Dylan Berns-Snyder and Nick Walls Credit: Katie Jickling
Burlington officials dismantled a South End homeless encampment Thursday afternoon, hours after a series of shifting decisions about its future.

The city had anticipated needing to rent a storage locker to keep campers’ belongings. But those at the camp gave permission to throw out the remaining tents, and in the end, city workers were able to collect and dispose of the unwanted stuff.

The city has reversed course on the issue several times, even in the last 24 hours.

Yesterday, Burlington Police Chief Brandon del Pozo told Seven Days that the encampment would stay, given that there was no place to store the belongings left by the former residents.

By Thursday morning, city officials decided to remove the camp even if that meant spending tax money on a storage locker.

In the end, Nick Walls and Ashley Baker were the only two remaining at the encampment when city workers arrived early Thursday afternoon, del Pozo said. Walls and Baker moved onto adjacent land owned by a railroad, which the city has no jurisdiction over, he added.

“It’s been an instructive 24 hours,” said del Pozo.

The city is considering dismantling another encampment at 311 North Avenue, near Cambrian Rise, del Pozo said.

The uncertainty surrounding the city’s procedures for addressing homeless encampments might mean that a more rigid protocol is needed in the future, del Pozo said. He pointed to a need to balance public safety with compassion and protection of property.

“We want everybody, including homeless people and the public, to understand what the expectations are when people camp on public land,” del Pozo said. “It highlights how difficult an issue homelessness is.”

Related Stories

Got something to say?

Send a letter to the editor and we'll publish your feedback in print!

Katie Jickling is a Seven Days staff writer.

6 replies on “City of Burlington Breaks Up South End Encampment”

  1. Any solutions as to what concrete steps the city can take to help these folks? Will our chief be advocating for these steps publicly in the same way he advocated to drastically change our bail system? It gets tiring to hear him talk about compassion when his actions consistently show him to have the tough on crime and broken windows policing mentality.

  2. The tough on crime and broken windows policing has a proven track record- Guliani used this approach to clean up NYC and I worked there prior and after his plans took effect and saw first hand how much better it was and how much safer it was

  4. Well it would help if Miro kept his campaign promise to address the homeless issue but i guess those were just empty words. He needs to go and hopefully the next mayor will do something like build an additional shelter large enough for the homeless. Instead of spending so much money on the downtown mall he could have made the project smaller and build a shelter big enough for the remaining homeless!

  5. Miro could have made the city center a smaller project and had a shelter built big enough for the homeless, but he doesn’t think that way.. It is time for him to go and hopefully a new mayor will keep his promise!

  6. Weinberger could not have made the city center project smaller because he promised Sinex he would rewrite city ordinances as part of the sale in the first place.

Comments are closed.