In response to the impact of homelessness in their communities, municipal governments in the United States regularly conduct sweeps of tent encampments, forcibly dispersing people from public or private land where they are camping without authorization. This is a partial list of homeless encampment sweeps in the United States, focused on sweeps that have gotten national or regional coverage.
Alabama In August 2022, a 13 year old encampment near the Lowe's in Tillmans Corner attracted the attention of city officials and law enforcement. City officials attempted to avoid a "heavy handed" approach initially by recruiting volunteers to clean the encampment, but it remained inhabited. In September, the city sent an outreach team to clear the encampment of its inhabitants and Lowe's hired a crew to remove people's belongings as well as the trees on the property that made it a desirable place to camp. Two months later, an encampment formed in Crestview Park.
In October 2022, Mobile cleared an encampment near I-65 to allow for a bridge inspection. In November 2022 police cleared two encampments under highway overpasses in Montgomery.
In September 2024, a fire in Huntsville at a sanctioned encampment on Derrick Street that houses between 100 and 200 people in total displaced between 10 and 24 people. In October, the city announced plans to relocate around 80 people living at the site in order to "reset" conditions at the site.
In December 2024, Birmingham public works employees cleared a longstanding encampment covering much of the exterior of a warehouse building near Railroad Park.
Alaska In September 2017, Juneau police cleared a downtown encampment.
In April 2020, the Anchorage Assembly passed a resolution to more aggressively clear the city's homeless encampments. The city began sweeping encampments along Chester Creek and downtown that month. In June 2022, Anchorage cleared an encampment of 25 to 50 people in Davis Park, in the Mountain View neighborhood. In October 2023, Anchorage cleared its largest encampment. That winter, a record 51 people died on the city streets.
In June 2024, Anchorage police cleared an encampment on Second Avenue. In July, following the passage of Grants Pass v. Johnson, the city escalated its efforts to sweep encampments, taking down an encampment of 41 tents, RVs, cars and trucks being used as shelter on Fairbanks Street following a shooting and repeated complaints from the city's business interests. By the next week, another encampment had formed nearby on 33rd Avenue.
Arizona In the 2020s a large encampment developed in downtown Phoenix. The area between 9th and 15th streets and Washington and Jefferson avenues became known as "The Zone" and at its peak in May 2022 housed as many as 1,000 people. Police swept the encampment, displacing 700 to 900 people in November 2023. 500 people were placed in shelter beds and motels. Both the harsh conditions of The Zone, particularly the lack of shelter from the urban heat, and the sweeps of the city's downtown which forced people to congregate in The Zone, were criticized by the ACLU of Arizona in a 2022 lawsuit. The city swept more than 3,000 encampments in 2022, and 1,200 in 2019.
In May 2024, Tucson began clearing encampments in the 100 Acre Wood, beginning with a spot selected by Davis-Monthan Air Force Base for PFAS testing.
Arkansas
Fayetteville In September 2018, the University of Arkansas cleared a 60-acre lot of land it owned, forcing around 100 people to disperse. In 2020, the university cleared another encampment along its bike path in south Fayetteville. In June 2025, the university again cleared an encampment on its property along 19th Street, adjacent to two homeless shelters that were over capacity. Fayetteville's Forgotten, a group advocating for the encampment's residents, said that more than 300 people would be displaced by the sweep, and that local homeless services organizations did not have the capacity to serve all those displaced. The sweep began on June 9, after a notice of encampment clearance was posted on the site. Advocacy groups said that the encampment sweep scattered residents and disconnected them from services and the community that kept them safe and on a path to recovering from homelessness. In the aftermath of the sweep, Fayetteville city council member Sarah Moore introduced a resolution that called for a year-round, 40-person managed encampment. The estimated cost of the program was $630,000. 7Hills Homeless Center opposed the bill. The legislation failed on a 5-3 vote.
Little Rock In November 2022, the Arkansas Department of Transportation removed encampments in Little Rock near highways and interstates. In March 2023, the DOT removed another Little Rock encampment with bulldozers. In February 2024, the city bulldozed an encampment along Roosevelt road without warning, displacing its residents including a wheelchair-using man who was not able to accept a shelter bed due to his disability.
California Police cleared hundreds of encampments from Seventeenth Street in the East Village of San Diego in 2017.
In 2021, Los Angeles relocated 200 people from encampments on Venice Beach. The Los Angeles Sanitation Department responded to 4,000 requests a month regarding encampments at the end of 2022.
The city of Fresno swept an encampment of around 25 people in April 2022.
In July 2023, the city of Antioch announced a five-year, $2.3 million on-call encampment removal contract with a ServiceMaster franchise. In April 2024 more than 100 people living in 70 vehicles were removed from Wilbur Avenue.
In November 2023, Governor Gavin Newsom announced an allocation of $300 million by the state of California to clear encampments near highways. Between July 2021 and November 2023, the state of California cleared 5,679 encampments.
In July 2023, the city of San Diego enacted a ban on camping "within two blocks of schools and shelters, in parks and along waterways." The city saw a 45% decline in the presence of unhoused people downtown, with more than 1,200 people removed from the area. In June 2024 San Diego County was sued for the improper removal of people's personal belongings and valuables during encampment sweeps.
In July 2024, Gavin Newsom issued an executive order directing California state agencies to remove "dangerous" encampments on state land.
Sonoma County In June 2020, Santa Rosa police swept several large encampments under Highway 101 underpasses in the city, and 16 people were arrested. While these sweeps were ongoing, Sonoma County officials closed the Joe Rodota trail for maintenance to prevent the formation of another encampment there.
In March 2021, a homeless woman was killed when a man deliberately rammed his car into a small encampment on Roberts Avenue in south-central Santa Rosa.
In July 2021, a group of business owners cleared a downtown Guerneville encampment in an unsanctioned enforcement action. They brought water and supplies to the encampment and loaded and unloaded residents' belongings, relocating them to a Park and Ride parking lot outside of town. Residents said they felt coerced to leave the encampment and that the vigilantes had thrown away some of their medications and essential belongings. The relocated encampment of 30 people was swept by police in August.
In September 2021, Rohnert Park police cleared an encampment on a city owned commuter lot. The camp had grown in size after Caltrans and Burlington Coat Factory cleared encampments on their properties. In February 2022, the city moved around 30 people from an encampment along Roberts Lake Road back to the same city owned lot nearby, making it the first sanctioned encampment in the city's history. The city set up fencing around the lot and said it planned to provide toilets and sanitation to residents.
Joe Rodota Trail
A small encampment named Camp Michela after a homeless single mother who was murdered in 2012 was established in Roseland behind the Dollar Tree on Sebastopol Road with the approval of the Sonoma County Community Development Commission in November 2015, and relations were initially harmonious with the local community. In December 2015, police began using electric motorcycles to patrol the trail. They ordered a small encampment in the bushes of the Santa Rosa Creek to disperse, after having displaced those same campers from an area near the railroad tracks days earlier. Following the housing losses of the Tubbs Fire, the Joe Rodota Trail became the site of a major homeless encampment located nearby Stony Point Road, which was the largest in Sonoma County history. In April 2018, authorities began dismantling Camp Michela. At the time of the eviction, about 75 people lived at the encampment, down from a peak of 140 people. The residents were evicted because the Community Development Commission planned to build mixed-use housing and a commercial hub on the property. Sixty percent of the people the Roseland encampment relocated to the Joe Rodota Trail. Police began sweeping encampments on the trail in May. On 30 May police swept a half-mile stretch of the trail that had 89 tents and campsites. Campers said they would convene a summit to decide where to go next. On 21 June, several dozen people, mostly women, who were encamped along the trail near Roberts Avenue were forced to move. A property manager said their eviction was authorized so that the site could be developed with a mix of market rate and affordable housing. A person whose daughter lived at the encampment was charged with trespassing while cooking for its residents.
By October 2019, an encampment had re-emerged on another part of the trail with over 100 tents. As of December 2019, the encampment had encompassed over one mile of the trail and had over 220 homeless inhabitants, which steadily increased over the several months prior. An article from the San Francisco Chronicle put an estimation of 300 homeless residents, which accounted for approximately ten percent of Sonoma County's homeless population at the time. Incidents such as fires and arson took place in the encampment three times in a span of two months from November 2019 to January 2020, including a tank explosion on New Year's Eve 2019. In January 2020, the camp was swept in violation of a court order requiring beds for all the inhabitants. The city began dismantling the encampment after building 30 shelter cabins in another location, despite more than 200 people living at the camp. Several people protested the sweep. The Sonoma County Board of Supervisors approved a plan to provide housing for some of the homeless campers, in a $11.63 million leasing that would provide at least six units for at least twenty people. Around 100 refugees from the camp filtered out into other areas of Santa Rosa, establishing smaller encampments at the Piner Road Skatepark and on a pasture off West Robles Road.