The first block of Phoenix's 'The Zone' has been cleared. Here's what happened and what's ahead

After more than five hours of breaking down tents, shuttling people to shelters and scooping up an entire street full of trash and debris, the first block of Phoenix’s largest homeless encampment has been cleared.

The encampment, known as “The Zone,” is home to between 600 and 900 people on any given night and has been the center of intense scrutiny, legal action and media attention in recent months. The cleanup comes after a judge ordered the city in March to remove tents from the area.

Wednesday’s cleanup was isolated to just one block of Ninth Avenue between Washington and Jefferson streets and began about 7 a.m., though outreach workers had already begun connecting people with services days ahead of time.

Moment by moment: Updates from 'The Zone': Phoenix clears, cleans first block of homeless encampment

The process went like this: Outreach workers helped residents dismantle their dwellings and sort their belongings by what they would take with them, what they would keep in storage and what was OK to throw out. After they were packed, residents who accepted services were then taken to their shelter placement. Once the street was clear, workers, front loaders and garbage trucks arrived to remove the remaining mountains of debris and discarded property as officials, outreach workers and a sizable gaggle of reporters looked on.

At the end of the day, no property had been left unclaimed, said Phoenix spokesperson Kristin Couturier — save for an abandoned cat that city workers appeared to be trying to place in a new home.

By about noon on Wednesday, 33 of the 40 people on the block were placed in shelters, Couturier said. City officials and nonprofit workers agreed it was, by that measure, a massive success.

But residents of the block had more mixed feelings. For some, the cleanup was a welcome opportunity to improve their living situation and get off the street. For others, it was a jarring and overwhelming displacement from their only home.

Several of the people who chose not to accept shelter simply relocated to another block of The Zone, potentially kicking off a game of cat and mouse as the city prepares to empty blocks of the encampment one by one.

Phoenix is disbanding the encampment following a court order that, as of now, requires the city to make meaningful progress on clearing out the area by mid-July.

Moving forward, the city plans to clean up and close off a new block of the encampment every two weeks, though the date and precise location of the next cleanup have not yet been determined, said Scott Hall, deputy director of Phoenix’s Office of Homeless Solutions. Once a block is cleared, people are no longer able to camp there. If they do, they risk being cited or arrested.

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As the sun set on Wednesday, a Phoenix police truck sat parked on the block, and cautionary signs were affixed to palms, poles and fences.

"This area is closed to camping to abate a public nuisance," read the signs, which directed people in need of shelter or services to the Human Services Campus, a collective of homelessness nonprofits that sits at the center of The Zone.

'It's gonna work out': Some residents relocate

For Barry Hayes and Daniel Mackey, the plan to get into a shelter nearly failed.

The friends had been living in tents on Ninth Avenue for three months when they learned a few weeks ago that the block would be cleared.

They were skeptical of shelters. They had gone to them before, and the crowded and restrictive environment wasn’t for them. But on May 9, they agreed to give it another try. With the help of city and nonprofit outreach workers, they left their tent in exchange for spots at a city-owned shelter on Washington Street.

“We lasted about a half-hour. We had to get out of there,” said Hayes, 67.

He and Mackey, 62, were back in their tent shortly after.

So when Wednesday’s cleanup crew arrived, the duo resolved they would either move into a hotel room if offered one or find another spot to set up camp in The Zone.

But, ultimately, they decided to give a different shelter a try. They were taken to a transitional men's shelter run by Community Bridges Inc. Mackey said it was smaller, more "mellow" than the one on Washington Street — in his view, a much better fit.

“It’s gonna work out, I think," Mackey said in a phone call from the shelter on Wednesday afternoon. "I have high hopes for this.”

Other residents of the block were taken to the Central Arizona Shelter Services facility near The Zone, the shelter on Washington Street and elsewhere.

Hall, from the Office of Homeless Solutions, said the reception Wednesday was largely positive.

“I’ve had a lot of people come up, pat me on the back and say, ‘Thank you,’” Hall said. “A lot of people are going to be laying their head on a pillow indoors tonight" rather than on the street.

'It's not gonna work': Other residents resist shelter

Not everyone had such a success story.

Several people living on the block Wednesday morning didn’t accept services and simply retreated to a different part of The Zone.

Antoin “Applejacks” Jackson woke up early to move his belongings from the area with his dog, Ruckus.

By 8 a.m., he was already setting up camp on a street corner three blocks away, deeper into the encampment.

“It’s not gonna work,” he said of the city’s relocation effort, adding that he feels a more cohesive plan is needed.

Outreach workers will continue trying to engage the people on the block who opted not to go to a shelter, said Amy Schwabenlender, CEO of the Human Services Campus.

"I don't think we can just force people and say, 'This is your only choice,'" Schwabenlender said. "We know large congregate shelters don't work for everybody. What are the other options?"

Eric Solomon, who lives in a tent a street over from the Ninth Avenue block that was cleaned Wednesday, said he doesn't expect that the people who accepted shelter would stay there. Congregate shelters can be dangerous places. Fights break out, he said, and other people steal your things. It’s a hard sell, he said.

How we got here and what's ahead

The court order to break up The Zone is part of a lawsuit, Brown v. City of Phoenix, that nearby business and property owners filed against the city in August, claiming the encampment is a public nuisance that has led to violence, property damage and more. A trial for the lawsuit was scheduled for July 10.

In the meantime, the city plans to appeal the court order dictating that it clear tents out of The Zone. If the appeal is successful, it would lift the demand for the city to demonstrate significant progress on the encampment’s cleanup by the trial date.

Either way, the city still plans to move forward with clearing out the encampment block by block while offering residents shelter and services, said Couturier, the Phoenix spokesperson.

Miguel Samaniego, the owner of a tattoo shop near the block that was cleared, said he had little hope that Wednesday's cleanup would have any kind of impact. There’s still much more of The Zone left to go, he said.

People will come back to the street, Samaniego said.

Juliette Rihl covers housing insecurity and homelessness for The Arizona Republic. She can be reached at jrihl@arizonarepublic.com or on Twitter @julietterihl.

Reach crime reporter Miguel Torres at Miguel.Torres@arizonarepublic.com or on Twitter @TheMiguelTorres.

Coverage of housing insecurity on azcentral.com and in The Arizona Republic is supported by a grant from the Arizona Community Foundation.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Phoenix cleared the first block of 'The Zone' homeless encampment