San Jose organization helps homeless people recover belongings after encampment sweeps

By Kelsi Thorud

Shaunn Cartwright is a part of the rapid encampment support team in San Jose. Whenever there are sweeps in the city, she goes there to monitor the process and help those who are being displaced.

“This was swept prior to Autumn Parkway and then the creek and then Columbus,” said Cartwright.

Shaunn says a camp known as the Bassett Encampment, off Bassett Street and tucked under Highway 87, has been swept multiple times by multiple agencies because of its location under and overpass and near railroad tracks.

She says most recently, it was swept by Caltrans.

“When you’re in a crisis state, when somebody goes, ‘You’re being swept,’ it’s very hard to understand this exact area is city and this exact area is Caltrans and this is that,” Cartwright said.

Shaunn says that confusion can lead to people not knowing who to contact about getting their belongings back that were taken in a sweep.

“Different agencies all have different policies,” said Cartwright.

The city of San Jose says it keeps items up to 90 days. Caltrans keeps items it collects for 60 days.

People can call the BeautifySJ Program to set up an appointment to retrieve their property.

The type of items kept also depends on the agency doing the sweeping.

Shaunn says that can lead to people losing important items.

“They just see a lot of shoveling and raking and things going into trucks. They don’t see some careful going through of their materials to see that something’s being kept,” said Cartwright.

The city of San Jose said in a statement that it “follows a strict and documented process for all encampment abatements, including providing at least 72 hours’ written notice prior to an abatement.”

They say they also document and store all personal items recovered in a safe location.

Still, Shaunn told me it can sometimes be hard to recover those items.

“I spent the legwork, three weeks trying to get people’s stuff back,” said Cartwright.

The goal in sweeping encampments is to get the people who are living on the streets into housing.

San Jose’s plan includes placing people in temporary housing, then hopefully transitioning them into more permanent housing.

But Shaunn says that can be hard to do when many of these people don’t trust the city. 

That’s why she says many end up leaving the city’s programs and coming back out onto the streets to the same areas they were swept before.

“So people are like, ‘Well, why would I want to end at a tiny home where I don’t have my own bathroom, I don’t have the ability to cook or I could be out here where I do have self-determination,'” said Cartwright.