Antioch clears homeless camp near City Hall days before July 4th festivities

Just days before Antioch's biggest Fourth of July celebration, a group of protesters experiencing homelessness say they're being cleared out of the area to make room for the holiday crowds.

Michelle Rand is one of them. She says she and several others were removed from a homeless camp near Waldie Plaza and City Hall on Tuesday, after city workers cleared the area.

"The police came and the city workers came. They started bulldozing our stuff, making us bring our stuff up here," Rand said. "It starts from right here. That dirt you see, you can see the trucks came in. You can see the tracks."

Now, she's living in the front courtyard of City Hall, the only place she says she has left.

"Ain't nobody helped me. Ain't nobody helped me," she said through tears.

Rand and other protesters gathered outside City Hall this week, holding signs demanding justice for the homeless. They say the city gave them just 72 hours notice to clear out.

A spokesperson for the city manager's office, Jaden Baird, declined an on-camera interview but told CBS News Bay Area the city is working to ensure the July 4th celebration site is safe, accessible, and ready for the thousands of people expected to attend. Baird said the city is not targeting any specific group and acknowledged residents' right to peacefully protest.

But Nicole Gardner, a longtime homeless advocate and Antioch Parks and Recreation commissioner, says this is a pattern that plays out before major city events.

"I was just looking yesterday at the APD officers we had out here — about nine — code enforcement officers, outside contractors, abatement teams, all doing this for one sweep," Gardner said. "All I could see was money. We're paying all these people all this money when we could be housing people."

Gardner did point to one bright spot: Contra Costa County's CORE outreach team placed some unhoused residents in a Concord cooling center for the weekend, guaranteeing they wouldn't be turned away or lose their spot.

"I thought that was great," Gardner said. "We could have done that [with the others] before the sweeps."

But she says only a limited number of people benefited. For others, like Rand, the search for stability continues as the city prepares to celebrate the nation's independence.

"I'm really traumatized," Rand said. "Just don't throw us out. Like, literally, there's people that have literally nowhere to go."