Authorities had said for weeks that they would clear the camp, just off Sears Lane, because of safety concerns reported by nearby residents, including one instance where someone at the camp reportedly pulled a gun.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Vermont had urged officials not to evict people from the camp, as some residents had nowhere to go, and local shelters are maxed out.
The lack of shelter space is likely to improve with the opening of a warming shelter in November, but the ACLU had also raised concerns about the destruction of property when police evict residents from homeless camps in the city.
“When these evictions include the indiscriminate seizure and destruction of all personal property left behind, as Burlington’s camp evictions have in the past, seizing and destroying personal property without due process violates the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution,” wrote ACLU staff attorney Jay Diaz in a letter to the mayor and police chief.
Burlington Police Chief Brandon del Pozo said Thursday that police took seriously their obligation to safeguard property when removing homeless encampments, but the problem at the Sears Lane camp was the sheer volume that had accumulated at the site. Police were initially considering renting a storage locker to hold property until people were able to claim their belongings, del Pozo said.
That turned out not to be necessary, said Deputy Chief Shawn Burke, who led the eviction process. As it turned out, much of the property at the site was abandoned as refuse, and the city has space to store items that camp residents said they wished to keep.
In the end, people asked the city to hold onto four bicycles, two filing cabinets and a kitchenette set, Burke said. Police and the Department of Public Works cleared out everything else using a front-end loader and three dump trucks, he said.
Del Pozo said that in the coming days police will clear another homeless encampment behind 311 North Ave., a building on the former Burlington College campus known as the Stone House.
That camp needs to be removed because of environmental concerns raised by the Parks and Recreation Department, he said.
In an email Thursday afternoon, del Pozo said the camp’s remaining occupants had found “alternative temporary shelter,” adding that the city continues to strive toward sufficient year-round shelters for its homeless population.