photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

A man sorts his belongings at the Amtrak camp on Monday, Oct. 14, 2024.

A mom and her two young-adult children who have been living in a tent behind Lawrence’s Amtrak station packed up their belongings Monday for the second time in two months to move to yet another location, this time a campsite farther east.

The City of Lawrence announced on Aug. 16 — just weeks before Betsy’s family moved to the wooded area between the train station and the river — that the Amtrak camp, one of the largest and longest-running in the city, would be shut down by Oct. 15.

photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

Betsy, center, and her kids Aaron and Mary are pictured with the family pets, Laya, left, and Bear at the Amtrak camp on Monday, Oct. 14, 2024.

Betsy said she had moved outdoors over the summer because she had been evicted from an East Lawrence house she was staying in.

On Monday, city trucks were at the camp helping people move their belongings. Where the belongings were going to wasn’t clear. In Betsy’s case, some things were going to a storage area and other things were going with her to a site she called “the hole,” another camp that she planned to stay in until she could get back on her feet.

The large tent that she lived in with her kids Aaron, 18, and Mary, 20, and their two dogs Laya and Bear, was headed to storage, she said, as she had been given a new tent by Lawrence’s Homeless Response Team and three new sleeping bags for the new site.

The family’s campsite was in disarray Monday as things were being dismantled. Betsy was hauling some of her belongings on a cart strapped to a bicycle, while other items were loaded, with the help of volunteers, onto a city truck. As she pulled up to the Amtrak site on the bicycle she told Aaron that the site at the new camp, which she had just come from, wasn’t too bad.

Meanwhile Mary, surveying the jumbled goods at her family’s site, said, with evident embarrassment, “It doesn’t usually look like this.” Normally, it’s cleaner and more orderly, she said, as much as it can be for an outdoor living situation.

Mary said the Amtrak experience had mostly been OK, “except for things going missing” and a “few (people) ruining it for the many.” But she had her family for comfort.

When asked if she thought her neighbors — some of whom had lived there for years and who had built more permanent-looking housing out of wood and metal — would move on voluntarily, Betsy said, “They don’t have a choice.” But she suspected that a few would try to remain after the Tuesday deadline for clearing out.

However, Misty Bosch-Hastings, the director of the city’s Homeless Solutions Division, said that the city wasn’t currently “getting any indication that people are unwilling to leave once the camp closes.”

photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

A man helps move belongings at the Amtrak camp on Monday, Oct. 14, 2024.

Bosch-Hastings told the Journal-World that the city had been working with the Amtrak residents since early summer to assess their needs and to connect them with resources, including emergency shelter, housing resources, and mental health or substance use treatment.

She said the plan involved ensuring that as many residents as possible “have a tailored pathway toward stability.”

She acknowledged that initially there was “significant resistance to our efforts” — recent City Commission meetings have been host to vociferous opposition to “sweeping” the camp — but she said that through relationship-building the resistance has subsided, and a handful of people have even opted to accept substance use disorder treatment.

Bosch-Hastings said that since the camp closure was announced, 31 individuals “have been permanently housed, reconnected to resources, admitted to emergency sheltering options, or are receiving in-patient substance use treatment. Eleven individuals from Amtrak are now in permanent supportive housing or standard housing with vouchers/subsidies, she said.

“While challenges and uncertainties remain, we are committed to providing as many options and resources as possible for individuals as we move forward with the closure of this camp,” she said.

The city said Monday that 14 people remained at the camp and that specific plans were in place for those people once the camp closes.

In March of this year, the city closed another homeless camp, the city-supported site known as Camp New Beginnings, that was just north of the Kansas River in North Lawrence.

When that camp closed, some residents said they were moving to the Amtrak camp. Betsy said when she heard Amtrak was closing that she considered the Burcham Park encampment, but she said she’s heard Burcham is probably going to be closed soon too. Wherever the family is, come winter, her daughter Mary hopes the family is indoors “and out of this predicament.”

photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

A dog watches over a site at the Amtrak camp on Monday, Oct. 14, 2024.

photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

People move belongings out of the Amtrak camp on Monday, Oct. 14, 2024.

photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

City of Lawrence trucks were on hand to help move belongings from the Amtrak camp on Monday, Oct. 14, 2024.

photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

A City of Lawrence truck is loaded with belongings at the Amtrak camp on Monday, Oct. 14, 2024.

photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

A fire smolders in a grill at the Amtrak camp on Monday, Oct. 14, 2024.