photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

Officers walk through Burcham Park Wednesday, Sept. 17, 2025.

One city worker estimated on Wednesday morning that it would take 30 dumptruck loads to clear a single encampment at Burcham Park.

The large area of makeshift dwellings had the day before been home to half a dozen people, some of whom had lived there for years in a grove of towering cottonwood trees and accumulated objects, including an assortment of signs saying “KEEP OUT!” and “BEWARE OF DOG.”

photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

A campsite at Burcham Park Wednesday, Sept. 17, 2025.

On Wednesday at sunup those people were all gone, having received final notice Tuesday — after months of warnings — that the many homeless campsites at the riverside park were finally going to be cleared — a process that will take most of a week. Other individuals remained, however, and with a few exceptions, accepted that the time had come for them to avail themselves of local shelter services or to move away entirely.

“I think everything went well,” said Lawrence Police Sgt. Tyler Trowbridge, who led a group of officers through the park to assist any holdouts and ensure that tents were empty before bulldozers and other heavy equipment came in. “It speaks to all the entities the city had out here helping, encouraging everybody to get out of here and providing them a place to go. … I think it was a success overall.”

The day before, Trowbridge was among a group of officers who did the same thing at nearby Sandra J. Shaw Park, where a handful of holdouts had stayed until the very last minute. That day had also gone relatively smoothly and had served as another notice to campers at Burcham that the move-out would really happen. As bulldozers cleared Shaw, restoring it to its original recreational purpose, officers walked through Burcham and encouraged remaining campers to leave by Tuesday evening so that they wouldn’t be rushed at the crack of dawn.

Most appeared to have heeded that advice, but some remained, including a young woman who sat down in the middle of the road, apparently trying to block vehicles from entering the park shortly before 7 a.m. The woman was shouting that she and her cats and other animals had been evicted from the Amtrak encampment when it was cleared last year and that it was inhumane to have to go through that again.

photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

A woman sits in the middle of the road as city workers attempt to enter Burcham Park Wednesday, Sept. 17, 2025, to clean up homeless camps.

Along the park road, several people could be seen riding out on their bikes or pulling carts full of belongings. Police warned them that they would not be able to come back when the bulldozers started, to which one man said, “It’s a public park! I can be here!” before turning his bike down a dirt path.

At the other end of the road, a woman emerged in her underwear from a piece of private property surrounded by cornfields, shouting and making gestures at nearby sheriff’s deputies.

“I’m not hurting anybody,” she said, complaining that she did not want to start over, then running into the woods, where officers followed with a set of clothing.

The private property next to Burcham had hosted numerous homeless individuals and dogs, but the property owner recently requested that they be cleared from his land.

The area is a hodgepodge of property variously owned by the city, county, KU, the BNSF Railway and private entities. Its sheer size and various ways in and out made it challenging to effectively patrol, Trowbridge said.

At least one woman appeared to need medical assistance in exiting her campsite. After speaking to officers at length from inside her tent she finally emerged through the trees pushing a wheelchair. She sat down on it, lit a cigarette and waited for an assistant who was called to come get her and take her to shelter.

photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

Police speak with a woman inside her tent at Burcham Park Wednesday, Sept. 17, 2025. A wheelchair waits for her at the entrance.

Some individuals seemed to be on a first-name basis with officers and assured them that they’d be packed and out “in a minute.”

“You’re good, James,” Trowbridge waved to one such man. “Thanks.”

Animal Control was also on scene Wednesday and eventually collected a number of kittens and adult cats. The animals were being taken to the Lawrence Humane Society, where owners would have five days to claim them before they were readied for the adoption process.

photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

A number of kittens were removed from Burcham Park Wednesday, Sept. 17, 2025, to the Lawrence Humane Society.

This week’s clearings were the latest in Lawrence’s yearslong saga with a homeless epidemic that has touched the entire country. The process of reducing the number of unsheltered people and connecting them to services has been slow, but officials seem to agree that Lawrence has come a long way since the spring of 2024, when a city-supported homeless camp in North Lawrence shut down. The site had seen frequent crime and several deaths, and it drew the ire — and a lawsuit — from dozens of business owners who said the city was creating a “vagrancy crisis.”

In the meantime Misty Bosch-Hastings, with the City of Lawrence, has built a Homeless Response Team whose aim is to “meet people where they are” and to provide multidisciplinary outreach to those experiencing homelessness.

The summer after the North Lawrence camp was shuttered, the city instituted a residency policy to prioritize its limited resources for use by local residents – and to address the notion that Lawrence had become a regional magnet for unhoused people.

Bosch-Hastings has focused on real-time assessments, getting people into treatment and reducing barriers to care. When she won an Engaged in Action award earlier this summer, organizers noted that she had secured $400,000 in new funding to support addiction prevention in Douglas County.

The city is now also home to two areas of Pallet shelters – one on North Michigan Street and one just outside the Lawrence Community Shelter on East 25th Street — where people can be out of the elements and get connected to services they might need.

According to the most recent Point-in-Time Count, which is required by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Lawrence and Douglas County reduced unsheltered homelessness by 63% in the past year.

“No one should have to live without access to water, bathrooms, electricity or protection from violence,” Bosch-Hastings told the Journal-World this spring when her team started hosting meals at which they told people that camping wouldn’t be allowed by summer’s end. “People deserve better, and we are working to make that possible.”

As the city has now cleared multiple parks, the goal, Sgt. Trowbridge said, is to keep campsites from re-forming or taking root. He urged residents to report any new sites that they observe via a form on the city’s website. The reports are immediately forwarded to a member of the Homeless Response Team, who can reach out to campers with available services.

photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

Asher Erickson, a case manager from Bert Nash, right, speaks with a camper Wednesday, Sept. 17, 2025, at Burcham Park.

photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

A campsite at Burcham Park Wednesday, Sept. 17, 2025.

photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

Bicycle parts are a common sight at Burcham Park Wednesday, Sept. 17, 2025.

photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

A camper leaves Burcham Park Wednesday, Sept. 17, 2025.

photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

Animal Control took a number of cats from the homeless encampments at Burcham Park Wednesday, Sept. 17, 2025.

photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

Animal Control located a number of cats at Burcham Park Wednesday, Sept. 17, 2025.

photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

Police officers helped ensure that tents were vacant at Burcham Park Wednesday, Sept. 17, 2025, ahead of a park cleanup.

photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

A man bicycles around Burcham Park Wednesday, Sept. 17, 2025, as it’s being cleared.

photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

City workers and police officers walk through Burcham Park Wednesday, Sept. 17, 2025.