Concord Police and outreach workers are beginning to tell people living along the railroad tracks behind houses on North Main Street that they must move their encampment or it will be cleared out.

The tracks are owned by CSX, which has a memorandum of understanding with the city police department to “arrest trespassers and others who may be committing crimes” on their property.

Essentially, the agreement gives Concord Police permission to trespass on the railroad tracks, which are private property, and take action against those who are there unlawfully.

The department has started the process of warning the half-dozen or so people living there that they will have to move before the city’s department, or CSX’s own law enforcement, take further action to clear the site, said Barrett Moulton, the deputy police chief of patrol.

“Outreach went out today and gave them a heads up that they are going to have to move out of there,” said Moulton. “We will see if they move out on their own soon but we started putting the bug in their ear in the last week or so.”

Since Robin Bach, a Concord resident, bought her house in 2018, she’s been aware of an encampment along her property line and the railroad tracks. At times, it’s been one or two tents. At most half a dozen structures with tarps and other structures were set up in the woods.

Bach has called Concord police 37 times with concerns – reporting domestic violence incidents to noise disturbances – since moving in.

While she now appreciates the police action, she fears that this will just push her issues to another homeowner.

“Is this going to become somebody else’s problem that is going to end up being in the news in a couple of weeks? What’s the plan?” she said. “Yes, it’s very complicated because yes, I want to have safety in my backyard. But I also want to know that I’m not just passing the buck to somebody else.”

After the Monitor wrote about Bach’s backyard, the story went viral, garnering national attention about homelessness in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Grants Pass vs. Johnson decision.

The landmark ruling allowed municipalities to criminalize camping on public and private property, despite not providing shelter for people who are experiencing homelessness.

In Concord, criminalizing homelessness is exactly what the department hopes to avoid, said Moulton.

When concerns about a camp are raised, the police department will make multiple trips to the site to assess its status, before providing warnings to residents that the space will be cleared.

“We typically try to work with outreach, work with the community groups to get these under control,” he said. “The problem is, we move them and they are going somewhere else and the city does not have a shelter.”

This can put police in a tough spot though, he said. Critics on both sides are vocal about their policy – some want a faster response to breaking up these sites, while others say disbanding the encampments is unfair to those living there.

“We get put in the middle as the police department,” he said. “We get people who are mad that we do and we get people who are mad that we don’t.”

A concern with disbanding encampments is losing track of individuals who are on waitlists for services, like housing vouchers. Outreach workers will aid people in making contingency plans and urge them to stay in touch with service providers in the area.

This was a key concern for Bach, despite her relief that the site would be moved from her property.

“I’m grateful and thankful that they are taking action,” she said. “At the same time, I have compassion and concern for the people that are being relocated, hoping that it is done in a way and with the intention of helping them find a place that they can legally be without losing things that I’m sure have been hard-earned to get into their possession.”

Moulton spoke with CSX this week regarding the camp on N. Main Street and told the railroad company that they would work to remove the camp.

Per the agreement with CSX, when the city arrests someone for trespassing or other crimes, they are required to notify the railroad company.

When CSX sends their own law enforcement, they’ll often arrive at site without warnings and issue immediate arrests, said Moulton.

In the signed agreement with the city, dated June 14, CSX states that trespassing on railroad property is “not only against the law but it also puts the trespasser in serious risk of personal injury or death.”

“We are trying to warn people of that now,” said Moulton. “The city is not arresting people who are walking the railroad tracks.”

While the tracks in Concord are active, trains run infrequently. In 2014, though, a man who was experiencing homelessness was hit and killed by a train.

About a week ago a train came through the city, according to Moulton, and stopped prior to the bridge at Interstate 393.

“But had they gone further, there would have been people on the tracks,” he said.

The Concord Coalition to End Homelessness has an emergency winter shelter that operates at night from December through March. The Salvation Army has a year-round shelter and the Friends Program provides emergency housing for families, as well. Outside of these nonprofits, though, there is no large-scale shelter for people experiencing homelessness in Concord.

Without a concrete place for people to go, Bach feels this will continue to be a cyclical issue for the city, homeowners and people who are living outside.

“They have to have somewhere to go,” she said. “They can’t just levitate down the street.”