Ohlone Park homeless camp closure underway in Berkeley
Residents saw city cleaning crews and police at the park around 7 a.m.
The city of Berkeley began removing the remaining tents from the Ohlone Park homeless encampment Wednesday morning.
Residents saw city cleaning crews and police at the park around 7 a.m. and said they were working their way west from Martin Luther King Jr. Way.
As of publication time, they had gotten to McGee Avenue, community members told The Scanner.
Last week, the city posted notices at the park announcing the planned closure after a judge gave Berkeley the green light to move forward with enforcement.
City workers close a homeless camp at Ohlone Park in Berkeley on Wednesday, July 9, 2025. (Click the images to view them larger.) Stephen Most
Neighbors had been pushing the city to close the camp for months, citing crime reports and public health violations.
Check back throughout the day for updates and ongoing coverage.
2:50 p.m. Last week, after the city announced its plans to close the encampment, the Berkeley Homeless Union rented a truck and helped some of the Ohlone Park campers move to a city-owned lot in the 1300 block of Allston Way.
One local resident told TBS the group broke open a locked gate and set up about a dozen tents on the property.
"The neighborhood is in an uproar. Many emails and calls to police," the neighbor wrote. "Vacant lot was long ago ruled a hazardous site … because of decades of pesticide/fertilizer use" by a group that previously rented the property.
"It is completely unsafe for anyone to stay there," she wrote.
Within a day or so, the group had been removed by the city, the resident said, although property belonging to campers remained on the sidewalk as of Saturday.
Homeless organizer and advocate Yesica Prado, of the Berkeley Homeless Union, spoke about the events on the group's Instagram page, saying police "just went in there and told people that they had to get out."
At that point, Prado said, she didn't know where the group would move next.
The Scanner has asked the Berkeley Homeless Union for comment and will update this story if it responds.
3:20 p.m. City spokesman Matthai Chakko told TBS, in an interview last week, that the city had posted 45 closure notices around Ohlone Park and found about six people who were still in the area.
Chakko said the city had offered campers various services, including housing, mental health services and substance abuse services, and that Berkeley Mental Health staffers had spent several days a week at Ohlone Park since April.
Staff also provided containers for needles and waste along with trash removal services, he said.
Chakko said the city had "offered a lot to try and make it better" due to conditions at the encampment, but added that, "the bottom line is it's not safe."
Chakko said staff had observed human and animal waste, loose dogs and trash in the encampment, and fielded a range of disturbance calls related to its residents.
He said tents set up near a children's playground and tot lot, and reports of defecation in the tot lot sandbox, had been of particular concern.
"The conditions at Ohlone Park are not good for anyone," he said last week.
4:45 p.m. Anthony Prince — who has been representing the Berkeley Homeless Union in court as general counsel for the California Homeless Union — said the groups plan to continue to emphasize their position that the city is exacerbating the conditions of its clients with disabilities by closing Berkeley encampments.
Prince said he believed the courts had been "swallowing a false narrative" from the city that its ADA obligations were limited to giving people more time to leave closed encampments, helping them pack, etc.
He argued that the city is making the situation worse for encampment denizens because encampments are safer than living on the street, and said the Homeless Union will continue its fight in court, with a trial date expected in the next year.
Prince also pointed to a new legal filing by Prado, interim president of the Berkeley Homeless Union, that included the city's recent notices about why the Allston Way property was off-limits — namely contamination caused by pesticides.
4:55 p.m. City spokesman Matthai Chakko provided a brief recap about Wednesday's encampment closure, noting that everyone left Ohlone Park voluntarily, and that there were no citations or arrests.
He said the city found eight people and one dog in the Ohlone encampment as of Wednesday.
By the end of the operation, the city had removed a significant amount of property from the park.
No tonnage estimates were immediately available, but Chakko said the city created 29 separate storage inventories for different parts of the park in case people wish to reclaim their stored property.
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Emilie Raguso
Emilie Raguso
Emilie Raguso
