NEW HANOVER COUNTY — A homeless encampment off Kerr Avenue was cleared earlier this month, scattering several unsheltered individuals to unknown places days before they were set to be accounted for as part of the county’s annual homeless assessment.
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City of Wilmington staff’s internal emails revealed an effort to remove unsheltered individuals camped at 1229 and 1219 N. Kerr Ave. beginning Jan. 10. The former address is owned by the North Carolina Department of Transportation and the latter is private property.
Having received complaints from residents in the area, the Wilmington Police Department confirmed to Port City Daily on Jan. 16 that the department was working to inform the people camped on NCDOT’s property that they need to move off the premises, though no one had been officially trespassed or arrested yet.
Lt. Greg Willett of the WPD said less than 100 individuals were told to move along, which they did. Property owner Bryan O’Neill said he estimated a dozen people were on both properties and he joined the WPD in removing them on Jan. 13.
The clearing precedes the annual point-in-time count, a federally mandated tallying of homeless individuals — those living on the street and without permanent housing — to provide a snapshot of the county’s homeless population on one given night. The Cape Fear Continuum of Care, the area’s lead agency for homelessness assistance, will be conducting New Hanover County’s assessment on Jan. 29.
Though the PIT count is not designed to produce a definitive number of homeless individuals in the area, the clearing of gathered individuals can result in them going unaccounted for if they aren’t in contact with the CoC or other organizations or can’t be located after they’ve been moved.
In fact, Brian Renner, the city’s chief code enforcement officer charged with making sure properties comply with city ordinances, requested his team ease up on any active homeless camps until after the PIT count in a Jan. 3 email.
“If you have any active encampments, please let me know so I can refer to the point-in-time count,” he wrote. “Try to limit pressure on these camps until after the point-in-time count on Jan. 29.”
City spokesperson Lauren Edwards said that email was a directive to his staff and that one person responded with the location of an encampment and the public nuisance there was abated. However, code enforcement did not communicate with the WPD, she said; they report every unsheltered related complaint to Street Outreach, a joint program of city staff and WPD officers who try to connect homeless individuals with resources.
While code enforcement is not involved with clearing camps or trespassing people, the department deals with associated trash and wastes and is responsible for holding property owners accountable to city standards.
O’Neill blames the NCDOT for what he calls the encroachment of homeless individuals from the NCDOT property onto his. In his email following the Jan. 13 cleanup, O’Neill said he found debris, feces (which he surmised could be human) and damaged trees on his property that he attributes to the camp.
“There are a number of issues with the lack of responsible and proper management/supervision of the 1229 property,” O’Neill wrote.
This instance is not the first time a camp has been cleared from NCDOT property. After many complaints from citizens, a homeless encampment at Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and N. Kerr Avenue, located a quarter-mile from the 1229 property, was cleared in October 2023; the county estimated anywhere between 25 to 80 people had been staying on the site. At that time, Cape Fear River Watch had hosted multiple cleanups on a front portion of the property since August 2022 and collected more than 14,000 pounds of trash.
Willett from the WPD told Port City Daily that NCDOT has been helpful in the removal and cleanup process, but that precise steps have to be taken to trespass someone that can prevent immediate removal. The trespassers have to be informed by the owner or legal caretaker of the land that they are trespassing. Because the NCDOT land is wooded and unoccupied, it is less obvious that people are camping there.
Officers try to give a “reasonable” amount of time for people to exit the property.
“Giving people a little time to pack up and leave is humanitarian,” he said.
Still, Willett said the WPD has to uphold the law and private property owners have the right to determine who can be on their property.
Port City Daily reached out to the CoC for comment on the camp clearing and to ask if they were in contact with the people that were moved off the land; the CoC did not respond by press.
Also queried were preparations made for the PIT count but it went unanswered. The number of people counted on the one night in January has steadily risen from 127 since 2018 to 593 last year, 54% of which reported being unsheltered.
Of those 593, 461 were adults over the age of 24, 52 were between 18 and 24, and 80 were children; 165 of these individuals reported being chronically homeless. Almost 40% of the surveyed population reported their race to be Black, despite the Cape Fear’s Black population only making up 10% of the total demographic.
Additionally, 11% reported suffering from a serious mental illness and 29 individuals reported a substance abuse problem. These two statistics have been controversial in the past, with some local leaders suggesting individuals should be required to receive mental health or substance abuse treatment before being connected with housing. However, the CoC must follow the federal Housing First principles, meaning neither treatment can be used as a prerequisite for housing.
The City of Wilmington and New Hanover County are in the midst of further refining their homeless strategy. Its broad strokes were detailed to both governing bodies in September 2024; staff identified three goals — grow capacity of Continuum of Care and support service providers, Increase capacity of facilities to meet the needs of the unsheltered population, supportive regulations, incentives for developers, property management and housing assistance.
Reach journalist Brenna Flanagan at brenna@localdailymedia.com.
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