BERKELEY — A homeless tent camp near the North Berkeley Safeway store was dispersed shortly before dawn Friday, marking the 15th time since Oct. 1 that police evicted the same group from various locations in and around downtown, according to one of its members.

The camp was down to about a half dozen tents and had been served around 11 a.m. Wednesday with a 24-hour notice to move out, said Brett Schnaper, interviewed late Thursday night outside his tent on the grassy median strip of Shattuck Place near Rose Street.

At 5 a.m. Friday, according to an email circulated by the advocacy organization First They Came for the Homeless, Berkeley police and other city workers in several vehicles arrived, “all to evict eight disabled, unsheltered tent occupiers.”

City spokesman Matthai Chakko said Friday that “it takes a tremendous amount of resources” to disperse a camp. As for the early-morning timing, he said, “we want to impact the rest of the community as little as possible.” Moreover, when a camp is located on a median, roadways may need to be closed, and that is easier and safer when traffic is light, Chakko said.

Schnaper said Thursday that the camp, which previously was set up at various locations along the Adeline Street corridor and Shattuck Avenue and near City Hall, is “not a homeless camp.”

“This is a protest camp,” said Schnaper, who is 55 and disabled.

The camp is supported by First They Came for the Homeless as well as another advocacy group, the Disabled People Outside Project.

City officials have said they are proactively providing alternatives to camps. The city has published a list of Homeless Emergency Services that include daytime respite and meals, alcohol and other drugs programs, restrooms, showers and meal services, winter shelters and the Berkeley Emergency Storm Shelter.

Schnaper said Thursday that the shelters are not a solution and that he needs permanent housing. He said he wants the city to allow a tent camp on city property — he suggested land near Aquatic Park — that could eventually transition to a cluster of more permanent, so-called tiny homes.

“Without a tent I don’t have anywhere I can keep my things,” he said, adding that he grew up in Berkeley and lost his rent-controlled apartment about a year ago.

Chakko said the ultimate goal of the city’s homeless services is to get people off the streets and into permanent, supportive housing. To that end, the city has established a coordinated entry system known as “The Hub,” run by the Berkeley Food and Housing Project under a contract with the city.

But First They Came for the Homeless has complained that The Hub is unhelpful and unfriendly. As for the shelters, the organization, in a statement this week, said:

“While there are some who have availed themselves of the new (and old) shelter facilities, especially as the thermometer dips, very few people consider a shelter a ‘living’ space.”

People must sleep in a room with complete strangers, face the danger of getting their property stolen, get treated condescendingly by the staff and must carry all their belongings with them in the morning, the organization said.

“This is not living. It is surviving, but not a life with dignity,” the statement reads in part. “Is it any wonder that some people would prefer to live in a tent — which provides a bit of privacy, and in an encampment with others — providing some portion of security, sharing and social well-being?

“Unless and until the city creates spaces where people can actually live, not just survive, Berkeley should welcome encampments, not vilify them.”

Chakko described the group that has been evicted as “12 or 14 people that have protested the fact that we provide homeless services to the most vulnerable and needy.”

He said the group has the backing of advocates, has access to video and Facebook, and is not representative of the 800 or so homeless people in the city. And as an example of the dedication of the city and its staff to tackling the homelessness crisis, Chakko added that on Friday alone, an outreach worker had gone to 23 locations in the city to contact some of the city’s neediest homeless people.