"By shutting this down you’re actually making these people homeless," he said on KQED Forum. "A lot of these people have been here for as much as 20 years. They built homes for themselves. They’re waterproof, they’re weatherproof, they’re just nontraditional homes. Now they’re going to be forced out into the streets."

San Jose has cleared out The Jungle in the past, most recently in May 2012, when 150 people were evicted. Aguirre said that it was only a matter of weeks before residents returned.

This time, the city says, the eviction is final. They've dedicated $4 million to cleaning up the site and providing housing subsidies for residents.

Social workers have spent the past few months finding housing and jobs for residents. Instead of clearing camps as they have in the past, the city is taking a "housing first" approach, Bramson said.

They've placed 144 people in permanent homes and another 55 will be housed soon, Bramson said. Nearby shelters have also set aside designated beds for camp residents.

But some housing advocates say the closure should have been postponed until more alternative housing could have been found, and that the housing subsidies aren't enough.

"What [the city] does, is they fail to provide housing for people, and then they blame the homeless and think they can solve the problem just by moving them around," said housing advocate Sandy Perry.

Nearby companies like Google, Apple, Yahoo, eBay and Facebook have amassed incredible wealth as the tech sector roars back to life following the recession. The growth has driven up home prices in the Bay Area, and many available units are unaffordable for low and middle-class residents.

"To not be able to house our people in the richest place in the world at the richest time in its history shows us that something's completely broken about our city," Perry said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.