Quick Take
For eight years, 58-year-old farmworker Alejandro Garcia has struggled to find a safe place to sleep in Watsonville. His anxiety is now compounding as the city implements new rules that ban camping along rivers and sloughs, allowing crews to clear encampments without warning.
For nearly eight years, Alejandro Garcia has been moving around Watsonville, carrying his belongings hoping to find a safe place to sleep at night.
Garcia said he moved out of his home after trying unsuccessfully to repair a relationship with one of his family members. “I decided to escape those problems and I left to be here by myself,” he said in Spanish.
While he feels freer having left that environment, Garcia, 58, still faces stress and anxiety in his daily life as a part of Watsonville’s unhoused community, trying to find shelter and services.
Every night, Garcia looks for safe, out-of-sight and less crowded spaces around the city to rest and avoid any potential encounters with law enforcement.
But even when he’s able to find such places, he knows he must leave in the early hours of the morning to avoid trouble.
“I get very anxious,” Garcia said. “To the point where it almost feels like I can’t breathe. I feel really nervous because there is a lot of pressure for me [to find a place to sleep].”
Garcia’s options will soon become more limited, after city leaders this past week approved changes to an existing camping ordinance that will establish “no encampment” zones in waterways around Watsonville to help preserve its ecological infrastructure.
Areas designated as “no encampment” zones — which include the Struve Slough, the Watsonville side of the Pajaro River levee and areas near Salsipuedes Creek — will prohibit camping outright and allow city crews to conduct cleanups without providing notices to unhoused people in these areas.
The city plans to put up signage in the “no encampment” zones, which will include information on shelters and resources available to unhoused residents and how to retrieve their belongings if taken by police. The permanent signs will have maps, so people are aware which areas are designated to prohibit encampments, said Watsonville Public Works Director Danielle Green.
Areas outside the “no encampment” zones will still require a 72-hour notice to vacate and trespassing laws will apply to those camping on private property.
Watsonville Police Capt. Mish Radich told city council members last month that the move to establish “no encampment zones” follows ongoing concerns from community members regarding the unhoused community setting up shelters in various locations around the city.
City crews currently conduct weekly encampment and debris cleanups along levees, waterways and trails, providing people with a 72-hour notice to vacate, said Green.
“It’s very difficult because we have a lot of compassion for the human side of it, but we also have to protect the environmental side of it, and in our waterways and our natural habitats too,” Green said.
During a visit to the Struve Slough earlier this week, Lookout saw remnants of shelters as city crews were conducting cleanups in the area. Many of the encampments located near waterways, like Struve Slough and the Pajaro River levee are often hidden in plain sight; tucked away behind trees.
On trees, the 72-hour notice to vacate is noticeable, and stapled right beside it were a list of shelters and resources in Watsonville that people can call or visit.
In about a month, unhoused residents in the newly established zones won’t have the time to figure out their next steps if a cleanup were to happen.
“It’s an extra stress for them, too,” said Josh Contreras, program coordinator and outreach specialist for Santa Cruz County’s Housing for Health. “They have all these other things to worry about, like getting water, going to the bathroom.”
Contreras has primarily focused his outreach efforts along the Pajaro River levee leading up to the opening of the 34-unit “tiny village” in Watsonville, but now has shifted gears to connect with unhoused residents along the sloughs and creeks.
He told Lookout that it has been challenging maintaining a daily connection with his clients because they are already so scattered around the city, and on top of that some don’t have access to a cellphone. For those that do have phones, Contreras says he gives them battery packs to charge them.
“When I start working with folks, I give them [a battery pack], and they kind of let me know where they’re at, where other people are at, from day to day,” he said. “But, it is challenging, if you don’t have that connection with them already.”
Contreras added that many of the unhoused residents have been talking about the new changes a lot, with many asking: ‘What are we supposed to do?’
Shelters are already at full capacity, he says, and the process to get into housing can take anywhere from six months to a year and a half.
An issue that Garcia said he faces is not knowing where to find resources, and it’s primarily because there is no one giving him that information. He told Lookout that during encounters with law enforcement telling him to leave an area, the officers did not communicate with him on where he could get help.
Green said the city works with nonprofits and the county when it comes to noticing unhoused residents to vacate encampments to ensure they are connected to services. If an encampment looks uninhabited, city crews can go in and conduct the cleanup, Green said. But, if there are people, police usually step in and let them know to leave the area.
“Signs are good, you can use them as reminders,” said Contreras. “But, I think outreach is where it’s at, connecting with people.”
Garcia’s still working in agriculture, picking strawberries and blackberries — though not this growing season due to health issues. But he’s optimistic that he’ll be back to work in due time.
Garcia told Lookout that he’d feel less anxious and stressed if there were people telling him where he could find help, so at least he knows where he can go if he needs it. “If there comes a day where I run into an issue and I can’t stay here at the river, I can go visit that shelter or resource,” he said.
When Lookout spoke to Garcia at the Pajaro River levee, he was just finishing up getting water for himself before trying to find a shady spot among the vegetation to avoid the warm sun.
Contreras says he understands the added challenges the new changes will create.
“Nobody really wants to be outside,” Contreras said. “Nobody really chooses, ‘Hey, I’d rather live outside than put my life together.’”
