Jeff Spevak

@jeffspevak1

Local priest compares bulldozing of homeless encampment to South African Aparteid.

An estimated 30 to 35 people, many of them homeless, had been living in the tent city.

City calls Sanctuary Village a health hazard.

Many claim they had no warning, and lost personal possessions.

To Debs Duguid-May, the scene Sunday evening beneath the Douglass-Anthony Bridge at South Avenue was "a flashback to Apartheid South Africa." A priest at Trinity Church in Greece and a native of South Africa who has lived in the U.S. for five years, she was among a half-dozen local clergy who came to see what they could do for the people who remained on the site after a city-ordered cleanup had removed many of the tents and personal items — as well as a Christmas tree — belonging to an estimated 30 to 35 people, many of them homeless, who had been living in the tent city.

"This is just not OK," Duguid-May said, noting that people at her church on Sunday morning, many of whom learned of the city's actions through photos posted on social media "were just horrified."

"We're the problem, the homeless aren't the problem," she said. "We're not taking care of our community. You don't bulldoze a human community."

Conflicting stories were circulating in what's been called Sanctuary Village as to what city officials told residents regarding when they would have to evacuate the area. Several said they had been asked "to disappear" for the running of a 5-kilometer race along a path near the east bank of the Genesee River. Others said they believed they had until Monday. But when city crews appeared Saturday morning with a Bobcat front-end loader, scooping up tents and dropping them into refuse-removal containers, few of the residents were at the camp. Those who returned Sunday said they had lost everything they had in the cleanup.

"What little I have is not much," said Bill T., who asked that his last name not be used. "But I'm still a human being."

Norman Jones, commissioner of environment services, said he made the decision to remove the tents after one of them caught on fire Thursday evening and after an advocate for the homeless sent an email asking the city to help clean up the site. Jones received that email at 9:10 p.m. Friday, and by 10:30 a.m. Saturday the crew was moving in.

Jones called Sanctuary Village an, "unheated cesspool of filth, hypodermic needles and human waste and urine. We're fighting to keep people in that?"

"I never saw human waste, and I was one of the people who helped the guys cleaning up," said House of Mercy founder Sister Grace Miller, who also said she never saw hypodermic needles lying around the site. Miller said she believed the city wanted the homeless encampment out for the New Year's Eve celebration because Rochester Police Chief Michael Ciminelli told her, "they needed to be out before the fireworks."

House of Mercy social worker Ryan Acuff also denied that the site was a health hazard. He said the camp was equipped with a portable toilet and had regular visits from a health-care van where residents with drug problems could dispose of hypodermic needles.

"If that was an issue, it could have been brought to the attention of some of the advocates," he said.

"Would you like to see photographs?" Jones said, adding that he was having to replace the uniforms of several people involved in the cleanup. He said the city has been involved in several similar operations in the past, including the removal of Occupy protesters from Washington Square Park and homeless populations in the old subway tunnel beneath the Broad Street Bridge.

In a statement released at about 9 p.m. Sunday, a spokesperson for the city wrote, "after those staying at the encampment were offered housing at one of the city's shelters or at local hotels. All but three accepted the placement and support that was offered, and this support will continue until permanent housing can be found." It added that, "personal belongings left at the camp were hand packed and put in boxes," and could be claimed at City Hall.

About five tents were still in place Sunday evening, which several people said was due to Miller and Acuff standing in front of the Bobcat, preventing their destruction. Christopher Gartland of Rochester, who says he's lived on the site for two months, pointed to a pile of plastic near the foundation of the Douglass-Anthony Bridge, and said it was "tents Ryan pulled from the jaw of the Bobcat."

Gartland called the city's move a "sneak attack."

The residents of Sanctuary Village are a varied group, most apparently homeless, many of whom lived in the Civic Center Garage for the warmth before they were told to leave a little more than a year ago. Since then, some have lived in homeless shelters such as House of Mercy. Others lived in tents in Washington Square Park before the move to beneath the Douglass-Anthony Bridge.

Gartland said his history of felony DWIs and assaults are preventing him from finding housing. "I've grown up, that's all in my past," he said. "It's hard to get into even a slum apartment with background checks."

Bill T, from Batavia, said he is an Iraq veteran whose fiancée was killed in that war, leading to a downward spiral of addiction. "I was doing OK, and starting to rebuild things," he said. "Until yesterday."

"We go for a walk and everything is bulldozed," he added, noting that he'd lost his driver's license, birth certificate and Social Security card in the cleanup.

Several vans and pickup trucks pulled up to the site as people dropped off food for what appeared to be about seven people who had returned to spend the night in the five remaining tents. "We just saw it on Facebook and felt bad," said Paul Anastasi, who brought food and coffee with his wife, Myra, and friend Larry Sexton.

Someone also left a new, gaily decorated Christmas tree.

"How is it this season that this is happening?" said The Rev. Cindy Rasmussen of St. Mark's and St. John's Episcopal Church on Culver Street after she had visited the site. "Doesn't the story say that Jesus didn't have a place to lay his head? Two-thousand years later, there's still no room at the inn."

JSPEVAK@DemocratandChronicle.com

Twitter.com/jeffspevak1

Petition

A petition to rectify damages to Sanctuary Village and "support our citizens facing homelessness" visit: http://start2.occupyourhomes.org/petitions/rochester-rebuild-and-support-the-homeless-of-sanctuary-village