Park Service clears homeless encampment near White House

WASHINGTON —  National Park Service employees swept through a large homeless encampment three blocks from the White House on Wednesday, tearing down dozens of tents and warning that people who resisted would be subject to arrest.

Workers in white jumpsuits used rakes, shovels and pitchforks to clear McPherson Square, tossing the remnants of the tent city into a pair of garbage trucks.

The action was the latest development in a long-running saga involving the District of Columbia government, the Park Service and unhoused people, whose advocates claim the city hasn’t done enough to help them find safe shelter.

“There are people living here who don’t know where they’re going to sleep tonight. The entire purpose of this is to displace people and to ‘invisiblize’ and criminalize homelessness,” said Jesse Rabinowitz of Miriam’s Kitchen, one of the charitable organizations that has been working with those who have made the park their home.

The encampment in McPherson Square has grown steadily over the last year, to about 50 tents before they were removed Wednesday. Many living there said they came after encampments in other parts of downtown Washington were cleared out by the federal Park Service or the city government.

“Anytime people were forced out of somewhere else, they would see the tents here and figure it was safe for a while,” said Daniel Kingery, who has lived in the park for three years.

The majority of the estimated 70 people living in the park complied without incident, but Kingery, 61, cheerfully said authorities “would have to carry or drag [him] away.”

The Park Service, which has jurisdiction over McPherson Square and large swaths of other green space across the city, had originally announced plans to clear the square in April. But the deputy mayor for health and human services, Wayne Turnage, requested that the date be moved up by two months, saying the encampment was an imminent public health hazard.

Park Service spokesman Mike Litterst said that about two weeks’ notice had been given of the accelerated timeline.

“The district’s social service providers intensified their efforts to connect people with housing and other services,” he said.

Police sealed off the park Wednesday morning and repeatedly announced over a loudspeaker that the space would be closed down and those who refused to leave would risk arrest. As the 10 a.m. deadline approached, representatives from a coalition of charitable groups helped gather up and label people’s belongings and haul them off in a rental truck.

Representatives from Pathways to Housing, a charity that contracts with the D.C. government as a liaison to the downtown unhoused population, went tent to tent, making sure each person was aware of what was coming.

“Brandon, they are going to come here and take this down,” one worker shouted outside a closed tent. “They’re coming, you have about 10 minutes!”

Washington’s robust homeless population has long presented a quandary for Mayor Muriel Bowser’s government. The campers frequently move their tents between city and National Park Service land, taking advantage of the district’s jurisdictional complexities.

City officials say they have offered consistent outreach services and shelter for all who were willing to engage with the system. But those who live in the park dismissed the short-term shelter system as unsafe and undignified.

“The shelters are infested with mice and there’s mold on the walls. And they’re not safe,” said a woman named Umi, who declined to give her last name.

She said Bowser and Turnage “need to go sleep one night in one of these shelters and see what we experience.”

Housing activists say most of those who are unhoused would happily take part in a government program that offers vouchers for subsidized apartments. But that program has faced delays and a bottleneck due in part to staffing shortages.

“One of the things that makes this so appalling is that the city does have ample resources,” said Diane Yentel, president of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, whose office overlooks the park. “These people needed more time, and the city just moved the deadline up.”