Homeowners billed $20,000 to clean up former homeless camp in California
Homeowners in the San Francisco Bay Area are furious at being charged $20,000 to clean up a former homeless camp in a Castro Valley ravine, KPIX reports.
Alameda County charged a homeowners’ association for the cleanup costs after belatedly realizing it was on the HOA’s property, KTVU reported. Now the association is billing each homeowner $300 to cover the fee for cleaning up San Lorenzo Creek
“There are no fences and such that would mark where the property line ended, so we were kind of hoping that it was someone else’s responsibility,” says Ed Walsh, owner of Walsh Property Management, which oversees the Lakewood Home Owners Association, KPIX reported.
But residents argue they aren’t to blame for the firm and Alameda County not realizing the camp was on the association’s property for nearly two years and shouldn’t be stuck with the entire bill, KTVU reported
“They should have known that this was our property, and they should have taken care of it a long time ago,” said resident Cece Adams, KPIX reported.
Fellow homeowner Augie Bau says residents had no way of knowing what was going on in the heavily wooded ravine below their subdivision, KTVU reported. “And it’s not like it’s on our property and we could see somebody camping out here and we could do something, but it’s kind of out somewhere,” he said.
The San Francisco Bay Area has the third highest population of homeless people in the United States, behind New York City and Los Angeles, with 28,200 people experiencing homelessness, the Bay Area Economic Institute reports.
In January 2018, California as a whole had a homeless population of 129,972, the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness reported.
A “point in time” count conducted in 2018 found 552,000 people experiencing homelessness in the United States, reports the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development. They include families, veterans, young people and chronically homeless single adults.
This story was originally published January 26, 2020 at 11:16 AM with the headline "Homeowners billed $20,000 to clean up former homeless camp in California."