Temecula City Council to vote on plan to remove homeless encampments

TEMECULA, Calif. (KABC) -- The sound of a trash compactor crushing wood and breaking glass can be heard all along the Temecula Creek river bottom, as Riverside County crews cleared homeless encampments in Temecula.

Kursten Orr said homeless encampments is a problem that is getting worse in her neighborhood.

"Just stuff everywhere," she said. "I counted syringes. A box of syringes in the middle of the sidewalk. We had shopping carts on Temecula Parkway. Urinating and defecating on Temecula Parkway bushes."

But now, the city will act. The City Council is set to vote on whether to pay an outside company to come in and help clean up the area.

"We find that the sooner you can clean up, these encampments don't have a chance to get established and grow," Temecula Mayor Maryann Edwards said.

She added her city isn't the only Inland Empire city struggling with how to help the homeless while keeping neighborhoods safe and clean.

"It's when we get into things like trespassing, or public drunkenness, or drug possession - we're finding a lot of them have open warrants. Things like that. Then that's the problem," Edwards said.

The city council is scheduled to vote Tuesday on a $100,000 contract with Rene's Commercial Management, to provide cleanup services through June 2018. This would allow a service to be available 24 hours a day, seven days a week to clean up homeless encampments.

Edwards said if approved, Temecula police will give 72 hours notice to people at homeless camps before they are forced to leave.