Forty-eight homeless camps are gone, along with truckloads of garbage, needles, human waste, mattresses and more. A half-dozen members of the Medford Police Department Livability Team — with help from the city parks department and private contractors — spent most of Thursday clearing homeless camps from beneath the Interstate 5 viaduct and along Bear Creek from Hawthorne Park to the Ninth Street Bridge. When the team converged on the park just after 6 a.m., Medford police Sgt. Jason Antley told the crews to be reasonable and to show empathy for the campers while helping find alternatives to illegal camping.

Illegal campsites have been drastically increasing in city parks and along the Bear Creek Greenway over the past year, bringing a spike in calls for police service for everything from crime and domestic disputes to drug overdoses. Complaints and safety concerns raised by vendors at the Rogue Valley Growers and Crafters Market, which sets up shop in Hawthorne Park on Thursdays, prompted police to start the day’s cleanup efforts closer to the park. Officers began nudging the sides of tents around 6:30 a.m., using an app on their phones used to keep track of campsites where 72-hour notices had been posted Monday. Some campers had cleared out before the cleanup crew arrived, but tents, belongings and trash remained. The people still on-site Thursday morning included some who were elderly and sick, as well as a few younger adults who seemed indifferent to the order to move along. “We drop a pin (on the app) where each camp is, and we name the person that we contacted at the camp. If there’s nobody at the camp, we list that it was vacant, and we leave a big, orange 72-hour posting,” Antley said. The sergeant said he drove a van filled with social service agency representatives out on Tuesday and Wednesday. The van was vandalized while the group made contact with campers.

Officers spent much of Thursday taking down tents, offering bags to collect belongings and sorting what was left behind for storage. By law, police are required to store the items for at least 30 days. “When officers first make contact, we ask them do they want their stuff packed up or can the remaining contents be presumed trash. They’re welcome to pack this whole thing up. We’ll even help them. These tents, they give these away at several places around town,” he said.

Around 6:30 a.m., as market vendors were setting up organic produce, plants and jars of honey, camper John Olson was greeted by Livability Team members. Many of Olson’s belongings were already packed, and he was sleeping in a friend’s tent. The friend, whose name was not available, was arrested for a handful of violations, including a warrant. Olson and his 17-year-old dog, Angel, have lived on the streets together for two years, he said. “I went into detox, and they threw me back on the street. I’m trying to get into residency, but I’ve been waiting for months, maybe even a year at this point. My wife is in rehab. I’m trying to get into rehab, too. It’s sad to think, ‘How many people have died waiting for rehab?’ Somebody died in the parking lot a few days ago, in their motorhome,” Olson said.

“Before this last time, I had been sober 23 years. I broke my back. I’ve had six surgeries and a lot of medical issues. I get $800 a month disability — where can I live for $800?” A few feet from Olson’s camping spot, a small, blue popup tent appeared to be untouched. Antley said the tent had shown up after the 72-hour notices had been posted, so it would be left untouched. Another nearby tent, a small gray one, had been used as a “restroom tent” and was full of human waste. “When we deal with this, we’re gonna pop the poles, fold it up and lift it into the dumpster,” said Antley, tugging on one of his blue gloves. Grass beneath the tent had started to die. Parks employees made notes of areas that would need new sod. When it comes to personal belongings, Antley said, officers make an effort not to throw anything away that might be important to whoever left it.

“Even if they say we can throw it all out, we still look through it in case there’s something that might be meaningful.” As the team approached the Greenway, an elderly woman yelled at officers and rolled back under her blankets after being told to pack up and go. “This particular gal we have dealt with a lot. She’s in such bad shape today, I didn’t even recognize her. No family. Refuses services,” noted Antley. As it turned out, the woman was unable to rise to her feet and had to be transported to the hospital by Mercy Flights.

“I think there are a couple components at play — the substance abuse, which she definitely has, but also the mental health issues. Some of these folks have been horrendously abused as kids, horrendously abused by boyfriends, girlfriends, husbands, wives, whatever. And they’ve developed very antisocial coping mechanisms to deal with that.” “The World According to Antley,” the sergeant joked. “I’ve got 20 years of clinical field experience. I may not have gone to school, but I’ve seen it.” A handful of arrests were made during the cleanup, primarily for warrants and theft. Officer Elliott Jantzer met with a man who said he had become homeless recently. The man said he had been on opiates most of his life, been clean for a while, but relapsed after some hard life events he “just couldn’t get past.”

The man declined to give his name and left the park for his daily check-in at The Arc. Jantzer secured a spot for the man at the Rogue Retreat campground off Biddle — now called Rogue Retreat Crossings — and said he felt hopeful that the man was willing to accept help. “I think it’s hard to know what to do. A lot of the people who are out here, they don’t really want services. They don’t want our help. We’ve been doing this for a few years now. They know the services. Most of these people, if you ask them, ‘Do you know this place?’ they say, ‘Well, I don’t like it.’ Then it gets tricky, because what are we supposed to do if they’re going to continue to do the same behaviors?” Jantzer said.

“I don’t know how society is going to solve that … not with the current tools they’ve given us.” Jantzer said he encountered a young woman on the Greenway this week who refused services. “I saw her tagging a light post, and I was like, ‘What do you need? Tell me what you need.’ I said, ‘I can get you into a place tonight. Just say you want that.’ And she wouldn’t say yes. And that’s so hard, because I don’t want her to be out here where she’s risking getting raped or abused or assaulted. … There are some scary people out here — and she wouldn’t say yes to help.” Michael Akers, who said he has been homeless for two years, carefully swept up some debris and campsite trash while officers and parks employees worked on nearby campsites. Akers said he moved to Medford from Ohio for a job that didn’t pan out.

“When I moved here, I wasn’t homeless. I was out on a mountainside past Phoenix and Talent with my sister. I came from Ohio because I was told there was work out here for me. Turned out, everything I was told didn’t really happen like it was supposed to,” said Akers, noting that being homeless in Medford was a double-edged sword. “This town is way different than any place I’ve ever been in in my life. It’s good in the way that I’ve been able to live for two years without one dollar to my name … and bad in the fact there’s so much hate and distrust from the housed community. It’s hard when a few homeless are causing problems and messing it up for everybody.” By day’s end, Antley said the cleanup crew had removed more than 30 yards of trash from the park and evicted more than four-dozen campers. Before the cleanup was over, a handful of new tents were already being set up.

The Livability Team runs these cleanups regularly. Other areas on the schedule include a field near Spencer and Mayette streets dubbed “Paradise,” a creekside area opposite of Paradise, a wooded area at Bear Creek Park (between the dog park and BMX track), along the Greenway north of Jackson Street, and a huge encampment behind the urban campground on Biddle Road. Antley said he felt good about the work being done for the community — both housed and unhoused. “No doubt, I believe we are making a difference. Enforcing prohibited camping and doing camp cleanup is only one facet of what we do,” he said. “It’s a lot bigger than that. And having the support of our community is very encouraging.”

Forty-eight homeless camps are gone, along with truckloads of garbage, needles, human waste, mattresses and more. A half-dozen members of the Medford Police Department Livability Team — with help from the city parks department and private contractors — spent most of Thursday clearing homeless camps from beneath the Interstate 5 viaduct and along Bear Creek from Hawthorne Park to the Ninth Street Bridge. When the team converged on the park just after 6 a.m., Medford police Sgt. Jason Antley told the crews to be reasonable and to show empathy for the campers while helping find alternatives to illegal camping.

Illegal campsites have been drastically increasing in city parks and along the Bear Creek Greenway over the past year, bringing a spike in calls for police service for everything from crime and domestic disputes to drug overdoses. Complaints and safety concerns raised by vendors at the Rogue Valley Growers and Crafters Market, which sets up shop in Hawthorne Park on Thursdays, prompted police to start the day’s cleanup efforts closer to the park. Officers began nudging the sides of tents around 6:30 a.m., using an app on their phones used to keep track of campsites where 72-hour notices had been posted Monday. Some campers had cleared out before the cleanup crew arrived, but tents, belongings and trash remained. The people still on-site Thursday morning included some who were elderly and sick, as well as a few younger adults who seemed indifferent to the order to move along. “We drop a pin (on the app) where each camp is, and we name the person that we contacted at the camp. If there’s nobody at the camp, we list that it was vacant, and we leave a big, orange 72-hour posting,” Antley said. The sergeant said he drove a van filled with social service agency representatives out on Tuesday and Wednesday. The van was vandalized while the group made contact with campers.

Officers spent much of Thursday taking down tents, offering bags to collect belongings and sorting what was left behind for storage. By law, police are required to store the items for at least 30 days. “When officers first make contact, we ask them do they want their stuff packed up or can the remaining contents be presumed trash. They’re welcome to pack this whole thing up. We’ll even help them. These tents, they give these away at several places around town,” he said.

Around 6:30 a.m., as market vendors were setting up organic produce, plants and jars of honey, camper John Olson was greeted by Livability Team members. Many of Olson’s belongings were already packed, and he was sleeping in a friend’s tent. The friend, whose name was not available, was arrested for a handful of violations, including a warrant. Olson and his 17-year-old dog, Angel, have lived on the streets together for two years, he said. “I went into detox, and they threw me back on the street. I’m trying to get into residency, but I’ve been waiting for months, maybe even a year at this point. My wife is in rehab. I’m trying to get into rehab, too. It’s sad to think, ‘How many people have died waiting for rehab?’ Somebody died in the parking lot a few days ago, in their motorhome,” Olson said.

“Before this last time, I had been sober 23 years. I broke my back. I’ve had six surgeries and a lot of medical issues. I get $800 a month disability — where can I live for $800?” A few feet from Olson’s camping spot, a small, blue popup tent appeared to be untouched. Antley said the tent had shown up after the 72-hour notices had been posted, so it would be left untouched. Another nearby tent, a small gray one, had been used as a “restroom tent” and was full of human waste. “When we deal with this, we’re gonna pop the poles, fold it up and lift it into the dumpster,” said Antley, tugging on one of his blue gloves. Grass beneath the tent had started to die. Parks employees made notes of areas that would need new sod. When it comes to personal belongings, Antley said, officers make an effort not to throw anything away that might be important to whoever left it.

“Even if they say we can throw it all out, we still look through it in case there’s something that might be meaningful.” As the team approached the Greenway, an elderly woman yelled at officers and rolled back under her blankets after being told to pack up and go. “This particular gal we have dealt with a lot. She’s in such bad shape today, I didn’t even recognize her. No family. Refuses services,” noted Antley. As it turned out, the woman was unable to rise to her feet and had to be transported to the hospital by Mercy Flights.

“I think there are a couple components at play — the substance abuse, which she definitely has, but also the mental health issues. Some of these folks have been horrendously abused as kids, horrendously abused by boyfriends, girlfriends, husbands, wives, whatever. And they’ve developed very antisocial coping mechanisms to deal with that.” “The World According to Antley,” the sergeant joked. “I’ve got 20 years of clinical field experience. I may not have gone to school, but I’ve seen it.” A handful of arrests were made during the cleanup, primarily for warrants and theft. Officer Elliott Jantzer met with a man who said he had become homeless recently. The man said he had been on opiates most of his life, been clean for a while, but relapsed after some hard life events he “just couldn’t get past.”

The man declined to give his name and left the park for his daily check-in at The Arc. Jantzer secured a spot for the man at the Rogue Retreat campground off Biddle — now called Rogue Retreat Crossings — and said he felt hopeful that the man was willing to accept help. “I think it’s hard to know what to do. A lot of the people who are out here, they don’t really want services. They don’t want our help. We’ve been doing this for a few years now. They know the services. Most of these people, if you ask them, ‘Do you know this place?’ they say, ‘Well, I don’t like it.’ Then it gets tricky, because what are we supposed to do if they’re going to continue to do the same behaviors?” Jantzer said.

“I don’t know how society is going to solve that … not with the current tools they’ve given us.” Jantzer said he encountered a young woman on the Greenway this week who refused services. “I saw her tagging a light post, and I was like, ‘What do you need? Tell me what you need.’ I said, ‘I can get you into a place tonight. Just say you want that.’ And she wouldn’t say yes. And that’s so hard, because I don’t want her to be out here where she’s risking getting raped or abused or assaulted. … There are some scary people out here — and she wouldn’t say yes to help.” Michael Akers, who said he has been homeless for two years, carefully swept up some debris and campsite trash while officers and parks employees worked on nearby campsites. Akers said he moved to Medford from Ohio for a job that didn’t pan out.

“When I moved here, I wasn’t homeless. I was out on a mountainside past Phoenix and Talent with my sister. I came from Ohio because I was told there was work out here for me. Turned out, everything I was told didn’t really happen like it was supposed to,” said Akers, noting that being homeless in Medford was a double-edged sword. “This town is way different than any place I’ve ever been in in my life. It’s good in the way that I’ve been able to live for two years without one dollar to my name … and bad in the fact there’s so much hate and distrust from the housed community. It’s hard when a few homeless are causing problems and messing it up for everybody.” By day’s end, Antley said the cleanup crew had removed more than 30 yards of trash from the park and evicted more than four-dozen campers. Before the cleanup was over, a handful of new tents were already being set up.

The Livability Team runs these cleanups regularly. Other areas on the schedule include a field near Spencer and Mayette streets dubbed “Paradise,” a creekside area opposite of Paradise, a wooded area at Bear Creek Park (between the dog park and BMX track), along the Greenway north of Jackson Street, and a huge encampment behind the urban campground on Biddle Road. Antley said he felt good about the work being done for the community — both housed and unhoused. “No doubt, I believe we are making a difference. Enforcing prohibited camping and doing camp cleanup is only one facet of what we do,” he said. “It’s a lot bigger than that. And having the support of our community is very encouraging.”

Forty-eight homeless camps are gone, along with truckloads of garbage, needles, human waste, mattresses and more.

A half-dozen members of the Medford Police Department Livability Team — with help from the city parks department and private contractors — spent most of Thursday clearing homeless camps from beneath the Interstate 5 viaduct and along Bear Creek from Hawthorne Park to the Ninth Street Bridge.

When the team converged on the park just after 6 a.m., Medford police Sgt. Jason Antley told the crews to be reasonable and to show empathy for the campers while helping find alternatives to illegal camping.

Illegal campsites have been drastically increasing in city parks and along the Bear Creek Greenway over the past year, bringing a spike in calls for police service for everything from crime and domestic disputes to drug overdoses. Complaints and safety concerns raised by vendors at the Rogue Valley Growers and Crafters Market, which sets up shop in Hawthorne Park on Thursdays, prompted police to start the day’s cleanup efforts closer to the park.

Officers began nudging the sides of tents around 6:30 a.m., using an app on their phones used to keep track of campsites where 72-hour notices had been posted Monday. Some campers had cleared out before the cleanup crew arrived, but tents, belongings and trash remained. The people still on-site Thursday morning included some who were elderly and sick, as well as a few younger adults who seemed indifferent to the order to move along.

“We drop a pin (on the app) where each camp is, and we name the person that we contacted at the camp. If there’s nobody at the camp, we list that it was vacant, and we leave a big, orange 72-hour posting,” Antley said. The sergeant said he drove a van filled with social service agency representatives out on Tuesday and Wednesday. The van was vandalized while the group made contact with campers.

Officers spent much of Thursday taking down tents, offering bags to collect belongings and sorting what was left behind for storage. By law, police are required to store the items for at least 30 days.

“When officers first make contact, we ask them do they want their stuff packed up or can the remaining contents be presumed trash. They’re welcome to pack this whole thing up. We’ll even help them. These tents, they give these away at several places around town,” he said.

Around 6:30 a.m., as market vendors were setting up organic produce, plants and jars of honey, camper John Olson was greeted by Livability Team members. Many of Olson’s belongings were already packed, and he was sleeping in a friend’s tent. The friend, whose name was not available, was arrested for a handful of violations, including a warrant. Olson and his 17-year-old dog, Angel, have lived on the streets together for two years, he said.

“I went into detox, and they threw me back on the street. I’m trying to get into residency, but I’ve been waiting for months, maybe even a year at this point. My wife is in rehab. I’m trying to get into rehab, too. It’s sad to think, ‘How many people have died waiting for rehab?’ Somebody died in the parking lot a few days ago, in their motorhome,” Olson said.

“Before this last time, I had been sober 23 years. I broke my back. I’ve had six surgeries and a lot of medical issues. I get $800 a month disability — where can I live for $800?”

A few feet from Olson’s camping spot, a small, blue popup tent appeared to be untouched. Antley said the tent had shown up after the 72-hour notices had been posted, so it would be left untouched. Another nearby tent, a small gray one, had been used as a “restroom tent” and was full of human waste.

“When we deal with this, we’re gonna pop the poles, fold it up and lift it into the dumpster,” said Antley, tugging on one of his blue gloves. Grass beneath the tent had started to die. Parks employees made notes of areas that would need new sod.

When it comes to personal belongings, Antley said, officers make an effort not to throw anything away that might be important to whoever left it.

“Even if they say we can throw it all out, we still look through it in case there’s something that might be meaningful.”

As the team approached the Greenway, an elderly woman yelled at officers and rolled back under her blankets after being told to pack up and go.

“This particular gal we have dealt with a lot. She’s in such bad shape today, I didn’t even recognize her. No family. Refuses services,” noted Antley.

As it turned out, the woman was unable to rise to her feet and had to be transported to the hospital by Mercy Flights.

“I think there are a couple components at play — the substance abuse, which she definitely has, but also the mental health issues. Some of these folks have been horrendously abused as kids, horrendously abused by boyfriends, girlfriends, husbands, wives, whatever. And they’ve developed very antisocial coping mechanisms to deal with that.”

“The World According to Antley,” the sergeant joked. “I’ve got 20 years of clinical field experience. I may not have gone to school, but I’ve seen it.”

A handful of arrests were made during the cleanup, primarily for warrants and theft. Officer Elliott Jantzer met with a man who said he had become homeless recently. The man said he had been on opiates most of his life, been clean for a while, but relapsed after some hard life events he “just couldn’t get past.”

The man declined to give his name and left the park for his daily check-in at The Arc. Jantzer secured a spot for the man at the Rogue Retreat campground off Biddle — now called Rogue Retreat Crossings — and said he felt hopeful that the man was willing to accept help.

“I think it’s hard to know what to do. A lot of the people who are out here, they don’t really want services. They don’t want our help. We’ve been doing this for a few years now. They know the services. Most of these people, if you ask them, ‘Do you know this place?’ they say, ‘Well, I don’t like it.’ Then it gets tricky, because what are we supposed to do if they’re going to continue to do the same behaviors?” Jantzer said.

“I don’t know how society is going to solve that … not with the current tools they’ve given us.”

Jantzer said he encountered a young woman on the Greenway this week who refused services.

“I saw her tagging a light post, and I was like, ‘What do you need? Tell me what you need.’ I said, ‘I can get you into a place tonight. Just say you want that.’ And she wouldn’t say yes. And that’s so hard, because I don’t want her to be out here where she’s risking getting raped or abused or assaulted. … There are some scary people out here — and she wouldn’t say yes to help.”

Michael Akers, who said he has been homeless for two years, carefully swept up some debris and campsite trash while officers and parks employees worked on nearby campsites. Akers said he moved to Medford from Ohio for a job that didn’t pan out.

“When I moved here, I wasn’t homeless. I was out on a mountainside past Phoenix and Talent with my sister. I came from Ohio because I was told there was work out here for me. Turned out, everything I was told didn’t really happen like it was supposed to,” said Akers, noting that being homeless in Medford was a double-edged sword.

“This town is way different than any place I’ve ever been in in my life. It’s good in the way that I’ve been able to live for two years without one dollar to my name … and bad in the fact there’s so much hate and distrust from the housed community. It’s hard when a few homeless are causing problems and messing it up for everybody.”

By day’s end, Antley said the cleanup crew had removed more than 30 yards of trash from the park and evicted more than four-dozen campers. Before the cleanup was over, a handful of new tents were already being set up.

The Livability Team runs these cleanups regularly. Other areas on the schedule include a field near Spencer and Mayette streets dubbed “Paradise,” a creekside area opposite of Paradise, a wooded area at Bear Creek Park (between the dog park and BMX track), along the Greenway north of Jackson Street, and a huge encampment behind the urban campground on Biddle Road.

Antley said he felt good about the work being done for the community — both housed and unhoused.

“No doubt, I believe we are making a difference. Enforcing prohibited camping and doing camp cleanup is only one facet of what we do,” he said.

“It’s a lot bigger than that. And having the support of our community is very encouraging.”