Illegal camps along I-10 creating safety concerns

Illegal camps along a stretch of I-10 in Indio is creating some safety concerns for Caltrans and other agencies. This comes after a small brush fire Monday broke out near the Golf Center Parkway exit in which firefighters determined was likely caused by homeless activity.

Caltrans crews and the California Highway Patrol surveyed the area Wednesday and explained the dangers of the encampment’s location to News Channel Three’s/CBS Local 2’s Jeremy Chen. At least two abandoned campsites were found at the time. Terri Kasinga, public information officer for Caltrans District 8, said the camps were illegal as they were on state property along the freeway and a likely health hazard.

“The homeless have some hazmat issues with waste and maybe drug paraphernalia…rotting food, that type of thing,” she said.

Dealing with these camps is nothing new for Caltrans as they have posted 72-hour eviction notices in the past. Kasinga said once a site was clear of people, hazmat crews may have to come in if there is human waste present before landscapers could raze the campground, which can add up in costs.

“Last year we had an excess land incident with several homeless encampments, and it cost about half a million dollars to remove all the trees and the debris, the material that was left behind,” Kasinga said.
Officer Mike Radford with CHP said the location of the camps created situations where people would try to cross the freeway in which they could be seriously injured or even killed.

“Any fatal collision is a tragedy and we want to avoid those as much as possible so we need to keep these individuals away from the roadway,” he said.

Tom Cox, program director for the Coachella Valley Rescue Mission, said, while there were campers that left and sought services, many of the current campers chose to stay there. He said those campers usually declined to seek help for a variety of reasons. “Some of them just don’t do well around others and so they like to go out and isolate away from other people,” Cox said.

He said his organization was still open to helping these people if they did decide to get assistance.
“We will still provide food or clothing, water,” Cox said. “We don’t want to embed them or enable them to be out there so we won’t give them sleeping bags, pillow and tents.”

Kasinga said Caltrans would be working with various agencies and homeless advocacy groups such as the Rescue Mission on a path forward in dealing with the camps in the best way possible.

“It may be something in the future that may be a trend towards something new that we can do to be a tiny part of the solution,” she said.