Berkeley homeless encampment sweep creates secondary encampments nearby
When the City of Berkeley started its sweep of the Harrison Street corridor homeless encampment last week, the sidewalks of Eighth Street were filled with tents.
We met Jacqueline Mendoza that day, cleaning up her space in hopes of staying put. On Monday, we found her still there but with a lot fewer tents around her.
"If I needed bread I'd go over here. If I needed dog food I'd go over there. Now we are all spread out. It's just like you are kind of lost."
Mendoza lives at the Harrison encampment. When we asked her where most of her neighbors went, she told us to stick around because we would find that people hadn't gone far. As we made our way through what remains of the encampment in the area of Eighth and Harrison streets, we got all kinds of tips on where to find people who were removed last week.
One tip sent us just six blocks away to Second Street, where we met Art and several others who say they moved there after being swept away from the Harrison encampment last week.
"It's not bad. We aren't bothering anyone," Art said. "There isn't any sidewalk."
Art says this new encampment is here to stay, and he'...