All that was left of a Greenlawn Avenue homeless camp on Friday was trash and rubble after bulldozers plowed through the encampment.



City workers removed sections of the homeless camp, and some of the people who lived there remained Friday, 10TV’s Shayla Reaves reported.



“I’ve been here for nine years, and this is crazy,” said a man who identified himself as Jim. “They’re going to keep running homeless people until they have no place to go.”



Jim said that bulldozing the camp made no sense.



“I just came to pick up a little more stuff before they bulldozed everything down,” Jim said.



The man said that police and marshals showed up at the camp two weeks ago telling people to move or “get bulldozed under.”



Ken Andrews of the Columbus Coalition for the Homeless said that he was worried, Reaves reported.



“We’re real worried, because there are some people here simply because of mental health issues, waiting to get some help, which is as hard to get as housing is sometimes,” Andrews said.



Andrews said that he had been helping Jim find a job and housing for months.



Andrews and Columbus Open Shelter Director Kent Beittle said that they wanted answers from city officials about Columbus’ homeless population.



“Where are they supposed to be?” Beittle asked. “If they’re not supposed to be here, and you can’t tell them where, then you are obligated to leave them alone.”



Beittle said that his organization sees about 2,400 people each year, and of that number, 800 people are “living on the land.”



The director said that at least 250 people utilize the Open Shelter’s services per month, and the average length of time people are homeless is eight months or longer, Reaves reported.



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