City serves homeless campers an eviction notice

A worst-case scenario came true for Nick Walls and Ashley Baker on Tuesday afternoon: two police officers came to the encampment the couple calls home and told them they would have to leave. 

"It is important for you to pick up your campsite and move it off this property," reads a sign thumb-tacked to a tree in the Sears Lane camp the couple has occupied since January. "If you don't, the City will remove the camp and all things left on the property on October 10."

The formal notice, which informs the couple and their neighbors that they are trespassing on city-owned property, follows a visit from Lacey Ann-Smith, the community affairs liaison for the Burlington Police Department, Baker said. 

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The closure of the camp would be devastating to her and Walls, she said. 

Walls told the Burlington Free Press earlier this month that he preferred camping to the municipal homeless shelters which, he said, are teeming with theft, melt-downs, withdrawal from drugs and shifting loyalties among residents. 

Walls said Tuesday that he disabled and many shelters force their residents to leave during the day, which leaves him in debilitating pain.

On Sept. 7, Deputy Police Chief Shawn Burke told the Free Press that police consider closing homeless encampments when they present significant threats to public safety or public health. 

The Sears Lane camp hadn't met that threshold, he said. However, Ann-Smith said that when Burke spoke to the Free Press, the City Attorney's office was reviewing complaints about two incidents in the camp.

The process to remove the camp began in August, Ann-Smith said. The City Attorney's office has final say after reviewing the incidents and documentation that outreach about housing option had occurred.

In the first incident, a visitor to the camp got into a confrontation and showed Baker a gun in the parking lot. 

"We just felt like it teetered on the line," Ann-Smith said. The Sears Lane campers would not be able to stop him from coming back. 

The second incident was an arrest that happened for domestic violence later that week. The victim is still at the site, Ann-Smith said, but the offender is not.

"It feels like we're being punished because of people who aren't even here anymore," Walls said. He said the camp has been peaceful over the past few weeks.

Ann-Smith said that she had informed the campers about the process when it began.

"They get notified from the second that the process is going to start," she said.

However, Baker said she was unaware of the process beginning. 

"They didn't tell us anything," she said. "Why can't we have a chance to say what we need to say and appeal this?"

Ann-Smith said there is no formal appeal process, but that the city has in the past met with campers who want to make their case.

Mostly, she said, the campsites are empty of people by the deadline when city personnel show up to clear them out. Campers are made aware that they can take what they want, and Ann-Smith said they will keep items left behind that seem to have value at the police station for people to reclaim.

The city shuts down one or two campsites a year, Ann-Smith said. 

Burlington's policy towards encampments is a draft and is not finalized, said Katie Vane, a spokeswoman for the mayor's office. 

The mayor has asked for the policy written during summer 2016 to be reviewed and finalized, she said. Under the policy, if the city attorney decides the encampment can be legally disbanded, the police department and the city's Community and Economic Development Office should work with local social service organizations, like the Howard Center's Street Outreach Team, to help find opportunities for housing if available.

Contact Jess Aloe at 802-660-1874 or jaloe@freepressmedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @jess_aloe