SAN DIEGO — Ahead of Tuesday's play-off game, city crews undertook a wide-scale sweep of public streets and sidewalks surrounding the stadium where dozens of homeless tents are usually pitched.
This comes a couple weeks after the city renewed its policy of ordering homeless people to take their tents down during the daytime.
A city spokesperson told CBS 8 that they're aiming to balance "compassion" with the need to address public health and safety issues.
San Diegan Antonio Andrade did a double-take after parking in East Village on his way to the Padres-Phillies playoff game.
"Definitely this entire street," said Andrade. "This whole section right here is cleaner than is used to be,"
East Village resident Sandy Orand said that over the last couple weeks, she has noticed tents coming down during the day, but going up again at night.
"Last couple days, two or three days, I haven't seen the tents come back up," she added.
While many tents are still up a block south along Commercial, Sandy said she is concerned.
"I see them carrying their blankets, barefooted, dirty," she told CBS 8. "You know, they have nowhere to go, and they need help."
The city of San Diego said that it is providing help, stating the following:
"The city anticipates a significant increase in pedestrian and vehicular traffic in the East Village area this week. City crews will be offering individuals shelter and services, removing any trash and debris, and ensuring the public right of way is clear and free for travel."
In the meantime, San Diego City Council is redoubling its efforts to prevent any more San Diegans from losing their homes and ending up on the streets, including declaring housing as a "human right" at its October 31 meeting.
"Housing is fundamental to everything else that we want to do and achieve in life," said Council President Sean Elo-Rivera.
There will also be a special workshop to begin hammering out a new tenant protections ordinance, after the moratorium on no-fault evictions city-wide ended last month.
"We are in a a homelessness crisis," Elo-Rivera told CBS 8. "We can't afford to have anybody unnecessarily pushed into homelessness, and we know that tenant protections are a way of preventing homelessness."
The public is invited to attend and to make suggestions at that City Council workshop set for October 31st on the tenant protections ordinance.
For more information on how to participate, click here.
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