More than 50 unhoused people were forced to move from D.C.’s largest homeless encampment in McPherson Square by the National Park Service and D.C. government on Wednesday.
The date was moved up to Feb. 15 from the original clearing date of April 12. The clearing was first requested by the D.C. government, but NPS moved the date up due to “high levels of illegal drug and other criminal activity."
Some District leaders have also said the park is a public health and safety issue.
News4 reported on a few incidents at the square last year. Those events include a man pouring urine on a woman walking in the park and a man yelling anti-Asian slurs at three people then throwing concrete at their car.
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Social workers, volunteers and people from nonprofits started assisting the unhoused people pack their belongings early in the morning.
By about 10 a.m., left items and abandoned tents were cleared with the help of trash tracks by Park Service crews.
Most of the people residing in the park peacefully left their tents.
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One person in a blue tarp tent was refusing to leave. Police gave them several verbal warnings to the person. Earlier in the day, police warned people that if they refused to leave the park, they would face arrest.
The majority of the people being evicted either refused help from the D.C. government or decided to wait for assistance.
Dale, who was one of the few people placed into temporary housing spoke to News4.
“This lady is a very beautiful lady; she's helped me so much. It’s a lot better than not having anything," Dale said. "I didn’t want to be homeless."
Many homelessness support groups, like Miriam’s Kitchen opposed today's decision to move the date up and believe other actions should be taken.
“Evicting people in the middle of hypothermia season is not an acceptable solution," Miriam's Kitchen Senior Manager Jesse Rabinowitz said. "In two months from now, we could see D.C. make significant progress in using the 1,000 of unused housing vouchers that have been funded by remain unused."
D.C. At-Large Councilmember Robert White also called on the eviction to be delayed.
“Most people who are leaving here today don’t know where they are going, and that’s an indication that we have some real problems in our system,” White said. “The people who are being cleared out of here are not going into housing, almost no one into even temporary housing, but at the same time, we have enough housing vouchers to house every single person here.”
D.C. Councilmember Brooke Pinto said additional funding and resources are needed to help address the issue and has suggested bridge housing.
"I spent a few hours at McPherson Sq this wknd to talk w/ residents about the upcoming closure. I had many convos with unhoused residents who didn't know where they were going to go after the closure or who didn't feel they had received follow up from service providers on site,” @CMBrookePinto tweeted.
In a Feb.1 release, Pinto said after months of outreach about 25 of the 70 people living in the park completed the housing assessment tool, 15 had been matched to housing and 50 more had yet to be placed in housing or a shelter.
According to the D.C. Mayor's office, of the more than 50 people living in the square, only six were directly transferred to housing on Wednesday.
Mayor Muriel Bowser previously defended the District's decision to clear the park.
“I don’t think that any of us should pretend, that these issues are simple,” Bowser said. “Our approach has been to make sure that we are connecting people to services, and we will keep working with them, and keep working with them and keep working with them, but we cannot allow is for dangerous encampments to grow in our city.”
A man who recently started working downtown said he was glad to see the square cleared.
“I was first really shocked at all the, you know the tenting in the park, and when I saw the sign yesterday that they were evicting them, I thought that was good thing because clearly these people need help,” Brad Schoening said. “These are not normal people that would camp out in a public park. They need help, they need shelter, but this is not the right place for them.”
The encampment is being cleared in coordination with the D.C. government and community partners to connect the people living in the park with resources and housing, NPS said in a release.
Once the people are removed from the park, it will be fenced off and closed for remediation. That includes cleaning it of trash, removing burrowing rats and replanting sod.
There is not currently a timeline for the park’s reopening.
