Hemet Cracking Down On Homeless Camps, Drug Use In Parks

HEMET (CBSLA.com) — The city of Hemet is cracking down on homeless camps and drug use in its parks.

As part of an initiative called "Hemet Rocks," police will close down a park once a week to clear it out. Then, crews will come in and clean up.

"We've seen calls for drugs, even other types of harassment, in the parks, so what we want to do is disrupt that behavior," Councilman Robert Youssef told CBS2's Tom Wait.

Having the parks closed also allows more thorough inspections and repairs, he said.

"We're taking care of a lot of the graffiti and that requires chemicals, and one of the guys was saying, 'I can't do this if kids are running down the slide,'" Youssef said.

Bottom line, safety is the main concern.

"There's a lot of times where I'll see like, a certain person go back and forth and you're just wondering, 'Why are they going back and forth?'" resident Chelsea Lasater said. "I'd like to go, but I don't feel safe with the people that are over there."