around both Santa Cruz and Monterey counties. She agreed with the long-term idea of prioritizing housing while also suggesting more immediate actions that the city can take to provide aid.
“We can support addressing our unhoused community one, with affordable housing, two, with maybe different types of shelters, and three, alternatives to that … we’ve talked about having one of those portable laundry places or portable shower buses,” Torres said.
Current discussions surrounding next steps toward helping the unhoused community have been taking precedence county-wide, with a new county policy on encampment sweeps set to go into effect in 2025. While these discussions occur, few suggestions from the unhoused community itself are taken into consideration. Even still, individuals within that community hold out hope that the assistance they advocate for can come to fruition.
“People just don’t care [about the unhoused community] and I hope that people start to because that’s the only way it’s going to change. They have to want it to happen, they can’t just want us to disappear — that doesn’t help anyone,” Courtney said. “Hopefully change comes because we all deserve a little change …We might be outside, but we’re not outsiders.”
