Fremont begins clearing park as homeless campers head for hotels

FREMONT — Michelle Rivera awoke at about 6 a.m. Monday to the sounds of Fremont city workers preparing to begin a lengthy cleanup of Isherwood Park, where she and dozens of others have lived in tent encampments.

She managed to grab toiletries, clothes and food and water bowls for her dog Nebula, a black Pitbull mix. The city tossed the rest of her belongings — a tent, bed, cooking supplies and other items — in a dumpster, she said.

“My whole life is now in two boxes,” Rivera, 30, said later Monday. “I lost a lot of stuff that I couldn’t take with me.”

Monday marked the first day of a multi-phased cleanup of the park, located along Isherwood Way, near the East Bay Regional Park District’s Quarry Lakes Regional Recreation Area. The city has asked for all campers to leave by Nov. 14th, when the area will be fenced off.

Workers throughout the day were tearing down tents and clearing multiple sections throughout the park as part of a $40,000 effort to restore the watershed along Old Alameda Creek and clear contamination, debris and vegetation. The city gave campers two plastic bins each for their belongings before throwing everything else left behind away.

Fremont city spokeswoman Geneva Bosques told this news organization that the city began contacting homeless campers in the park beginning in May. City officials plan to use about $680,000 of its winter relief program budget to provide services and temporary shelter for those residing in Isherwood Park. Other residents were directed into the city’s Homeless Navigation Center, which currently shelters about 45 people.

Bosques said those who accepted a hotel voucher or a stay in the navigation center can stay in a room for about six months and will receive a nightly meal and other services, such as pet food and visits with trained social workers.

But still, people like 55-year-old Rudy De La Cruz said they were unable to secure a voucher. He said that despite living in the encampment for the last two years, the city told him Monday that he would not be getting a hotel stay. He said a few days ago, he’d gotten kicked out Sunrise Village, a homeless shelter in Fremont, because he hadn’t returned to his room for a couple days. It was because of this, he said, city workers told him he wouldn’t be moving into a hotel.

“How is that helping? They get to pick and choose who they want,” De La Cruz said. “Now, I’m back at square one.”

According to Bosques, “sometimes people from other encampments come and try to get into the shelter programs.”

“I don’t believe anyone determined to be living out there would have been disqualified or not offered shelter, unless they recently showed up,” she said. “It was about 40 people and all were offered space in one of the two programs.”

City officials, including Mayor Raj Salwan, have said the park closure is simply a long-needed cleanup of the area and has nothing do with a controversial ban Fremont City Council approved earlier this year that made it illegal to camp anywhere in the city. Those in violation of the ordinance could be face a punishment of up to six months in jail and a $1,000 fine.

Even Rivera, who left the park on Monday with her dog, agreed the clean up was “a long time coming.” A resident there since 2020, she said she first applied for housing assistance two years ago, but hadn’t received a stay until Monday.

She added, “I just don’t know why the resources are coming to us so late.”

Meanwhile, Danielle Young, 33, packed a generator and several hefty bags into a small trailer she jerry-rigged onto the back of an electric bike Monday afternoon. She had only been living there for a few months, and planned to lug her belongings to a nearby storage unit.

She called the city’s camp clearing “outrageous” and said the city also denied her a hotel voucher on Monday.

“It’s not like we’re hurting anybody out here,” Young said. “Too many people are denied (housing) that need help. We need immediate housing now, not in a month or two.”