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Most of the year, San Benito County’s recently renovated homeless shelter runs close to full capacity. In the morning and evening the reception area, laundry room and a kitchen built to feed 44 people are always in motion. At night, almost every bed is taken by someone with nowhere else to go.
The shelter’s staff, like those across many county agencies, is preparing for the upcoming removal of homeless encampments along the San Benito River, which is expected to begin in May. The county is spending more than $350,000 to take away rusting cars and debris, dismantle tents and improvised houses, put residents’ belongings into storage, and evict the people who have been living in the riverbed. The county is also funding a full-time officer to patrol the area in an effort to prevent future camps from forming.
No one knows exactly how many people live along the river—estimates range from 40 to more than 100. But what is clear, Deputy Director of Community Services and Workforce Development Enrique Arreola told BenitoLink, is that there are not enough beds or transitional housing to shelter everyone who will be displaced once the sweep begins.
“I don’t think any jurisdiction has enough resources to meet all the unhoused,” Arreola said. California has the largest unsheltered homeless population in the U.S., and not nearly enough beds to meet the need. For more than 187,000 unhoused people, there are only about 75,000 beds in shelters and transitional housing.
To Arreola, the statewide problem results from a “lack of funding, housing and affordability.” These three issues also persist locally.
In San Benito County, the shelter—including six transitional housing units behind its main building—can house 50 people. To prepare for the sweep, the county is expanding its capacity. Twelve beds will be added in the conference room and five RVs will be parked outside to accommodate additional residents. Altogether, the expansion will allow for 67 people to be housed.
Still, that won’t be enough. In the January 2024 point-in-time count, Arreola’s team recorded around 80 people living along the river, but San Benito County Sheriff Eric Taylor has recently said there are between 100 and 160 camps on its banks. During an informal count on Nov. 19, 2024, sheriff’s deputies found 38 people and 21 dogs and cats between Fourth Street and Hospital Road, where most of the camps are located and where the May clearing will be focused. A report from the Sheriff’s Department states that “the number of homeless people living in the riverbed is likely significantly higher than what was counted.”
Once the clearing takes place, all will be offered space in a shelter that is already near capacity.
The county also has partnerships with local hotels, providing vouchers that allow unhoused families and individuals to stay for up to three nights. The voucher program runs all year long, and the number of rooms it provides is limited by budget constraints. As of March 25, its budget has not been increased as part of the encampment removal initiative.
The County’s plan
The San Benito County Board of Supervisors began drafting an encampment-clearing policy in October 2024, three months after Gov. Gavin Newsom authorized state agencies to address homeless camps. This followed the U.S. Supreme Court decision which overturned Martin v. Boise, a 2009 ruling which prevented cities and counties from displacing and punishing people sleeping in public spaces without providing adequate housing alternatives.
In January, a majority of the board identified what was called the “encampment cleanup” as one of the county’s top priorities for the year. In March, the board selected Tucker Construction, a Bay Area General contractor, to lead the effort alongside county staff.
Supervisor Kollin Kosmicki has said that the encampments are a hazard to the environment and the community’s well-being.
“This really sets a bad tone for our community when you drive into town and you see just garbage all over the place and you see boats and cars and these encampments when you look off to the side,” he said at a March 25 meeting. “Taking care of our environment should be important to us and we’re allowing waste and toxins to be distributed throughout our ecosystem.”
As of late April, the county is coordinating with the city of Hollister, since sections of the river fall under its jurisdiction, and has begun notifying river residents about the upcoming clearing.
But it’s unclear how many will accept a shelter bed when the time comes. Jorge Enrique Sanchez Reyes, a San Benito County resident who has lived on the riverbanks for more than six years, told BenitoLink he won’t go to the shelter when the home he built by himself is torn down. He doesn’t like being around other people, he said.
Shelter staff understand this. Program Coordinator Christina Leon said that for people living in the open, transitioning to a shelter is difficult. For some, it’s a process which, if it happens, can take months.
“Sometimes they might leave, but after a couple of tries, it gets easier and they’re able to stay,” she said. “I’ve given my card to people in the river, and they were like, ‘No, no, no, I’m not ready.’ And that’s fine. I just told them to keep my card. One woman showed up three months later and said: ‘I’m ready now.’”
Studies have shown that encampment clearings can take a severe toll on residents’ mental health, and often fail to address the root cause of the problem. “It simply moves people experiencing homelessness from block to block and from streets to jails,” says an April 2024 report by the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness.
In San Benito County, some who have worked with the unhoused have criticized the policy. Tim Heavin, chair of The Coalition of Homeless Services Providers, wrote on Nextdoor that the clearing is just going to make the problem worse. He called it a “lose-lose,” and said it was an “inhumane, uncompassionate, immoral” plan.
“People are staying in the river because they can’t afford any housing and they aren’t being offered any kind of housing assistance, mainly because there is no housing or funding, yet the county easily approves the funding to ‘sweep’ these people up,” he said. “The majority of folks are from Hollister, and it looks like the plan is just to hope they move elsewhere or chase them around town.
The river, Heavin said, has “the highest number of unhoused folks because of the stigma and stereotypes, and because there really isn’t anywhere else they can lay down without getting harassed.”
Hollister Community Outreach CEO Linda Lampe told BenitoLink she was concerned the plan may end up “like it did about 12 years ago when a lot of the folks ended up right in downtown Hollister with no place to go.”
“I love nature, and I don’t want to see all of this garbage,” Lampe said during an interview on the riverbank. “But on the other hand, I think a lot of that is an expression of what’s going on within a person’s life—the turmoil and the chaos.”
Beyond providing food and a place to sleep, the shelter offers mental health support and staff dedicated to helping each guest with their specific needs—from finding a job to finding permanent housing. These year-round services will be available to only a handful of those moved from the San Benito River once the clearing begins.
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