The City of Aberdeen is moving forward with its plan to purchase land along the Chehalis River and eventually evict the homeless residents.

At Wednesday’s council meeting, Mayor Erik Larson said he reached a handshake agreement with the real estate agent for Mike Lang to buy the property, but that he hasn’t signed a contract yet. Lang owns the strip of riverfront property where approximately 100 people have been living in tents, motor vehicles and makeshift shacks.

“Ultimately, we will be removing people from the property, and will move to do that as quickly as is reasonable,” said Larson.

Back in May, the city council approved a motion for Larson to negotiate a deal with Lang. Larson said his intention is to clean up the property and move people off of it.

“The reality is, that is not a viable place for people to inhabit,” Larson said at this week’s meeting. “It’s a dangerous space, and they cannot remain there.”

Larson told The Daily World that he still intends to purchase the property for what he originally settled on with Lang, which was $295,000. As of now, it’s unclear how long it will be before the city forces the homeless people to leave, but Larson said he does intend to offer them other housing options before doing so.

“We would develop an end date of, ‘This is what we think is reasonable, if you haven’t moved to a location by then, we’re going to remove you,’” said Larson.

Two weeks ago, Larson said that “if the city doesn’t have somewhere for them to go, I have no interest in forcing them off.”

The city installed a metal gate on Friday morning to prevent vehicle access into the riverfront campsites. This gate is located on the dirt road of River Street, near the old Stouffer Lumber Company Building, and sits between the railroad tracks and a fenced-off plot of land.

As construction workers installed the gate, multiple cars were still able to drive across the rail tracks at a different crossing slightly further west. A construction worker said there would eventually be concrete blocks placed next to the other crossing to prevent cars from using it.

Some people living along the river are questioning the city’s reasoning for moving people off the property. Joshua Francis, who has lived along the river for three years, said he thinks the plan to move people from the property is “completely useless.” He feels the homeless people would be safer and better off left on the property.

“As far as homeless camps are concerned, they’re taking one that’s a sweet spot, actually,” he said. “They’re uprooting it for nothing more than a little power trip. All this will serve to do is put homeless people out on the street where everyone can see them. At least in this place we have a working homeless camp and society.”

Christina Gilcrist, 25, also lives along the river. She believes installing a gate will help prevent too much traffic coming into the camps.

“There’s an issue with people speeding down here, and the gate stops that,” said Gilcrist. “It will probably help with the traffic a lot. But another point is there are people in vehicles who live down here, so I wonder how they’ll be able to get out of here.”

Several people living along the river said they guess those in vehicles would still drive over the train tracks to leave and enter the area if they needed to.

After installing the gate, one construction worker said they were instructed to leave the gate open for an undetermined length of time. In an email to The Daily World, Larson said only the property owners would be given keys to open and close the gate.

Louis Krauss | The Daily World People walk by as construction crews install a gate to prevent cars from driving into the riverfront property where many homeless people camp.