The Riverside City Council on Tuesday approved an agreement with Caltrans to receive reimbursement up to $400,000 for city crews to remove encampments on local freeway ramps over the next two years.
Officials said the pact was “one of the first delegated encampment maintenance agreements between Caltrans and a city.”
The two-year pilot agreement allows Riverside workers to remove encampments, while the city bills Caltrans as much as $50,000 per quarter for the work. The agreement set a maximum reimbursement of $400,00 through June 30, 2027.
Without the agreement with the state transportation agency, the city is unable to remove encampments on State Route 91, State Route 60 and Interstate 60, within the city limits, officials said.
“This innovative agreement will allow the city to go onto state property and provide clean-ups without going through a longer permitting process,” Mayor Patricia Lock Dawson said in a statement. “This proactive effort will speed up the clean-ups, improve our public spaces and provide for reimbursement from the state.”
The agreement sets the stage for outreach and cleanup efforts by the Public Works and Housing and Human Services departments, members of the city’s Public Safety Engagement Team and independent contractors. Teams will provide outreach services to Riverside residents experiencing homelessness and remove debris.
Caltrans will continue its ongoing work to remove encampments in the agency’s District 8, which includes Riverside and San Bernardino counties, Riverside officials said. District 8 is the largest in the state with 49 cities covering 28,650 square miles, four interstates and 32 state routes totaling 7,200 lane miles.
From June 13-19, Caltrans removed 120 encampments and 1,275 cubic yards of debris that filled 45 garbage trucks in LA, San Diego, Orange, Contra Costa, Alameda, Sac, Fresno, Kern, SJ, San Bernardino and Riverside counties, the agency reported. Officials said outreach workers offered services to “many” of the 492 people who were living in the encampments.
“This agreement does not replace the work that Caltrans already is doing,” Mayor Pro Tem Chuck Conder said in a statement. “It augments that work with City staff, which should aid our ability to remove encampments and improve our freeway system.”
It was unclear specifically when or where encampment removal would begin.
