San Benito County cleans up homeless riverbed encampments

Local authorities this week began cleaning up homeless encampments in the San Benito River bed in an ongoing effort to remove hazardous materials and direct unhoused people to services and more stable shelter. 

San Benito County is leading the effort in partnership with the City of Hollister, nonprofit organizations and local contractors, according to county staff. San Benito County spokesperson Rosemerry Dere said the board of supervisors has dedicated about $350,000 to the effort—a cost that includes a full-time sheriff’s deputy to work directly with those who have been living in the encampments. 

The cleanup has been about six months in the making, with county staff in recent weeks visiting the encampments multiple times to provide notice to the people affected and offering information about available services and shelter options, Dere said. County departments involved in the effort include behavioral health, health and human services and Integrated Waste Management. 

Tucker Construction and Recology are also participating. 

“We have a community services team who has always had an established relationship with the working poor and unhoused population,” Dere said.

On May 5, county officials and contractors began physically removing makeshift shelters and other materials that comprise about 16 encampments—materials that include hazardous waste and other items that could be harmful to the environment. As of May 6, the county had collected almost four tons of encampment materials for removal from the riverbed. 

The county’s outreach team has identified about 12 people who have resided in the encampments, Dere said. Those unhoused people have opted for differing alternatives to making their homes in the riverbed, with some accepting local services and others choosing to resolve their situation with friends and family. Some have not indicated to county staff where they plan to go after the riverbed encampments are removed.

Complicating the issue is there are more unhoused local people than there are shelter beds available, Dere said. One goal of the program and the assignment of a deputy is to ensure that the homeless are not moving back and forth between riverbed properties in the unincorporated county and the Hollister city limits—as some have been doing for months. 

“It’s really important for the board of supervisors to try to get a long-term solution for this,” Dere said. 

Many of the encampments and garbage sites are located in the riverbed just west of San Juan Road, according to an interactive map the county created for public information. Numerous others are located north of Nash Road. 

Items targeted for removal include abandoned vehicles, piles of garbage, furniture, appliances and tires.

The ongoing effort is expected to last several weeks. Dere said the second phase of the cleanup will start next week and includes the removal of larger items such as abandoned vehicles. 

“We’ve heard loud and clear from the community that it’s really important to clean up the riverbed,” Supervisor Kollin Kosmicki said in a video posted May 5 to the county’s social media pages. “These encampments have been growing for quite some time. We have issues (and) concerns not only with public safety, fires and other criminal activity—but also we want to protect our environment here in the riverbed.” 

Peter O’Day, the sheriff’s deputy assigned to the encampment cleanup initiative, said the county has “always had relationships” with people who live in the riverbed and has recently increased efforts to connect them to safer alternatives. 

“It’s not just about enforcement—it’s about making sure these people have a safe, clean alternative, a place to go,” O’Day said in the county’s video. “It’s one thing to say you can’t be down here; it’s very different to come out here with county resources and say here’s some other alternatives that we can provide you. 

“And hopefully, with that, we can connect people to services that haven’t been connected before, and provide some longer-term, real solutions as opposed to half measures or band-aids that we’ve had in the past.” 

The board of supervisors approved a resolution adopting an encampment cleanup police in October 2024. The policy lists a number of goals and rationale for the policy, including safety of pedestrians, motorists and the greater public; protecting natural resources; maintaining county facilities such as streets and parks; promoting public health; sanitation and cleanliness; and preventing the accumulation of garbage.