Berkeley resumes sweep at Eighth and Harrison homeless camp

City workers clear tents and other items near the intersection of Eighth and Harrison streets on the second day of an operation at the longstanding homeless encampment Wednesday. Credit: Estefany Gonzalez for Berkeleyside

Editors’ note: This article was originally published Sept. 15 and updated several times Sept. 16.

City workers cleared out huge swathes of the longstanding homeless encampment around Eighth and Harrison streets Tuesday and Wednesday, hauling away nearly every tent and lean-to from two densely packed city blocks and the banks of Codornices Creek.

The block of Harrison Street between Seventh and Eighth streets, which before this week’s operation had shrunk to a single traffic lane as tents and other items spilled into the road, was almost entirely clear Wednesday evening; so too was the block of Eighth above Harrison.

Camp residents still living in the area estimated that about half of the roughly 80-person encampment had been cleared out by the end of the second day.

Tom, a resident who lived at intersection of Harrison Street and Eighth Street, hauls his personal belongings up Harrison Street on Wednesday. Credit: Estefany Gonzalez for Berkeleyside

By Wednesday afternoon about a dozen tents remained on other portions of Harrison Street, mainly east of Eighth Street, and several recreational vehicles and vans were parked in the area as well. Representatives from the homeless advocacy group Berkeley Homeless Union said they expected the city would return to sweep the rest of the tents and shelters on Thursday.

People living in RVs and other vehicles were allowed to stay in place during the operation, and notices posted at the camp last week stated that the city had no plan to remove vehicles. Federal District Judge Edward Chen has also ordered the city to let seven specific campers remain where they are while working out disability accommodations for them.

The longstanding encampment around the intersection of Eighth and Harrison streets remained largely intact late Tuesday, but by Wednesday evening its most densely populated blocks were gone. Credit: Estefany Gonzalez for Berkeleyside

City workers have helped people pack “when safe to do so,” according to Deputy City Manager David White. He declined to say how many people had been moved out and how many of them had been placed in shelters or elsewhere.

As of Tuesday night, there had been no arrests and city workers had hauled away more than 15 tons of material from the camp, White said.

Volunteers from the BHU brought trucks and tools to help campers move their property Wednesday morning.

Berkeley has sought for years to close the camp over sanitation and safety complaints, including an outbreak of the bacteria leptospirosis that was detected last fall. The BHU has held up the closure through federal lawsuits accusing the city of failing to properly accommodate disabled campers who, the group argues, would be put at risk by losing their shelters in a sweep. Meanwhile, a coalition of business owners and other neighborhood residents has filed their own lawsuit against the city trying to force a closure, accusing Berkeley of allowing a nuisance to go unaddressed.

A camp resident who gave her name as Amy J. said Tuesday evening that earlier in the day city workers had cleared the tent structure where she had lived for six months. She spent hours in Oakland trying to get a shelter bed, to no avail. A county worker got her a two-person tent, she said.

“It’s starting to feel like we’re not even humans anymore,” she said. “Like, man, you got a bulldozer like we’re a pile of trash.”

Jermaine Lee White and his dog stand next to their tent at the intersection of Harrison Street and Eighth Street, on Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2026. Credit: Estefany Gonzalez for Berkeleyside

City workers posted notices Friday that campers had to clear out by Tuesday. But notices like that have gone up several times in the last year, most recently on Aug. 25, only to be followed by more courtroom skirmishes and no camp closures.

The notices “make people so stressed out they don’t want to read the signs,” Jermaine Lee White, who lives on Eighth Street adjacent to a U.S. Postal Service property, told Berkeleyside Tuesday. He is one of the seven residents with whom Chen ordered Berkeley to keep working, according to court records, and his tent was still standing as of Wednesday afternoon.

Jermaine Lee White said Tuesday he’d been able to hang onto all his property so far but “it was a little iffy.”

“I stress so hard when this comes around,” he said. “I can’t cope with it.”

Amy J also said it was hard to take the city notices seriously since they are posted so frequently, and just as frequently, the city ends up not closing the camp.

“They put up notices before and they never come through,” she said. “We didn’t really take it fully seriously.”

The BHU filed motions this week to stop the sweep, but Chen refused their requests for a temporary restraining order, according to court records.

Police tape off the intersection of Harrison Street and Eighth Street on Wednesday. Credit: Estefany Gonzalez for Berkeleyside

Tags: