Palmdale is a bustling city in California that features famous landmarks like the Palmdale Amphitheater and the Antelope Valley Mall, a sprawling million square foot area of shopping space. Scenes from well-known films like Mac and Me were also filmed in Palmdale. There’s another side of Palmdale that is less enticing. Like many other cities in California, Palmdale’s skies are home to far too many homeless people.
In recent years, many residents of Palmdale have been saddened to see a series of homeless encampments in the area. To be classified as a homeless encampment, the area only needs more than one homeless person taking up residence in any area of the city’s outdoor areas. Sometimes called “Tent cities,” these areas are places where homeless people gather, live, and store their things.
Dangers of Homeless Encampments
When people live in a house, they have the ability to store their belongings, clean, and make sure that everything around them is sanitary. When you have a large group of people congregating in an area that doesn’t include any type of reliable storage or cleaning supplies, you quickly watch a biohazard scene develop. It becomes dangerous.
Just like everyone else on earth, homeless people have possessions, items they encounter on a daily basis, and they have hygiene needs. When people aren’t able to shower, have access to the basics of household items, and places to store their belongings, things quickly spiral downward into an unsanitary, even dangerous living condition. Homeless encampments at first weren’t recognized for being what they are: dangerous. Over time, as people watched the encampments evolve, experts were able to identify biohazards and things in the encampments that make them unlivable and dangerous.
Types of Biohazards in Homeless Encampments
Palmdale homeless encampments sometimes have over 100 homeless people living within their outdoor borders. When you collect this many people all in one gathering, you get things like infectious diseases, unhealthy odors and air, and sometimes even crime scenes within the homeless encampment. Pets are usually a part of everyday life in homeless encampments. We all love our dogs and cats, but when these animals live in areas like this, the encampment becomes cluttered with animal feces that often comes into contact with food, clothing, and other objects that citizens of the encampment use.
The lack of running water or even any sinks presents an immediate problem. Members of the homeless encampment have nowhere to readily wash their hands when they need to, and due to coming into contact with other biohazards on a daily basis, people in the encampment are at serious risk of contracting diseases that will make them very sick or even kill them. Everyone wishes that homeless people were able to find help and leave this kind of life behind, but sadly, many homeless people are seriously mentally ill and lack the mental facilities to remove themselves from this situation or see how hazardous it is. Local and state authorities are now making a real effort to help the homeless move on from encampments like this (for their good and the good of the communities they live in).
How Eco Bear Helps
The issue of homeless encampment cleanup is a sensitive one that touches on both deeply personal, human topics and more collective social ills. Eco Bear works to clean homeless encampments because we know them to be very dangerous places where human disease can be passed from one person to another. They are unhealthy and not fit for human occupation. However, we know that many of these homeless people have lived in a particular location for some time; this person may be mentally ill and not comprehend why they need to move.
Eco Bear tirelessly works with local and state authorities and the homeless to ensure that when our cleanup begins, these people have their best, safest place to move to. While we don’t perform social services with our cleanup, we do work compassionately with the homeless and make sure that they have adequate notice of when our cleanup begins. Whenever possible, we explain what we’re doing, why, and lend a helping hand and ear to them.
Removal and Restoration
Most homeless encampment cleanup begins with meticulous removal of items like trash, human feces, pet feces, food, recyclable items, and clothing. That’s not a full list of all the things we take off site, but it’s a good starter list to give you an idea of what we’re capable of. There isn’t a homeless encampment on earth that we can’t clean. Our services are available to anyone who is in charge of this type of property. Maybe it’s a business, private property, or even government property. We work with clients and property owners of all kinds.
The restoration part of our project includes using disinfectants and powerful cleaners to remove both biohazardous material, stains, and odors from the premises. Restoring and beautifying an area is one of the most rewarding part of our jobs. Homeless encampments that have existed for a long time – in some cases even years – often make a strong negative impact in a residential or commercial area of Palmdale. It’s our pleasure to leave each of these encampments replaced by clean, fresh, healthy air and surroundings.
Call Eco Bear Today
We offer homeless encampment cleanup in Palmdale at very reasonable rates. In most cases, we offer rates that are 50% less than our competitors. Anyone who needs this service can get in touch with Eco Bear by writing to us online with questions or giving us a call. We’ll give you a free consultation and then let you know what we can do for you.