Homeless people moved from A Place to Play park in west Santa Rosa

The last two stragglers from a disbanded homeless encampment at A Place to Play Community Park in west Santa Rosa were still stationed nearby, trying to plot their next moves, when the evening chill set in late Wednesday afternoon.

They’d been working on their exit strategies all day - since police officers came at 8 a.m. to remind them it was time to go.

But they were confounded in part by the sheer volume of their amassed belongings - easily enough in each case to require multiple pickup loads to get across town - and by law enforcement interventions that in one instance included impoundment of the very truck that was needed to make the move work.

The day had otherwise gone relatively smoothly as about 14 ?occupants packed up to move from the West Third Street park, including six who accepted shelter placement at Sonoma County’s new Los Guilicos Village and at Sam Jones Hall in southwest Santa Rosa, Police Sgt. Jonathan Wolf said.

“That’s actually a pretty high portion of them,” Wolf said. “That’s almost half.”

The others, about eight remaining people, managed to vacate the encampment site near the westernmost entrance of the 77-acre park by day’s end. But it wasn’t immediately clear what they’d chosen as the next stop in a migratory life that, after months on the Joe Rodota Trail, saw them plant their tents for 10 days off West Robles Avenue in south Santa Rosa before arriving at A Place to Play.

“We try and be patient and afford them every opportunity to take shelter,” Wolf said, “and in this case, as you can see, it was pretty successful.”

It was a small victory, given that many in the group had previously declined offers of emergency housing - most citing disabilities, often emotional or mental, that make the offered placements unsuitable, their attorney said.

On Wednesday they faced the daunting choice of where next to camp - knowing they ?likely would be moved again - and how to get there, though several friends and advocates helped people move Wednesday.

Because of confusion over different notifications alerting occupants to enforcement actions, most people in the camp had understood they were to leave by 5 p.m. Wednesday. But the deadline actually was 8 a.m., so police arrived early, quickly followed by Public Works personnel, requiring campers to move quickly from the park to the sidewalk out front even as they were still packing up.

Alicia Roman, a staff attorney with California Rural Legal Assistance, said many campers’ belongings were left behind and dumped by city personnel.

By Wednesday afternoon, a desperate shuffle played out as kids and families played near a climbing structure, dog walkers enjoyed a trail and hobbyists guided tiny speeding remote-control cars along a course adjacent to a spot where tents had stood hours earlier.

Occupants and their property were slowly moved out of the area, until only two were left.

One, Lisa Swaney, 40, had decided not to move with the group this time. But her departure was thwarted when a friend who had borrowed a truck to help people move throughout the day pulled into the West Third Street bike lane to load her belongings and was ticketed by a passing patrol officer and the truck was towed away.

The other officers, “they were thanking me, because they saw that I was helping,” the woman said as she and Swaney tried to come up with a next step.

Down West Third Street, near the eastern entrance to the park, another camper, Chris Teves, conceded he might just have to sleep on the sidewalk in front of the park.

His bikes and bedding, clothes and shelter supplies were packed onto myriad makeshift trailers that, in his best moments, he says he can pull roped together with a single bike.

But he was rattled by having been cited a few hours earlier for having his belongings in the bike lane and, police said, part-way into traffic, though he and Roman, video recording in hand, denied that was the case.

Teves, 32, said he desperately needed a meal, too.

“It takes a lot of mental strength, and physical strength, to do this,” he said.

Roman, who represents most of those who were camping at A Place to Play, said at least two of those who went to Sam Jones Hall agreed to go this time because they were finally able to secure bottom bunks, which had not previously been available but which they needed because of problems climbing to upper levels.

None of the three accepted at Los Guilicos has previously been offered a place at the temporary, tiny-home village, which includes wrap-around medical, social service and behavioral health services, Roman said.

The new county facility, which has a capacity of 60 people, was hastily established in January specifically to house people taken off the Joe Rodota Trail, which at its peak had more than 258 unsheltered people living on it in filthy, hazardous conditions that prompted the county to declare a public health and public safety emergency.

“We’re happy that those people who got placement at Los Guilicos got placement, obviously,” Roman said. “We need more spaces over there.”

You can reach Staff Writer Mary Callahan at 707-521-5249 or mary.callahan@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @MaryCallahanB.