Vallejo sues White Slough landowners to remove encampments

VALLEJO – The city of Vallejo filed lawsuits against two private property owners in the White Slough area on Thursday seeking a court order for the landowners to remove encampments and fence the properties to prevent homeless persons from reestablishing the camps.

The properties are alongside waterways that flow into White Slough and include portions of reclaimed wetland areas. The San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board has been urging the city to address pollution from encampments in the White Slough area for over a year.

The lawsuits state that “defendants have failed to properly secure the properties and as a consequence have allowed unhoused individuals to camp on the properties in a place that can be viewed from the public right-of-way and in such a manner as to constitute a public nuisance.”

The lawsuits are the latest example of the city targeting private property owners to remove homeless people living there. But the city has been largely unable to clear homeless camps on public property because it lacks enough shelter space to accommodate all the unhoused people in Vallejo. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision in Martin v. Boise prevents cities and counties from removing individuals from public property if there are no shelter beds available.

One of the lawsuits filed by the city is against Robert Chiang, the owner of two parcels behind Carl’s Jr. and Smart and Final on Sonoma Boulevard. The parcels are accessed from the end of Sereno Drive, where a stormwater drain  flows from under the street into White Slough.

Two weeks ago the city towed a trailer and an RV from the end of Sereno Drive, leaving a family of six without shelter. The RV and the Trailer were part of a small encampment that is on both city and private property.

According to the lawsuit, Chiang was responding to the city’s request to address code violations on the property but claimed that his access route was blocked by the encampment at the end of Sereno Drive. The family’s RV and trailer were parked at the end of the street but they moved them to allow access to the properties at the city’s request. The city still chose to tow the family’s vehicles after they had moved.

In the lawsuit, the city claims that Chiang did perform some abatement and removed overgrown vegetation but did not remove the encampments or repair the fencing to secure the property.

The second lawsuit is against property owner Guadalupe Mendez regarding a property that is largely covered by water but includes the shoreline of the Chiang properties. It also includes the majority of a narrow spit created by fill that extends almost completely across a portion of the slough except for a small gap where tidal waters flow in and out. According to the lawsuit, the city has received complaints about people camping on the property as far back as 2006.

The land is accessed through Sacramento and Redwood streets by a dirt road that runs along Austin Creek to the San Francisco Bay Trail bike path at Highway 37. Although this encampment can be seen in the distance across the water from Sonoma Boulevard, it is fairly isolated because the spit is surrounded on three sides by the slough and then there is open space around Austin Creek to the southeast.

The suit states that the city issued a code violation notice for the accumulation of debris and for allowing camping in public view to the owner of the property in November 2022. The owner at the time, a company called Revolting Developments, proposed building small housing units for the people camping on the land. The city paused the code enforcement proceedings to consider the landowner’s proposal but determined that the location was not suitable for such a project.

Revolting Developments then sold the property to the current owner.

The spit currently has several small homes and shelters that members of the encampment have built from construction scraps and other recycled materials. One of the residents on the spit, Chat Alberto, built a tiny home that has three levels, a storage area on the ground floor and then two small rooms for living quarters on the top floors.

Alberto said that many members of the camp are working people who hold down full time jobs while others work collecting recycling or they bring money in by panhandling for donations.

“People out here have different levels of ability in terms of caring for themselves and others,” Alberto said. “But nobody ever goes without food because we look out for each other.”

Members of the camp cook regular meals to share with everybody, he said. “People take turns buying groceries, there is no regular order to it but we all pitch in and it works out,” he said.

“If we are forced to leave, everyone will just have to move to whatever area is vacant,” Alberto said. “It’s been like this for the past 15 years, there is no place for us, so people just go in circles moving from one place to another until we get kicked out again and then again until we are back at the same spot. It’s not a solution and nothing is accomplished other than making us start over again and again.”

Fresh drinking water can be a challenge on the spit because of its distance from the nearest grocery store. One man rigged a trailer for his bicycle that is just big enough to fit two five-gallon water jugs that he tows over the bumpy road to the camp.

In emails to the city, the water board expressed concerns about pollution such as trash and human waste getting into the water. Keith Lichten, the agency’s watershed division manager, said that trash in waterways can endanger wildlife and untreated human waste is not only a public health hazard it can also increase nitrogen levels that cause harmful algae blooms.

There are businesses nearby like the My Office Bar that occasionally allow campers to use their restroom but all of the options are at least a ten minute walk away. Alberto said that a portable restroom and regular trash service is badly needed at the encampment.

“Not everybody can manage their trash but a regular trash pick up would give those of us who do clean up a place to put it so it could be hauled away,” Alberto said.

But it is not always peaceful at the camp, one of the camp’s members was shot and killed about two weeks ago, according to Alberto. Police said that a male victim was pulled from the water near the 2200 block of Sacramento Street and pronounced dead when paramedics arrived.

Alberto said that the regulars at the encampment are respectful of each other. “We don’t have gangs or anything like that but sometimes outsiders do come through and try to intimidate."