Work began this weekend to begin clearing the brush around a West Pensacola railroad track.
Typically, the work would happen with much notice or interest from the community, but it was a big deal for Billy Boyington.
Boyington has been living off the railroad tracks in some woods near Brownsville for five years. It’s not much, but the 59-year-old has carved out a campsite for himself defined by “walls” of blankets and tarps strung together from trees.
He has most of everything that he needs to get by including a place to sleep, eat and build bicycles, one of the ways Boyington earns money.
Early on the morning of Feb. 13, he said authorities told him he had to pack up his stuff and move in about 30 minutes.
“It’s hard to just grab everything,” Boyington said. “I’ve got five years of stuff. You can’t just grab five years of stuff when you go.”
Billy is one of about 20 people who camp along the rail line that runs behind Bill Gregory Park in Pensacola, between West Navy Boulevard and West Jackson Street.
Some folks have been living there for a decade. Others for months, weeks or days.
“Jimmy,” a 57-year-old U.S. Army veteran, set up camp next to Billy about eight months ago. He built a sturdy lean-to from tents, wood and reused vinyl billboard tarps.
“They just came by at about 7:30 a.m. and said that we had to grab what we could get and go,” Jimmy said. “That the Alabama train company was coming to clear land. They gave us no warning, and they had to have known, so that’s what makes no sense.”
Alabama & Gulf Coast Railway (AGR) owns and operates the rail line, and a spokesperson for AGR said last week that they have a brush cutter working the area to cut back any trees or brush that have grown too close to the tracks.
Crews requested law enforcement join them to help alert any homeless campers in the area to move away from the tracks.
“This was done to prevent anyone from getting injured as they move through the area with the cutter,” said Laurie Nivison with AGR.
Jimmy’s living quarters have a tiny kitchen, living room and bed. It’s where he stores his food, furniture and tools for work. He gave the News Journal a peek inside as he began packing up what he could and piling it onto a wagon. He said there’s “no way” he can take it all.
Escambia County Sheriff’s deputies and Pensacola police were there to help with the process.
They allowed the campers, who were caught off guard, to temporarily move their things across the tracks to the city side of the property closer to Bill Gregory Park until the brush cutter sweeps through the area.
Some folks plan to move right back to the railroad property, despite bans on camping in both Pensacola and Escambia County.
“I’m more than 25 feet off the track, so I’m in a dead zone between utility easement and a railroad easement,” said Mike Owen, who has been living there since June. “But they’re saying I have to go, so I have to go, and then I’ll come back next week. They can’t be out here every day.”
Owen got help to move his things. He plans on using this week’s paycheck to put them into a storage unit.
Like others who stay along the tracks, the 59-year-old U.S. Navy veteran says he has “nowhere else to go.”
He said he has been unable to find housing he can afford despite having steady work doing maintenance and a small, monthly disability check. He also wants a place that will allow him to bring his dog.
“I was paying $525 a month for a trailer, but it caught fire,” Owen said. “When I started looking for a place after that, I couldn’t even get a room in somebody’s house for less than $800 a month, and now that’s more like $1,100 a month. Options for housing usually don’t include pets and I can’t leave my dog. I’m not going to abandon my dog.”
Campers who spoke to the News Journal say they’re reaching out to different programs for help with housing but know it could be a while before they get any, if at all.
“This place is out of sight and mind of the public,” said Billy who wants to stay by the tracks, “and there’s nowhere else to go.”
This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Residents forced out of West Pensacola homeless camp
Reporting by Mollye Barrows, Pensacola News Journal / Pensacola News Journal
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
