Wednesday is the day homeless people living in tents in Chula Vista's Harborside Park have been told to move out. Today, advocates for the homeless said they filed a request for a preliminary injunction, to let the homeless stay put.
Mandy Lien is a homeless advocate who helped them file the paperwork.
“They're filing Martin v. Boise, (saying) that they've been offered no reasonable shelter, and per that, they cannot be evicted from this park. Because Chula Vista has zero-shelter beds and even if they send them to other areas, there’s still no shelter beds," she said.
The Chula Vista City Council voted unanimously last week to temporarily close Harborside Park while the city looks for ways to help unsheltered individuals who've been using the park as a tent city.
The Chula Vista City Attorney’s Office sent KPBS a statement that reads:
“In our opinion, the City Council’s decision to temporarily close Harborside Park was approved in accordance with all applicable laws and can be lawfully acted upon. The record showed that conditions and conduct at the park clearly pose a substantial risk to the public health and safety of persons using the park and in the surrounding neighborhood.”
"Mama Heather" has been homeless for over 25 years and lived in a tent at the park for the last five months. She had packed all her belongings.
“Moving day tomorrow means heartache for everybody. A lot of people have a lot of ties with each other. They're trying to be together,” the senior citizen said. “I know a lot of the guys here, a lot of people here, that made a lot of friends. And they have to move, they don't know where they're going to go.”
Chula Vista council member and mayoral candidate John McCann led the push to close the park.
He said the City of Chula Vista has reserved beds for individuals at the park with non-profit agencies throughout the county.
“The current conditions at the park (are) totally unacceptable. We can not allow open drug use and criminal behavior in a public space. Harborside Park must be open for everyone, especially our children and families of the Harborside community,” McCann said.
Community Through Hope executive director Sebastian Martinez disagrees with McCann about what the city is providing for safe shelter options.
He said concerns from parents in the community are valid, but the park's current residents will likely end up in similar scenarios.
“There is nowhere for them to go,” Martinez said. “They’re either going to go to different parks across the city, they're going to go into residential neighborhoods or they're going to go into places that no people should be forced to go.”
Martinez said some of those other places include could include sewers and riverbeds.
The Chula Vista City Attorney’s office said that they are "not aware of any lawsuit filed to challenge the City’s action to temporarily close the park. If a legal action is filed, our office will evaluate the filing and respond accordingly.”
If the temporary injunction filing by the roughly dozen residents doesn't change current plans, Harborside Park will be temporarily closed for 90 days.
There's also an option for the city manager to extend the closure longer.
It will cost the city $350,000 for temporary fencing and security.
