Every city in the Bay Area is struggling to combat a homelessness epidemic that’s only grown more persistent and visible in the midst of a regional housing crisis.

Oakland’s decision to clear out a homeless camp known as Promise Land is a fine example of the different ways in which it’s getting more difficult for local officials to make progress.

Promise Land, also known as the Village, was a short-lived encampment in a park at 36th Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Way. It was self-organized and self-policed by homeless residents, who say that they didn’t tolerate drugs, alcohol or violence within its borders.

Camp residents have described the experience, which lasted for about 12 days, as an oasis in the wild and woolly world of outdoor living.

It was also unsafe, according to city officials: in violation of 18 different laws and fire codes, including serious ones like obstructing free passage through a public park and accumulating combustible waste. Neighbors complained by the dozens. On Thursday, police officers and public works employees responded to these concerns by clearing the encampment.

That could have been the end of the story, but former residents made the fair point that Oakland has left other nearby encampments undisturbed — and city officials don’t deny it.

“Yes, it’s true that there’s another camp nearby at 35th and Magnolia streets,” said Joe DeVries, assistant to Oakland’s city administrator. “But that’s not the whole story.”

Rather than being an organic encampment, the organizers of Promise Land took over a public park and invited homeless people to move there.

“We can’t allow people to take over a public park,” DeVries said. “But we’re eager to find ways to work with the organizers of this encampment for other ways to provide services to vulnerable people in the area.”

One place Oakland is providing service to is the Magnolia Street encampment, where the city deploys counselors as well as such services as portable toilets and trash bins. The plan is to get everyone at the encampment into housing by March 31, and DeVries said that many people in the camp have already been housed.

As for the reality that the Magnolia Street camp is also riddled with heroin use?

“This is a hard balancing act, and the ultimate answer is housing,” DeVries said. Oakland is pursuing the “housing first” model that has been successful in other major cities.

Some relief should be on the way soon. In November, local voters passed Measure K, which provides $100 million for affordable housing. Oakland is looking at acquiring old buildings as well as new construction as a way to provide housing even faster.

But in the meantime, frustrated people may insist on speedier solutions — so encampments like Promise Land may continue to spring up all over the Bay Area.