BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KERO) \u2014 For some in the homeless community, the railroad corridor has become a place to stay; however, authorities say it\u2019s illegal to camp here.<\/p>\n
Officer Curtis Kniffen is a part of the BPD Street Impact Team, and he says, \u201cWe\u2019re essentially enforcing trespassing on railroad property, specifically targeting large encampments that have built up and kind of gotten out of control.\u201d<\/p>\n
Officers say these operations focus on public safety, citing concerns about active train traffic, fire risks, and unsanitary conditions. During cleanups, police say individuals are given notice and offered support from local resources like Flood Ministries, Be Finally Free, and Kern Behavioral Health, while crews document and remove property left behind.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome people really do want help and are just down on their luck. Others that I\u2019ve talked to, I\u2019ve been doing this for about a year and a half now, some people just enjoy living on the street. They don\u2019t mind the weather. They don\u2019t mind living day to day,\u201d Officer Kniffen said. <\/p>\n
That\u2019s why officers say they\u2019ll continue to respond to community requests in this area as they work to prevent encampments from returning.<\/p>\n
But the bigger question remains, where do those displaced go?<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t want to just leave them high and dry and say, \u2018Hey, go somewhere else.\u2019 That\u2019s why we offer services. We offer outlets and alternatives to help benefit them in any way we can,\u201d Officer Kniffen said. <\/p>\n
Stay in Touch with Us Anytime, Anywhere:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KERO) \u2014 For some in the homeless community, the railroad corridor has become a place to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":180813,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[151,155,153,152,156,7375,20475,1827,179,85744,2903,83315],"class_list":["post-180812","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bakersfield","tag-bakersfield","tag-bakersfield-downtown","tag-bakersfield-headlines","tag-bakersfield-news","tag-bpd","tag-camp","tag-clean","tag-cleanup","tag-community","tag-displaced","tag-encampment","tag-homless"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180812","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=180812"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180812\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/180813"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=180812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=180812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=180812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}