A homeless camp in the woods at the end of Pensacola’s Erress Boulevard is so large you’d think it was home to far more people than just the one man who stays there.
The camper, who says he has a job, told Escambia County Code Enforcement he has lived at the encampment for “years.”
Now all of it must go. A ravine full of trash, multiple mounds of tires, and a compound of makeshift shelters that include sleeping and work spaces, as well as a lookout point.
Escambia Code Enforcement opened a case on the Montclair encampment in January 2026 after a complaint of burning in the area.
The owners of the property, brothers Mike and Eddie Al-Selwadi of Okab Development LLC, have been cited by the county for the nuisance conditions.
They appeared before an Escambia County magistrate at a code enforcement hearing on June 23, 2026.
“It is a four-acre landlocked parcel of property,” Code Enforcement Officer Angelique Parker said. “I access it over the railroad, and that’s how the foot traffic that lives on it is accessing as well. There’s quite a large encampment on it.”
Mike Al-Selwadi said they bought about 45 acres in Montclair several years ago with the goal of developing it at some point.
The four acres at the end of Erress was included in the purchase, but it’s separate and isolated from the rest of the property they bought.
They say they’ve spent nearly $16,000 so far cleaning up after homeless campers on their other Montclair properties.
“We were aiming at the 43 acres and we cleaned it up,” Mohammed said. “We got good with the code. Soon as they gave us a notice, we went and cleaned it up. Thirty dumpsters worth of homeless camp debris.”
Josh Ammons has a tree service and works for the Al-Selwadi brothers.
He said has already filled 31 dumpsters full of trash from homeless campers off the rest of the brothers’ Montclair property.
However, the four acres in the woods at the end of Erress Boulevard have been a challenge because there’s no legal way to access the property, especially with the equipment he needs to do the job.
“I’ve tried accessing through the junkyard in front of it,” Ammons said. “I tried accessing through the mobile home duplex. I’ve called them, talked to every owner. They have nine owners. Then the other side is Erress. Well, the only other land that accesses that is actually owned by the county.”
A fire lane easement runs along the four-acre parcel, and the property owners would need permission to use it.
“This is something that hopefully a lawyer can assist you with and come up with a way to resolve this issue,” attorney and Magistrate Greg Farrar said during the code enforcement hearing. “Given the complexities of that, I know that this has been going on for quite some time, I’m just spitballing, but you might even consider just transferring the property to the county if you were open (to it). Did you have plans for it?”
“I don’t have any plans for it, but that’s part of a mortgage,” Mohammed replied. “That makes it very difficult. I would gladly give it to you if it was paid for.”
Farrar said he suggested a transfer as a possible option, not an offer, and that the county would work with them to address the nuisance conditions.
“We cleaned up (the rest of our property) for the county,” Al-Selwadi said after the hearing. “We put some gates (at the end of Erress) where we have access. Now I have to clean up something with a helicopter.”
Code Enforcement officials said they would help as well, but first the owners need to clear the property of any campers before cleanup can get underway.
Ammons said he thought he had already asked the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office to issue an official trespass warning.
As soon as he realized the four acres weren’t included in the trespass warning he had obtained for the rest of the brothers’ Montclair property, he took care of it the same week.
The News Journal trekked through the woods with Ammons and the Al-Selwadi brothers on June 25 to see the camp and if they could possibly reach it with equipment to remove the makeshift shelter and bring the property up to code.
Two deputies also joined, but the camper wasn’t there.
The brothers put up a “No Trespassing” warning sign provided by the sheriff’s office. Legally, the individual who stays at the camp can now be arrested for criminal trespass if he doesn’t move.
The brothers began tearing down the encampment while they were there, but it will take heavy equipment and dumpsters to get it all cleaned up.
A neighbor, whose property backs up to the Al-Selwadi brothers’ property, says he may let them access the camp from his land.
The neighbor did not want to comment for the story but says homeless campers have often been an issue in and around his property.
He has fences spread out everywhere to keep people off his land because, like the Al-Selwadi brothers, he has also had to clean up piles of trash and tear down tents where people camped.
Mike Al-Selwadi said there’s so much trash and so many tires around the encampment that it appears to have been piling up for years. He hopes the county will help with landfill fees when he removes it.
“If they can help us with the dump fee, that will help a lot,” Mike said. “We’ll get in here. We’ll clean it up, but I should not have to pay for somebody else’s trash.”
Farrar initially gave the owners 90 days to clean up the nuisance conditions, but Mike said he was recently diagnosed with cancer and needed more time to clean up the encampment while he was undergoing treatment.
Farrar extended the deadline to Oct. 21, but said if the property wasn’t in compliance by then the owners will be fined $200 per day starting Oct. 22, plus $250 in court costs.
The brothers hope, with some help from the neighbor and the county, they can have their property cleaned up by early July.
Mollye Barrows is the Escambia County Government Impact Reporter at the Pensacola News Journal. She can be reached at mbarrows@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Escambia says Montclair homeless camp must go. Getting to it is a problem
Reporting by Mollye Barrows, Pensacola News Journal / Pensacola News Journal
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By Mollye Barrows, Pensacola News Journal | USA TODAY Network
