03 Apr Community Response Divided on Antioch’s Homeless Encampment Sweep

Antioch homeless advocate Nichole Gardner tears up as she shares an anecdote about a homeless man who benefitted from the transitional hotel program at the unveiling of Opportunity Village, formerly known as Executive Inn Hotel, in Antioch on April 27, 2023. (Harika Maddala / Bay City News / Catchlight Local)

By Aly Brown
Bay City News

Antioch’s recent cleanup of Wilbur Avenue drew both the praise and ire of residents, with some saying the sweep of hazardous waste and blight was long overdue and others calling the event a heartless displacement of more than 100 unhoused people with nowhere to go.

On March 19, a team that included city code enforcement, police, public works and the Angelo Quinto Crisis Response Team worked together to clean the area and remove 70 vehicles from Wilbur Avenue. Many of the vehicles were recreational vehicles that served as homes for the people and their pets.

Curtis Penn, the Angelo Quinto team’s justice service division director, described his team’s work in offering services. Ahead of the cleanup event, case managers from the crisis team first spoke with the individuals to assess their needs and learn more about their personal stories; they were provided with food, including pet food, water, toilet paper, and other hygiene supplies, Penn explained.

“You have some folks in the stages of change — what we call pre-contemplative or contemplative. In other words, their words are not necessarily aligned with their actions,” he said, referring to the varying degrees in which people experiencing homelessness might respond to the help that’s offered. “There was a small percentage of folks who were open to getting navigation services to get them linked to very low-threshold case management services.”

Penn said that many individuals are not open to getting housing, at which point the objective becomes focusing on their immediate needs. The Angelo Quinto response team worked with individuals to ascertain whether they had family members who could offer temporary shelter until they could find housing; others were referred to shelters throughout the county, he said.

“There are sometimes waitlists for people to get into housing, so the goal is really to get their information, get their demographics and find out whether they are open to receiving some level of temporary housing,” Penn said.

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Antioch resident Nichole Gardner, homeless advocate and founder of Facing Homelessness in Antioch — a nonprofit organization that delivers warm meals to unhoused people throughout the city — said she was happy that the mental health crisis team was there. However, as someone who knows homeless individuals by name in Antioch, she wished someone would have included her group in the cleanup effort. She said the city used to contact her so she could work with unhoused people and prepare them for the cleanups. Many of the people previously living on Wilbur Avenue, she said, are now simply at other locations throughout the city — just without the shelter of the RVs they once called home.

“I’m not naive about the area everyone was complaining about, because there’s a lot of hoarding that goes on in these encampments,” Gardner said.

She shared a story of a man who wandered the streets with a tremendous amount of what many would perceive as garbage, but the items had come from the man’s sister who had passed away and left the contents of her storage unit to him.

“He didn’t have any money to keep up with storage rent, but he didn’t want to get rid of anything that was hers,” Gardner continued. “I’ve seen people break down and cry over losing their items, because that’s all that they have, so it definitely is devastating.”

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Many residents commended the cleanup effort after the city publicly posted about the event on Facebook.

“Not gonna lie I drove by this spot a couple days ago and it was RIDICULOUS. They had 40+ tires stacked up, multiple RVs, trash going into the historic (vineyard),” wrote Michael Thachopz Ready in the comments. “I’m glad it got cleaned up. Everyone says where will they go? (But) from what I’ve seen it’s a drug problem not a homeless problem.”

Others shared frustration that the city spends taxpayer money on cleanup efforts — instead of addressing the deeper issues — when messes continue to arise in different locations. Genia Turner Briggs wanted to know why the empty buildings downtown weren’t being used to safely house the unhoused.

Commenter Audra Allday expressed empathy and shared that she too had experienced homelessness, but noted the area should never have gotten as bad as it did.

“I don’t know what the right way to go about it is… but I am glad it is gone,” she said. “Living like that is inhumane for all those people. I hope they accept the help they need… not the help they want.”

Gardner agreed that unhoused people need to keep their living areas cleaner and that Wilbur Avenue needed attention, but she found the city’s announcement of what transpired to be “sickening.”

The post read: “Teaming up to revitalize our community. Today, numerous City departments partnered to clean up Wilbur Avenue. With a coordinated effort that included our Code Enforcement team, Police Department, Public Works, Public Safety & Community Resources Department, the Angelo Quinto Crisis Response Team (AQCRT), Parking Enforcement, and Antioch Animal Services the Wilbur Avenue area has been abated. In total, 70 vehicles were cleared, and support services were offered to people and pets at the location. Together, we can make a difference! We would also like to thank our Contra Costa County partners for their support leading up to today.”

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Gardner maintains it was misleading and didn’t reveal that 100 people were displaced and their property taken from them.

“It also contributes to the community’s negative mindset toward the homeless because residents are given the impression that services are readily available, but people decline them. That’s not the case. You ask anybody, if you need help and you’re homeless, who do you call? (Coordinated Outreach Referral Engagement). But CORE is overwhelmed,” she said. “I talked to CORE team members who have said they could barely get a mother and child into a shelter about a month ago. There’s just no room.”

CORE’s field teams assist with placing people into nightly warming centers for overnight stays with a priority on elderly or disabled individuals. A call to the agency’s general resource line confirmed that placement into long-term housing or shelters could take weeks or months.

Contra Costa Health spokesperson Brittany Goldman said CCH was notified by the city of Antioch several weeks ago of plans to abate a homeless encampment in the city.

“In response, CCH’s CORE teams proactively engaged in outreach efforts, housing navigation, and provided other services leading up to the scheduled abatement,” Goldman said in a statement. “CORE teams were also on-site on the day of the abatement, offering services to people who wanted assistance.”

Antioch’s abatement code grants the city authority to remove wrecked, dismantled or inoperative vehicles on private or public property following a 10-day notification process. It is unclear how much time the occupants of the vehicles were given before the sweep. The city did not respond to multiple requests for comment. Additional questions about the cleanup cost and into which shelters the individuals were placed also went unanswered at press time.

Penn said the city and its police department have been great partners to AQCRT in expanding the crisis team’s work and serving people experiencing homelessness. He stressed the importance of building rapport with unhoused individuals so that AQCRT can better serve them in the future once trust is established.

“The other important thing to know is we hire people with lived experiences from the community, who have managed to pick themselves up and be successful,” Penn said. “We understand the need, and this is a need across the Bay Area, so we just look forward to doing the work and the growth of services and staff and our program to where we can make a significant impact.”

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