A major cleanup of a trash-filled, one-acre homeless encampment began Wednesday morning along the San Diego River, where thieves were stripping hundreds of stolen bicycles for recycling.

The scope of garbage smothering the river bank and the stench were overwhelming: Food cartons and wrappers, clothes, shoes, cardboard, beer cans, water bottles, broken baskets, blankets, carpeting, wood pallets and boards.

“Almost anything you can name, it’s here,” said David Loveland, one of about 20 volunteers from the San Diego River Park Foundation who were spending much of the day cleaning the area.

They took down canopies and tarps, hauled bags of debris, and shook their heads over the propane stoves, carved headboard, end tables, shopping carts and a dismantled hoverboard. Police estimated there were parts to 500 bicycles stacked and strewn throughout the site.


San Diego City Councilman Scott Sherman, whose district includes Grantville, said it would take two or three weeks to clear out an estimated 100,000 pounds of trash that could fill 15 industrial Dumpsters.

The vast extent of the camp, where 10 to 20 men and women were living, shocked officials who toured the site behind the Home Depot off Fairmount Avenue in Grantville on Friday.

“I didn’t know it was this intense,” said Sherman, whose office organized the tour with river foundation leaders, San Diego police and state Fish & Wildlife officers.

He said he lives nearby and knew homeless people were living along the river. San Diego police, too, were noticing more petty theft in the area, especially bicycles.


“I saw one transient guy on a $700 bike,” Sherman said. “Another was pushing a blue recycling bin down there. I thought, OK, there are some serious issues down there.”

A January count of homeless people tallied more than 9,000 in the county, with more than 60 percent in the city of San Diego. Of the total, nearly 6,000 were unsheltered. A report by the Regional Task Force on the Homeless noted more people were found in tents and hand-built structures along downtown streets than in the past.

Police Officer J.J. Gomez said when the city started clearing out homeless camps and invasive plants clogging the river near Qualcomm Stadium six months ago, many of the homeless people simply moved further east.

Gomez teamed with Officer J.J. Arguelles early in 2016 as a “quality of life team” to contact homeless people around the eastern part of the city, offer them services, and take criminals to jail.


Officials wanted to know how many people were living behind the Home Depot before Friday’s tour, so a police helicopter crew flew over the site at night with an infrared device. They counted 18 to 20 people coming and going, Gomez said.

1 / 17 John Fraher, one of the volunteers from the San Diego River Park Foundation helps cleanup a homeless encampment estimated to be around one-acre in size behind The Home Depot in Grantville, climbs over bicycle wheels stacked up in a bicycle chop-shop found on the site also filled with discarded trash, human waste along the San Diego River. (Howard Lipin / San Diego Union-Tribune) 2 / 17 Volunteers from the San Diego River Park Foundation helped cleanup a homeless encampment estimated to be around one-acre in size behind The Home Depot store in Grantville filled with discarded trash, human waste, and stolen items. (Howard Lipin / San Diego Union-Tribune) 3 / 17 A container for used medical needles and syringes was one of the items volunteers from the San Diego River Park Foundation helped cleanup in a homeless encampment estimated to be around one-acre in size behind The Home Depot store in Grantville along the San Diego River filled with discarded trash, human waste, and stolen items, including at least one functioning bicycle chop-shop. (Howard Lipin / San Diego Union-Tribune) 4 / 17 Volunteers from the San Diego River Park Foundation helped cleanup a homeless encampment estimated to be around one-acre in size behind The Home Depot in Grantville along the San Diego River filled with discarded trash, human waste, and stolen items. (Howard Lipin / San Diego Union-Tribune) 5 / 17 Volunteers from the San Diego River Park Foundation help cleanup a homeless encampment estimated to be around one-acre in size behind The Home Depot in Grantville along the San Diego River filled with discarded trash, human waste, and stolen items, including at least one functioning bicycle chop-shop. (Howard Lipin / San Diego Union-Tribune) 6 / 17 Volunteers from the San Diego River Park Foundation helped cleanup a homeless encampment estimated to be around one-acre in size behind The Home Depot in Grantville filled with discarded trash, human waste, and stolen items, including at least one functioning bicycle chop-shop. (Howard Lipin / San Diego Union-Tribune) 7 / 17 Volunteers from the San Diego River Park Foundation help cleanup a homeless encampment estimated to be around one-acre in size behind The Home Depot in Grantville along the San Diego River filled with discarded trash, human waste, and stolen items, including at least one functioning bicycle chop-shop. (Howard Lipin / San Diego Union-Tribune) 8 / 17 San Diego Police Officer J. Gomez walks through the homeless encampment estimated to be around one-acre in size behind The Home Depot store in Grantville along the San Diego River filled with discarded trash, human waste, and stolen items, including at least one functioning bicycle chop-shop. (Howard Lipin / San Diego Union-Tribune) 9 / 17 Dennis Fraher, one of the volunteers from the San Diego River Park Foundation helps cleanup a homeless encampment estimated to be around one-acre in size behind The Home Depot store in Grantville along the San Diego River filled with discarded trash, human waste, stolen items, including at least one functioning bicycle chop-shop. (Howard Lipin / San Diego Union-Tribune) 10 / 17 Volunteers from the San Diego River Park Foundation help cleanup a homeless encampment estimated to be around one-acre in size behind The Home Depot in Grantville behind the San Diego River filled with discarded trash, human waste, and stolen items. (Howard Lipin / San Diego Union-Tribune) 11 / 17 Shoes in a cooler were some of the items volunteers from the San Diego River Park Foundation helped cleanup in a homeless encampment estimated to be around one-acre in size behind The Home Depot in Grantville along the San Diego River. (Howard Lipin / San Diego Union-Tribune) 12 / 17 A bicycle chop-shop is one of the things volunteers from the San Diego River Park Foundation helped cleanup in a homeless encampment estimated to be around one-acre in size behind The Home Depot store in Grantville along the San Diego River. (Howard Lipin / San Diego Union-Tribune) 13 / 17 Dennis Fraher, one of the volunteers from the San Diego River Park Foundation helps cleanup a homeless encampment estimated to be around one-acre in size behind The Home Depot in Grantville along the San Diego River filled with discarded trash, human waste, and stolen items, including at least one functioning bicycle chop-shop. (Howard Lipin / San Diego Union-Tribune) 14 / 17 Volunteers from the San Diego River Park Foundation help cleanup a homeless encampment estimated to be around one-acre in size behind The Home Depot in Grantville along the San Diego River filled with discarded trash, human waste, and stolen items, including at least one functioning bicycle chop-shop. (Howard Lipin / San Diego Union-Tribune) 15 / 17 Volunteers from the San Diego River Park Foundation help cleanup a homeless encampment estimated to be around one-acre in size behind The Home Depot in Grantville along the San Diego River filled with discarded trash, human waste, and stolen items, including at least one functioning bicycle chop-shop. (Howard Lipin / San Diego Union-Tribune) 16 / 17 Volunteers from the San Diego River Park Foundation help cleanup a homeless encampment estimated to be around one-acre in size behind The Home Depot store in Grantville along the San Diego River filled with discarded trash, human waste, and stolen items. (Howard Lipin / San Diego Union-Tribune) 17 / 17 Volunteers from the San Diego River Park Foundation helped cleanup a homeless encampment estimated to be around one-acre in size behind The Home Depot store on Fairmount Avenue along the San Diego River filled with discarded trash, human waste, and stolen items. (Howard Lipin / San Diego Union-Tribune)

Officials showed up early on Friday, waking about seven sleeping campers and offering them choices of accepting housing in a shelter, or clearing out. Notices to vacate the area were posted. Two people went to jail. One man, wanted on a felony warrant, dashed away, jumped into the river and stayed out of sight until officers gave up looking for him, Gomez said. But, he added, police kept coming back to the camp periodically and caught the man on Monday.

A woman jailed on a warrant returned to the camp Wednesday and asked to be taken to a shelter, with her companion. Their belongings filled a van, and were taken to a storage area downtown.


Loveland, the river foundation volunteer, estimated that the camp grew to its current size over the span of several years. But when he saw it up close on Friday, “it was a huge surprise. I knew it was big, but I didn’t really know how big. You’re kind of sad, too, for the people living here.”

Added Gomez, “Once this camp is cleaned up, you’ll see crime go down. This will definitely make a dent.”