WARRENTON — For the last two months, Tia Howard has called a camp in the woods home.

In that time, she’s created a haven of sorts: a DIY shower in one corner of trees, a kitchen area with a camp stove and dishes in another. But when Howard returned to the forested area off S.E. Jetty Avenue from an errand on Sept. 27, pieces of home were missing.

That morning, law enforcement officers stopped at camps throughout the area and told residents it was time to pack up and move out. By the time Howard made it back, they had already torn down her tarps, opened her tents and cleared some of her belongings.

“I was in shock,” she said.

For years, camps like Howard’s have dotted the wooded areas of the North Coast Business Park near Costco. The Clatsop County-owned property is technically one of three designated sites for homeless camping in Warrenton, but no-trespassing signs have long been posted around the perimeter and a purchase and sale agreement has been in place since June 2022.

Now, amid growing safety concerns and plans to sell, local leaders are taking it off the table.

As the county has looked toward transferring the property to private ownership, they’ve engaged in conversations with the sheriff’s office, Warrenton Police Department and social services agencies in recent weeks to start cleaning up the area. Last week’s visits were a first step in that process.

On Sept. 23, officers from the Warrenton Police Department and Clatsop County Sheriff’s Office posted signs at the entrances to the woods and made contact with as many campers as they could find, giving them a 72-hour notice to gather their things and vacate the area to avoid enforcement action for illegal camping. Three days later, they returned and gave campers a final warning before beginning to remove personal items.

Making contact

In 2023, Warrenton city commissioners designated three sites for homeless camping. Those designations, however, have left a certain number of gaps, Warrenton Police Chief Mathew Workman said.

One site offers only a narrow shoulder on the side of a county-owned road, leaving it unsuitable for tents and outside of the city’s jurisdiction. Another, on a portion of S.E. Dolphin Avenue near Petco, is only available between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m. and has gone virtually unused. The North Coast Business Park, on the other hand, offers a much larger area and fewer restrictions — but at times, Workman said, it’s been difficult to find people and maintain safety.

The camps are connected by an expansive network of trails, many shrouded in blackberry bushes and covered with mud during the winter months. Officers go in pairs, and on some trips, they’ve had to use machetes to navigate through the overgrowth. With increased reports of fires and crime, Workman said safety has become a concern not only for law enforcement but for the people living in the camps.

“It’s kind of a scary situation,” Workman said, “because a lot of it doesn’t get reported. I feel for people, and a lot of people, whether their circumstances put them in that situation or whether they choose to be in that situation, they still don’t deserve to be victimized.”

On Sept. 23, law enforcement made contact with 17 people in occupied camps, the majority within the North Coast Business Park. Lt. Matt Armstrong, of the sheriff’s office, said both those initial contacts and the follow-ups on Sept. 27 went largely without issue.

“It actually went really well,” Armstrong said. “Most people were receptive.”

Part of the focus was to connect people with resources — not just to tell them to leave. Teams of officers explained their process to campers and distributed handouts with information on the city’s public camping policy, a map of where to relocate and phone numbers to reach social services agencies and locate confiscated property. They also referred campers to the Clatsop Community Action Regional Food Bank nearby, where social services providers were posted to provide support.

Although no one stopped by the food bank, Dragosh Negrea, the crisis systems program manager at Clatsop Behavioral Healthcare, considers the work a success.

Negrea said several of the agency’s recovery allies who had relationships with people in the camps went out later in the day to check in and offer support. Law enforcement officers also made their first referral to Clatsop Behavioral Healthcare through the county’s new deflection program, which aims to steer people found with small amounts of drugs away from jail and into treatment. He attributes those wins to years’ worth of collaboration between community partners.

“Everything just flows really smoothly when we build these relationships with law enforcement officers, chiefs, sergeants, captains and other community partners, other program directors,” he said. “We’ve all been doing the same work here for so long that I think that everybody knows what their and everybody else’s strengths and limitations are in a certain situation.”

‘It’s not easy’

In his experience, Negrea said it’s not every day that law enforcement gives people 72 hours to find a new place to stay.

“I’ve worked in different areas, in different cities and different rural areas, where this isn’t how law enforcement engages with the community,” he said. “Law enforcement is there to give people 15 to 30 minutes to get their tents and everything out of the way, or they’re gonna start throwing it away. And that’s not how the law enforcement agencies in general here act.”

Still, displaced campers now face a myriad of unknowns.

When officers returned to the camps on Sept. 27, they gave people at least half an hour to gather their belongings before stepping in to confiscate property. Armstrong said each piece of property was tagged with the camp’s location and the name of the owner when possible. The county will hold those belongings for 30 days for people to come and retrieve.

Despite the system, Howard said she’s worried about what the future holds — and to her, 72 hours wasn’t nearly long enough to pack up her life. When she returned to her camp on Sept. 27, her bike, generator and several other items had already been taken. Even if she gets them back, there’s no way she’ll be able to gather all of the other belongings she’s assembled to create a living space.

“I have had to start over three times now, and it’s not easy,” she said.

In some ways, Howard considers herself lucky. When she first got word that she’d need to move out later in the week, she was able to connect with a friend who agreed to give her an RV to stay in. She can’t say others have that same kind of safety net.

On Sept. 27, she watched as one of her neighbors packed up all of his belongings on a bike and cart, leaving behind his home and his pet rats.

“I can’t imagine how he feels right now,” Howard said.

At this point, there’s no set answer for where displaced campers will go. People still have the option to sleep on S.E. Dolphin Avenue between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m., and agencies can also refer them to emergency housing or shelters like the Columbia Inn and Helping Hands Reentry Outreach Centers. In the meantime, Armstrong said officers will be returning to the North Coast Business Park in the coming weeks to make sure the area stays clear.

As social services providers continue to work to follow up, Negrea said one of the biggest challenges they face is trying to help people who aren’t yet ready to engage in services. To him, making that connection is a matter of building relationships and listening to what people need — even if it isn’t necessarily housing.

“If somebody’s not willing to accept that support yet, then you just keep trying,” Negrea said. “You keep trying till they’re ready.”