Homeless camp cleanups walk fine line balancing compassion for campers with community's needs

In early February, a downtown Vancouver homeless camp was so quiet that the faint sounds of a man picking up scraps of trash in front of his tent carried down the block.

The arrival of city outreach workers, police and sanitation crews broke the morning quietude. Their voices, the thump of a dumpster hitting pavement and the rumble of excavators signaled the beginning of another routine encampment cleanup.

Since 2021, the city of Vancouver has conducted 240 homeless camp cleanups at a cost of $1.46 million. Distinct from camp removals, the regular cleanups manage homeless camps' waste and keep inhabitants connected to outreach workers. But people living in these camps said they lose belongings in the cleanups, and they feel caught in a cycle of recovering from one only to start preparing for the next.

"It's like this catch-22. ... It kind of keeps us in the same loop that we can't get out of," said Traci Freeman, who lives in a downtown Vancouver camp.

A costly operation

Freeman, who has been homeless off and on for about a decade, said she's noticed camp cleanups have increased dramatically. Other campers echoed her observation.

The frequency has indeed increased over the past five years, said Jamie Spinelli, Vancouver's homeless response manager. That's because the city is establishing a more active approach to managing homelessness, she said.

"Before, there wasn't a very coordinated system for it," Spinelli said.

In 2020, the city formed its Homeless Assistance and Resources Team, which has since grown from two to 11 members.

Vancouver allows campers to stay in place as long as they are not living on private property or in dangerous locations, but it manages encampments through two levels of cleanups. In addition to the ones involving heavy equipment and dumpsters, a smaller team picks up trash around camps about four times a week.

Since 2021, the city has collected about 3.8 million pounds of solid waste from camps. So far in 2026, the city has conducted 16 large-scale cleanups that collected 216,000 pounds of solid waste and cost nearly $81,000.

"All of us (who) have a home, we've got regular trash services. They do not," Spinelli said.

The city nearly exhausted its $300,000 cap less than two years into a five-year encampment cleanup contract. On Oct. 13, the Vancouver City Council increased its contract with Rapid Response Bio Clean from $300,000 to $900,000.

The city of Vancouver isn't the only jurisdiction spending big. The Washington State Department of Transportation has allocated $535,000 from 2025-2027 on camp cleanups on its property in Southwest Washington. WSDOT also has a $200,000 agreement with Vancouver to support encampment response and cleanup activities, an agency spokesperson said.

Keeping tabs

Many campers said they understand why cleanups must occur but nonetheless find them traumatic.

The Columbian spoke to 13 homeless residents who listed things they've lost. Tents. Photographs. Medication. Prescription glasses. Clothing. Sentimental knickknacks. Identification cards. Important paperwork. Cleaning supplies. Art made by their children.

"I feel like I've lost everything at this point and had to replace it. ... It really sets you back," downtown encampment resident Danyelle Brown said in January.

Residents at the downtown encampment said things have gone missing in the chaos of the cleanups, or when they step away for the breakfast that's served at the same time.

The Columbian spoke to a 46-year-old woman in January who said she was absent during a cleanup, and when she came back, her tent was gone. She figures the city crew thought it was a storage tent full of garbage. But to her, it was her home and belongings.

"Their lives are being bulldozed," said Beth Cooper, who has witnessed cleanups as a volunteer for the grassroots group Vancouver Mutual Aid. "They're having to start over again from scratch."

Spinelli said the city crews take steps to avoid throwing away campers' belongings, and that the cleanups are part of the city's engagement model.

In the days before a cleanup, outreach workers help campers separate their belongings from items they want to throw away.

Homeless camp cleanup terms explained

Cleanups: A regular cleaning of a homeless encampment to remove excess trash, biohazards and abandoned tents. Camp residents receive notice of cleaning and can usually stay where they are during cleanups.

Sweeps: A government-ordered action where officials clear a homeless encampment. Often, they require people to leave quickly without much notice.

Removal: A multistage process of removing a homeless encampment because it has health or safety concerns. In 2025, two homeless camps were decommissioned - one along Burnt Bridge Creek in central Vancouver and one alongside a soundwall in downtown Vancouver.

-Mia Ryder-Marks

"They know the difference between an abandoned tent and just a tent where the owner is probably at breakfast right now, because they know the people living in that area," Spinelli said.

During the cleanup, crews go tent by tent to remove trash, abandoned items or hazardous materials. Workers also offer campers the chance to store items.

"It's not a common occurrence for people to just lose all their stuff having no notice," Spinelli said, adding the city has twice replaced items that have mistakenly been thrown away.

When a larger-scale cleanup is needed, HART gives campers at least 24 hours' notice, Spinelli said. Campers said they've usually received a week's notice. And in camps like the one next to the Share's Men Shelter downtown, cleanups are now a weekly occurrence, so residents expect them.

This wasn't always the case, though, Spinelli said.

"There wasn't always notification. ... People could be waking up to cops saying 'Everybody's got to go,' which is just massively destabilizing," she said. "So now we have these touchpoints of operation and other forms of engagement, and doing it all legally and in a trauma-informed way. ... It's in those consistent interactions that people start to have thoughts of change."

Spinelli said she understands why cleanups can feel overwhelming and scary. Over time, cleanups will continue to balance compassion with addressing the greater community's needs, she said.

"I understand 100 percent the trauma and anxiety that goes along with them," Spinelli said. "I can imagine if you're just trying to survive day to day, this can feel like one more thing on your plate. ... Everything that we do is an attempt to actually be supportive and try to help them get to another place, a healthier place."

This story was made possible by Community Funded Journalism, a project from The Columbian and the Local Media Foundation. Top donors include the Ed and Dollie Lynch Fund, Patricia, David and Jacob Nierenberg, Connie and Lee Kearney, Steve and Jan Oliva, The Cowlitz Tribal Foundation and the Mason E. Nolan Charitable Fund. The Columbian controls all content. For more information, visit columbian.com/cfj.

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This story was originally published April 25, 2026 at 7:10 AM.