Fargo crews use bulldozers and dump trucks to clear large homeless encampment – InForum

FARGO. On Wednesday, October 30, public works crews cleared one of the city’s largest homeless camps with the help of bulldozers and dump trucks.

The camp was located on the banks of the Red River southwest of the Main Avenue bridge.

Several people living in the camp watched as front-end loaders, along with larger tractors and bulldozers, hauled piles of blankets, tarps and mattress pads into waiting garbage trucks and trucks. Officers in two Fargo police cars sat atop the hill and watched the operation.

People from the camp told the Forum that they lived in this place from three to 18 months.

Andrew Varno, 26, of Detroit Lakes, said he lost his apartment six months ago and has been living in the encampment ever since. According to him, up to 20 people lived there.

Varno said the city’s mobile team visited the camp Tuesday night to try to help people with the relocation plan, but he wasn’t there when they arrived. Police told the camp two days ago that it would be cleared and residents had 48 hours to move out, he said.

In September, the Fargo City Commission

unanimously adopted the resolution

prohibiting camping on public property throughout the city. The city has temporarily allowed camping with some restrictions because there aren’t enough shelter beds to meet the need, leaving many with no choice but to sleep in the open. Earlier this month

– city employees informed the commission

the process of clearing the camps was going well.

Assistant City Administrator Brenda Derrig said city staff has been cleaning up encampments that do not meet encampment expectations as set forth by the ordinance every week since it was passed. She said the camp near the Main Avenue bridge was one of three such camps vacated Wednesday, and that one woman was arrested on an unrelated warrant during the attempt.

Trevor Alberts and other campers said city crews showed up at 9 a.m. Wednesday and gave them about half an hour to pack up. However, one man said he had no time to take down his tent when a bulldozer pulled it away.

Alberts said he didn’t know the camp was slated for cleanup until city crews showed up Wednesday morning.

“It’s not like an apartment where they can put a piece of paper on the door saying you’re being evicted,” he said.

Alberts said he lived in the camp for 18 months. He said many people at the camp have been working with the Downtown Engagement Center to get housing, but the process of getting an apartment has taken a long time.

Some of the people at the camp had been kicked out of the engagement center for bad behavior and didn’t know how else to get help, he said.

City officials previously said people removed from the interaction center for threats or other prohibited behavior can request a meeting with staff to address the problem and will be allowed to return if they agree to change their behavior.

One of Albert’s friends who lived at the camp, who asked not to be named, said his lack of ID has delayed his ability to find housing, but he meets with his worker at the engagement center every day to try to get one.

Alberts and others who saw their campsite bulldozed Wednesday morning said they have no plan for where they will spend the night next. Varno said he would look for another place along the river. He said no one wanted to move to the Minnesota side of the river because he believed Moorhead police had issued tickets for sleeping along the river.

Capt. Derrick Swenson of the Moorhead Police Department said the city has an ordinance that prohibits camping, but police are working with the city’s Department of Public Works and the Lakes and Prairies Community Action Partnership to mark any camping spots and give residents two weeks. to free themselves before removing them. .

Swenson said he is not aware of the department ever issuing citations related to the camping ordinance.

Fargo’s public information office did not immediately respond to a request about the operation to clean up the camp.