Chula Vista residents are concerned with their safety due to what they say is a growing number of homeless encampments in the Harborside area.
The residents expressed their concerns during Tuesday night's Chula Vista City Council meeting where councilmembers offered some potential solutions, including following the city of San Diego's example to ban camping in certain areas.
The encampments are heavily concentrated near Palomar Trolley Station and Harborside Elementary School and city leaders aim to focus their efforts on Industrial Boulevard, near Palomar, where the mayor calls the camping issue a crisis.
Chula Vista police said they cleared all 63 tents off Industrial Boulevard last Friday afternoon. Just 6 hours later 17 tents were pitched again and four days later, 45 tents were there, according to CVPD. Law enforcement added that the street camping has also come with illicit activity, like prostitution, theft and drugs.
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That causes alarm for residents and business owners like Daniel Lopez, who owns a body shop with his father in the area.
“For the past two years, this is the first time we’ve felt unsafe,” Lopez said. “I open the shop at 8 a.m., but I have to get there at 7:30 to clear [homeless people] out. I’m putting myself at risk. Some are OK, others are aggressive and I have to put myself in that position every day.”
The council’s action plan came after roughly two hours of public comment, which included a concerned child.
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“These poor children are seeing people naked and having weapons,” Jayden Kopenski said. “They’re smoking their pipes, fighting. That’s not right, me seeing all that, I'm only 8 years old.”
In addition to an encampment ban, Chula Vista city council members voted to include the possibility of installing a safe sleeping area for tents, also similar to San Diego's. They’re also planning on moving the fencing along Industrial Boulevard to block off a dirt area where people have pitched their tents.
The vote will allow city planners to give staff guidance on possible solutions. The items will come back for another full council vote at a later meeting.
