Many of the Denver homeless pushed by the city from a downtown area where they had camped on the streets have moved to the slopes of the South Platte River in CommonsPark.

Ray Lyall, of homeless advocacy group Homeless Out Loud, said the shift in population demonstrates that sweeps of the area around Samaritan House shelter on Lawrence Street have done little more than remove some homeless from public view.

“The police are telling me, personally, that if I want to hide, I can go down there,” Lyall, who is homeless, said Tuesday.

“I asked the officer, so I can break the law down there but I can’t break it here? They didn’t solve anything, they are hiding us,” he said.

Denver police policy doesn’t include telling homeless people to go to the river, said spokesman Sonny Jackson. “That is not what we are doing at all. Our objective is if we connect with someone who is homeless we assess their needs and go from there and help if we can. That hasn’t changed.”

In early March, the city announced that it would remove homeless camps that first emerged on sidewalks near the shelter last summer.

Within days, police and public works employees descended on the area and removed the camps.

Homeless people began camping on the river banks long before the recent sweeps, and there have been periodic sweeps in that area as well.

But the population has grown since the camps around the shelter were removed, some of the homeless said.

On Tuesday, a man who gave his name only as Gary said he moved to the river after police started waking him in the middle of the night, telling him to move, and then rousting him again when he settled down a few blocks away.

“In the first few days they started the sweeps, I only had but eight hours sleep” total, he said.

Friends told him Denver Parks and Recreation employees wouldn’t harass him if he stayed in the park, so he moved there.

“They leave us alone as long as we pick up and haul our trash out,” he said.

Gary, 50, had his possessions piled on top of a child’s red Radio Flyer wagon.

A woman who identified herself as Bubba, was breaking down a tent and moving it for another homeless person who wasn’t present. “I usually help others to move their stuff,” she said.

For two months, the 35-year-old woman said she had lived on the street outside the shelter.

“One of my friends brought me here, he told me it was a lot easier,” she said.

Since the sweeps, she added, many more homeless have moved to the park.

Donte Henninton, 32, said he became homeless three months ago, when there was a fire at his apartment complex.

He was staying on the street downtown, when a friend called him and warned him about the sweep. “I got a phone call telling me to get my stuff, they’re throwing everybody’s stuff away.”

After that, police began waking him when he was sleeping and telling him to move. In the park, he said, “as long as nothing is left around that looks like a tent,” the homeless are left alone.

The movement of homeless to other parts of the city was expected, said Julie Smith, spokeswoman for the Denver Department of Human Services.

The city’s goal remains the same, she said, to connect people with services, shelter and housing so they are not in an unhealthy, unsafe and unsanitary situation, Smith said.

Since the sweeps, Denver Police have reported fewer incidents of aggravated assault and robbery among homeless in the area of the shelter, she said.

Tom McGhee: 303-954-1671, tmcghee@denverpost.com or @dpmcghee

Updated March 22 at 6:08 p.m. Because of a reporter’s error, the name of the park where homeless people have moved was incorrect. It is Commons Park.