One of Kansas City's largest and longest running homeless camps is no more. City crews started bulldozing the encampments near 13th and Summit Saturday morning.
Gary Watts lived at the camp and is sad to see the area destroyed.
"It's just hard when you wake up in the morning, feeding your squirrels and you've got to leave them," said Watts.
RELATED: Dozens of volunteers help homeless before camp is cleared
City workers, volunteers and police started working at 7:00 a.m.
Louis Cummings the superintendent of the Kansas City Parks and Recreation Department said they've received a lot of complaints about the camps and unfavorable behavior.
"There's been some health issues. Some hazardous things going on, fires. Some not so positive run-ins with the neighborhood people around here," said Cummings.
Kar Woo is with Artist Helping the Homeless. He's been helping to relocate people for weeks.
"We moved one gentleman back home with his family in Winston-Salem. We moved one couple to a hotel and Restart is helping us do rapid re-housing," said Woo.
City leaders said it will take roughly three weeks to clear and clean the area.
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Lisa Benson can be reached at lisa.benson@kshb.com.
