Oakland will shut down a large homeless encampment in front of a Home Depot store in the Fruitvale neighborhood next month and, starting Monday, move most of its residents into a new “safe RV parking” site, The Chronicle has learned.

City officials will offer shelter beds or space at a community cabin site to others living in tents, cars or small, makeshift homes in a shift expected to be completed by the second week of March.

The encampment appeared at least three years ago. Its closure comes after six months of uncertainty for scores of residents of the encampment after the city announced in July that it would shut down the vast site.

The encampment outside the Home Depot at 4000 Alameda Ave. is so large that it has transformed into a small village of sorts — with designated residents who serve as unofficial leaders of the site — and has attracted national attention for its size and duration. In September, then-Democratic presidential candidate Julián Castro toured the encampment and called for compassion and resources to house people.

City officials told The Chronicle Monday they will move RV-dwellers from the encampment at East Eighth Street and Alameda Avenue to a city-owned lot across the street at High Street. But just 41 sites will be available, said Daryel Dunston, a program planner for the city’s health and human services department.

“Everyone is very worried and stressed,” said Candice Elder, executive director of the East Oakland Collective, a community organization that addresses racial and economic equity. “This closure has been looming for a long time, but now they finally set the date and, of course, no one is ever fully prepared for this no matter how much time you give someone.”

After months of conversations with encampment residents, city officials feel optimistic about the decision to create their RV Safe Parking Program, said Lara Tannenbaum, manager of the city’s community housing services.

“The conditions (at the encampment) are really not healthy or safe for anybody,” she said, adding that the RV site “seemed like a good fit for a good number of those folks.”

The encampment attracted the city’s attention after Home Depot complained in June about employee safety and store security. Residents come and go, and estimates range from 40 to 100.

Councilman Noel Gallo warned at the time that the store would close unless the city cleared the tents and RVs from the area. Home Depot denied it will close — but is paying for two Oakland Police Department squad cars, staffed by off-duty officers at $100 an hour each, to patrol the site.

Markaya Spikes, 39, who has lived at the encampment for nearly three years in a “tiny home” donated by students of the Oakland School for the Arts, said the city’s options aren’t viable for her because she wants to keep her home.

So Spikes said she’ll move her home to another empty lot on High Street that isn’t run by the city.

“There are really no options available for anybody like me in my situation, period,” Spikes said. “It’s not just that I have a tiny home. I have dogs and I have a kid.”

Children are not allowed overnight in the RV safe parking site or community cabin sites. No overnight guests are allowed in the site. The RV site will be operated by the Housing Consortium of the East Bay, a housing nonprofit organization.

This is the second safe RV parking location the city has opened. In June, city officials opened the first location near the Coliseum in East Oakland that offers 50 spots. That location allows residents to park for six months. Startup costs were about $150,000 for the new site and it will cost $600,000 a year to maintain.

“It might work for some and it’s definitely not going to work for some others,” Elder said about the RV parking programs. “So what do we do about the people who are not so cookie cutter? They have different experiences and they have different needs.”

Sarah Ravani is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: sravani@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @SarRavani