The half-dozen campers who have made a wooded city lot their home for the past few months face a Tuesday deadline after police raised safety concerns — even as campers, advocates and even police employees say the city's shelter system is stretched to the max.

Last week, Nick Walls said he had been stressed and worried about what would happen ever since two officers visited the Sears Lane camp in mid-September and thumb-tacked a plastic-laminated sign to a tree telling campers they would have to move their campsites off the property by Oct. 10.

He and his partner, Ashley Baker, were hoping to get an apartment elsewhere in Vermont with some family assistance, and he said he had put his name on a waiting list at Anew Place, a Burlington long-term transitional housing shelter. Other campers have moved their tents, looking for other places to sleep in the city.

"It's wrong, what the city is doing," Walls said. He said he felt like he was being punished for the actions of others.

Baker agreed. She said she just wanted the city to give them a chance.

She also called on Burlington residents to stand up for the people in the camps.

"Be on our side, that's all we need," Baker said. "They do what the community says."

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Kevin Pounds, the executive director of Anew Place, said the organization has consistently had a waiting list of over a dozen people for the past few months and beds are filled as soon as they open.

"My understanding is that there isn’t really any capacity at any of the shelters," said Lacey-Ann Smith, the Burlington Police Department's community affairs liaison. In her role, Smith does outreach to campers throughout the city. She said that while she thought clearing a camp is a better temporary solution for avoiding potential violence than doing nothing, "it's far from a perfect system."

Because of the stretched capacity of local shelters, and the barriers to housing many campers face, Smith said she expects many of the people who will be displaced from Sears Lane to end up finding a new place to camp.

Burlington's year-round shelters also have high criteria, like sobriety, Smith pointed out, which some people who prefer camping may not be able to meet. A low-barrier seasonal shelter, which does not require sobriety, will open on Nov. 1 on , Smith said.

Kim Anderson, a spokeswoman for the Community Health Centers of Burlington, which will run the low-barrier shelter for the second year this winter, said there will be 37 beds, up from 35 last year.

Last winter, the shelter was full every single night, she said.

"We can definitely do with way more of these shelters," she added. Mayor Miro Weinberger has advocated for the low-barrier shelter to be open year-round, and city councilors approved putting city funds towards a year-round, low-barrier shelter last spring.

Smith said city officials had considered holding off on displacing the camp until Nov. 1, when the low-barrier shelter was open, but chose to move forward after consulting with Safe Harbor, the because of safety concerns.

"There is a level of tension in the homeless community," she said. "We should not be just waiting for something to happen."

An email exchange between Smith and Deputy Chief Shawn Burke obtained by the Burlington Free Press shows that in mid-August, police were discussing whether to recommend removal to the Office of the City Attorney after an incident where a resident of the camp reported that a man brandished a gun during a fight. (The name of the alleged victim was redacted in the obtained documents, but Ashley Baker told a Free Press reporter she was the person shown the gun.)

"The investigation into this case has not been very fruitful," Burke wrote on Aug. 17. "What is telling is the pattern of escalating behavior which has lead to violence in other encampments." He then authorized Smith to send police reports from 9 incidents at Sears Lane dating back to June 1 to the City Attorney's office.

Stephen Marshall—an advocate for the homeless who lived at the Sears Lane camp last summer—said that disruptive campers can create problems, but that the police's approach creates more problems and leaves homeless people without police protection.

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"The homeless in this community are members in this community and deserve the same protection," he said. Burlingtonians have the duty to create a minimum of safety, resources and dignity for everyone in the community, including the homeless, he said, calling for camps with trash pickup, hygiene facilities and other services.

A camp displacement causes stress and turmoil, especially in the face of full shelters. Some people are uncomfortable in shelters, he said.

Both Burke and Smith said that the Burlington Police do not decide when to clear a camp and said the decision rests with the City Attorney's office.

A draft policy of the city's policy on encampments --which the city has used for the past two years and has yet to finalize--says "if, based on the location, an assessment of the living conditions health or safety issues, reported interference with the ability of others to use the property, or repeated legal violations at the site, the BPD determines the encampment should be disbanded, BPD will consult with the City Attorney."

The policy goes on to give a checklist of actions that should be followed if the attorneys determine the camp can be "legally disbanded," including notifying the mayor's office and providing written notice at least three days before the city plans to remove the camp.

"I will have to speak to our colleagues at the police department about their interpretation of the policy," said Gene Bergman, an assistant city attorney. Bergman said the city attorney's office provides legal advice, but the decision is made in consensus. Burke acknowledged the decisions are made in consensus, but said he viewed the police department's relationship to the city attorneys as "more hierarchical" than Bergman and said the police wouldn't go against their recommendations.

Burke said he could see how homeless campers who are victims or witnesses to crimes might fear bringing police attention to their camps, since it might put their living arrangement at risk, but said the police's first mission is safety. He cited two murders in encampments, one in 2016 and one in 2015.

Jay Diaz, an ACLU of Vermont lawyer who has been raising questions about camp evictions for over a year, said clearing a camp for alleged safety concerns punishes campers for calling police for help. He said he had spoken with people who had items stolen or tents vandalized and then received eviction notices when they called the police for help.

Diaz said clearing camps raises other legal issues, including concerns about state and federal protections for property.

Moving their possesions, including sleeping bags, warm clothes and tents, has been a concern for Sears Lane campers, Nick Walls said last week. The city's draft policy states that the Howard Center's Street Outreach and other social service workers "are available" to help dismantle and remove the camp. Walls said nobody had offered him help.

Smith on Thursday said that the police will store valuable items left behind and work with social service workers to get them back to their owners.

In June of 2016, Chief Brandon del Pozo told Diaz via email that the city had no obligation to store "dumped/abandoned" property, and expressed concerns about the cleanliness of the items. On Friday, del Pozo said the police would store items of "obvious value" like medications or sleeping bags, but said they might have differences in opinion on the value of certain items.

Courts across the country have also ruled that a person can't be punished for being homeless and sleeping outside if they have nowhere else to go, Diaz said.

He said he didn't think the safety issues raised by police, he said, addressed those concerns.

"Certainly, all people deserve to be safe," he said. "But more importantly, these people are still individuals. Where are they supposed to go?"

On Friday evening, Diaz sent a letter to Mayor Miro Weinberger saying that were Burlington to proceed with the eviction of Sears Lane and other camps, "it would likely violate the constitutional rights of the residents of those encampments."

After listing several legal precedents, Diaz wrote that the ACLU demands "the City of Burlington cease its practice of evicting homeless individuals from public property without affirmatively providing them a place to shelter themselves."

If the demand is not met, "we'll certainly work with members of the community to put a stop to this," Diaz said.

He said the hope is that the city will change without a lawsuit--but the organization is exploring all of its options.

Contact Jess Aloe at 802-660-1874 or jaloe@freepressmedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @jess_aloe