Over the weekend, volunteers and the Modesto Police Department helped remove homeless individuals from caverns near the Tuolumne River in California.
According to officials, volunteers from Operation 9-2-99 and the Tuolumne River Trust collaborated with police to clean the area, eliminating three tons of trash.
This specific region has been severely affected by homeless people, vagrants, and unauthorized settlements, which have caused concern because these camps turned out to be caverns dug into the riverbanks, according to the Modesto Police Department.
The agency said they alerted the homeless camps and cave dwellers about the clean-up and available resources before the cleaning. According to the police, a trailer and two trucks were loaded with the removed debris.
Some of the caves were completely furnished, suggesting that they had been home to vagrants for a while and were located 20 feet below the street. The local news station said that guns and narcotics were among the items discovered inside, along with bedding, personal belongings, decor, and food.
Considering how difficult it was to get everything out, Operation 2-9-99 organizer Chris Guptill told local media that they couldn’t understand how they managed to get so much material down there.
The cleaning was a group effort, and Guptill was only one of many volunteers. He said that his team discovered eight caverns and that they had been inhabited before. According to Guptill, there is currently no recognized remedy for dealing with the matter.
California is facing an increasing problem with homelessness.
In Los Angeles, up to 6,000 volunteers have just started to tally the homeless.
A homeless epidemic has plagued the city, with a multitude of thousands of individuals living on the streets, in automobiles, tents, and improvised shelters. The street tally aids the county government’s attempts to handle this issue. Sidewalks, parks, and other public spaces are already teeming with these makeshift dwellings.
The count is an attempt to get a rough idea of the number of homeless persons and the resources they may need to deal with issues like opioid addiction and mental illness.
The number of people experiencing homelessness has risen by 80% in the city and 70% in the County since 2015.
