Forest Service concerned about homeless camps

The U.S. Forest Service is calling attention to a problem with homeless camps on forest land on both sides of the El Paso-Teller county line.

According to spokeswoman Barb Timock, the area has an increasing number of the camps within its Pikes Peak Ranger District.

Timock said the camps are illegal and generate trash, among other problems.

“We’ve seen a spike in camps used by transients,” said Oscar Martinez, a USFS ranger. “It has doubled to quadrupled what we’ve seen on an average basis.”

Martinez said the camps can be hard to find because they’re in nontraditional camping areas, and the volume of items left behind is greater than in normal camps and also more challenging to clean.

“It costs us between $700 and $1,000 to clean a camp,” Martinez said. “There are issues with sanitation and human waste because these camps aren’t close to bathroom facilities. We’re seeing things like medications and needles that we don’t normally find.”

In some cases, Martinez said, rangers have found pets left behind at campsites while the campers are gone during the day.

Martinez said campfires at the homeless camps also are a concern because they could start wildfires.

He said the matter is “a community issue” because different agencies must cooperate to determine a solution.

The attraction of legal marijuana, a lack of jobs and an increase in rent costs are cited as possible factors leading to the rise in homeless camps.

Glenn Ferguson has lived in the forest for 15 years and is worried that the situation could worsen.

“It’s hard to have enough people to monitor that kind of stuff, but I wish they could find the money to do the monitoring they need to do,” he said.

Martinez said violators can be fined but rangers would rather educate them than cite them.

“If the situation doesn’t improve, we may have to get tougher on enforcement,” he said.