Homeless camps were near Andresen Road along the trail for a long time, but earlier this month the city gave notice to those living there that they would have to depart by July 23, and Clark County Today confirmed that there were no tents set up Monday morning, July 28

Paul Valencia
Clark County Today

New signs were posted a couple of weeks ago, notifying the public that camping and “outdoor habitation” along the Burnt Bridge Creek Trail near Andresen Road was no longer an option, via City of Vancouver Emergency Order.

For those who had been camping there for months — maybe years? — they were told they had a week to depart.

On July 23, they were supposed to be out of the area. The campsites were being closed by the city.

Sure enough, on Monday morning, July 28, there were no signs of camps at the two infamous locations on both sides of Andresen Road. A Clark County Today reporter walked a couple hundred yards in each direction from Andresen and saw no signs of the homeless, no tents. There was a small stash of litter right off the trail in one spot, but for the most part, it appeared a clean-up operation had recently taken place.

In April, Clark County Today reported that the homeless who had set up camps near the trail constantly moved their sites from just off the east side of Andressen Road to the west side, and back again, every two to three weeks. It turned out the city had given the homeless 24 hours to vacate the site, then would bring in a clean-up crew. The homeless would simply set up their camps a couple hundred yards away, on the other side of the road.

This just kept happening.

Nearby residents told Clark County Today that this had been going on for years, and the garbage associated with the campsites just kept getting worse. 

At the time, Vancouver Mayor Anne McEnerny-Ogle said this was the way it would be for the foreseeable future.

“We will come in and clean and sanitize this entire area,” she said in April. “In a couple of weeks, we’ll do the reverse.”

The mayor emphasized that the homeless were never being directed anywhere — to move across the street, for example. They were just told they had to leave their current location. 

Clark County Today watched one eviction and clean-up day in April. The clean-up, with dozens of workers, dump trucks, and other machinery, was done in 45 minutes. Photos were taken of drug needles and other bio-hazardous items. Within an hour, the homeless had set up camp just a few hundred yards away, across the street.

“This is going to continue until we get a safe shelter, for these people to have an option to go to,” the mayor added.

According to Jamie Spinelli, the homeless response manager for the city, those options have been made available to those who have been camping along the trail.

“… everyone living in that camp has been offered an identified open shelter bed/unit at some point over the last several months throughout this process,” Spinelli wrote in an email reply to Clark County Today after Clark County Today received a tip that the new signs were placed near the sites.

“Some took us up on those offers and some did not, which is certainly their choice,” Spinelli said. “… as we’ve expressed all along, the City does not consider living outdoors on public property an acceptable or appropriate long-term option, particularly if/when other options have been made available.”

That area, Spinelli added, is now closed to camping at all times, including overnight. The city used the property closure order under the declared homelessness emergency. 

The signs are new, but the policy is not, Spinelli said.

“The signs were placed there in preparation for the closure/decommissioning of that encampment,” Spinelli said, noting that this closure has been in the works since February.

The city made similar moves from the campsites along the soundwall on Mill Plain Boulevard near downtown earlier this year, as well as at a camp near City Hall in 2023.

In the emergency order for this space:

“In the judgement of the Vancouver City Manager, closure (of the camps near Andresen Road) is necessary for the protection of life or property, so as to mitigate the adverse secondary impacts of homelessness including soil, surface water, and groundwater contamination, destruction of vegetation and trees, and other uses which are incompatible with with the long-term environmental sustainability and economic development interests planned for the long-term health, vitality and fiscal sustainability of the community as a whole.”

All of the emergency orders can be found here: https://www.cityofvancouver.us/city-managers-office/emergency-declaration/

Long before this camp was closed, there were signs noting no camping near the creek. 

In May, Clark County Today took a tour of the trail near St. John’s Boulevard, going a quarter of a mile or so in each direction. While there were no designated camp sites with dozens of tents, like the sites that were near Andresen Road, there were individual camps here and there. One of those camps, which had fresh food out in the open, proving it was a current camp, was just a mere feet from the creek. Nearby there were discarded toilet paper and other waste — again just feet from the water.

Clearly the city cannot find every camp nor police every area along the 8.4-mile long trail. But it should be noted that it took months, or possibly longer, for the city to give the order to shut down the large campsites near Andresen Road.