As Pajaro levee sweep begins, homeless workers face the painful task of displacing their own

Albert Rodriguez stood at the Pajaro River levee on Monday morning, tears welling in his eyes. He is a worker on a crew that is clearing the Pajaro River levee encampment this week. The job brought him face-to-face with a reality he knew all too well: clearing out a homeless encampment while being homeless himself.

Rodriguez, 55, was recently forced to move his recreational vehicle off Monterey Road in Gilroy and has been struggling to find work or a permanent place to live. An old work contact who hired him on occasion to help set up playgrounds around California and Nevada connected him with a short-term job with Lagestic, an Oakland-based debris removal company contracted to clear makeshift homes from the Pajaro River levee starting this week. 

“I’m doing something that I wish I wouldn’t have to do,” Rodriguez said, his voice breaking. “But I’m doing it because I need the money.”

Rodriguez was among a crew of a dozen workers who began clearing the Pajaro River levee encampment early Monday morning following weeks of preparation and anxiety among the unhoused people living in the area on the border of Santa Cruz and Monterey counties about where they would go.

At least two of the crew members told Lookout they are homeless themselves. Both said they were grateful for the work opportunity while also torn by the job because they can relate to the struggles of the levee’s unhoused residents. 

Rodriguez said he had nothing except for his cats for the past several years and often relies on his mother to help take care of them. He badly needed a job and the levee encampment cleanup work pays well. Still, he found himself apologizing to encampment residents as they came to terms with their eviction.  

“It does hurt me to clean out a place like this, but when a person needs money, you’ve got to work when you can get something,” he said. 

Lagestic expects to be out clearing the levee through mid-September, said the company’s owner, Davis Winder. The company was hired to remove shelters and clear vegetation and trash buildup on the levee, preventing people from reestablishing hidden encampments along the riverbanks. The project is expected to cost $265,222.

Pajaro Regional Flood Management Agency executive director Mark Strudley previously told Lookout that the encampment sweep is required to address the levee’s structural weakness, and that the agency will repair any damage that might have been caused by shelters.

The timing of the levee sweeps was meant to coincide with the opening of Watsonville’s 34-unit “tiny village” project, but construction delays forced officials to proceed with the cleanup before that housing alternative was ready.

Strudley acknowledged concerns that some levee residents could simply move farther down the river but pointed to outreach services by Monterey County and said officials are hoping Pajaro Valley Shelter Services can take some additional levee residents. Representatives from Access Support Network, a nonprofit that serves Monterey County, were also on site Monday, offering services to those being evicted, including 90-day storage for their belongings.

Posted notices warned residents to leave the levee by 7 a.m. Monday; an hour later, very few of the area’s unhoused population remained there. What was left were the remnants of a carefully constructed community: hand-carved stairs in the earthen banks, manicured pathways, a ditch that served as an encampment landfill, and even a treehouse nestled in the branches above — all soon to be dismantled.

Rodriguez and other members of Lagestic’s crew were out clearing the grounds while the few remaining unhoused residents gathered their belongings. Two Monterey County Sheriff’s deputies arrived later in the morning to observe the operations. 

Moreno Aquino, 31, is among the few levee residents who remained on site Monday morning. Aquino has lived at the levee encampment for the past three years after relocating from Washington state. He said he wasn’t sure where he would go next for shelter but thought he would head south along the river.

Rodriguez acknowledged that the buildup of trash and makeshift structures along the levee had negative impacts not just on the environment, but on the people living in the encampment. “Since [people] see it all dirty, and everything is piling up, that’s why everyone wants to get us out of here,” he said.

But even though he understood why the work was necessary and how the job will allow him to make money for the first time in years, Rodriguez said his thoughts still lie strongly with the homeless population along the levee.

“I’ve been struggling for five years and I’m still going through it,” he said, pausing his work. “I just want to say I’m sorry to all the homeless people watching us clear your encampment.”

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