State orders organizers of homeless camp for veterans to vacate Mesa site

State officials have ordered the veterans who organized a homeless camp to abandon their site near Loop 202 near Mesa.

The order to vacate the site by March 3 came one day after a body was found close to the camp, near the Salt River bed north of the freeway's intersection with McKellips Road, the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office said.

The Arizona Department of Transportation and the Sheriff's Office confirmed the order was served Friday afternoon on the camp's organizers.

The site, known as Camp Alpha by its occupants, is operated by a group called Veterans on Patrol, which runs similar homeless camps in Tucson and Dewey.

Since early December, about 15 veterans, along with about 15 to 20 other homeless people, have been living at the site, which is on ADOT property next to the freeway. They moved there after they were forced to vacate land on the Salt River Reservation a few hundred feet away.

The camp is on an elevated site about 30 feet above the river bed.

ROBERTS: Homeless camp in tents while shelter must sit half empty

The relocation stirred a controversy in December after ADOT posted a large sign warning the homeless living there that they were trespassing on state property and could be prosecuted. State officials, however, did not attempt to move the camp, and officials from several agencies came out to meet and check on those living there.

At the time, state officials said it was their intent to work with the homeless people at the camp and assist them.

ADOT spokesman Tim Tait said the order was served this week because the situation at the site had deteriorated.

"The site has just become an unsafe place for folks,'' he said, adding state officials will have a team of employees from different agencies go to the camp in the coming days to help people transition out.

Tait said the camp had grown "very substantially'' since December.

At the time, the camp regularly was receiving donations of food, blankets, clothing, toiletries and other supplies from the public. Paramedics would occasionally check in. Organizers said they were working with many of the homeless vets to help them transition out and preferred the state didn't interfere because many of them felt more comfortable in the camp setting, where most were living in tents.

Camp representatives at the time said they also welcomed other homeless people to camp along with them to share food and resources.

The breaking point, however, may have come Thursday, when sheriff's deputies were called to the camp shortly before 2 a.m. for a missing person report, said Sgt. Joaquin Enriquez, an MCSO spokesman.

One of the people living at the camp reported one of his friends who also lived there hadn't been seen for about four hours but had left his car door open, with a handgun and his cellphone on a seat, Enriquez said. The man, who witnesses said had been drinking, was found dead along the river bottom not far from the camp, face down in an inch of water.

Enriquez said the cause of death is under investigation. He added that sheriff's deputies were on hand when the order was served Friday without incident to an organizer of the homeless camp.

Lewis Arthur, co-founder of the three Arizona camps, said he was in Texas on Friday when the order was served but intended to visit Camp Alpha Saturday to meet with people who have been living there.