A federal judge has cleared Berkeley to close the long-entrenched Eighth and Harrison encampment "in short order," giving homeless advocates until Aug. 27 to name relocation sites for 23 disabled residents — the deadline the city's long-stalled sweep now turns on.

The reason cleanup at West Berkeley's most entrenched camp has dragged for more than a year isn't a lack of political will — it's a running fight in U.S. District Judge Edward Chen's courtroom. At issue: a contested leptospirosis death the city calls an emergency, accommodations owed to disabled residents, and the city's own record on storing the belongings it seizes during sweeps. Chen has now signaled the camp's days are numbered. What happens next is a test of whether Berkeley can clear a camp without repeating the mistakes a judge has spent a year documenting.

The tents along Harrison Street in the Gilman District have been a fixture for years — one of the most entrenched encampments in the East Bay, and, by the city's own account, one that has more than doubled in size (external source, opens in a new tab) since Berkeley last tried to clear it. The court fight underneath it has drawn far less attention than the camp itself.

Berkeley began sweeping the Eighth and Harrison camp in June 2025, only for Chen to order a pause. Since then the Berkeley Homeless Union has won a string of concessions (external source, opens in a new tab): exceptions to the city's 72-hour RV limit, permission for some residents to exceed the 3-by-3-foot sidewalk rule, and an order that the city help disabled campers move and store belongings. Last week Chen also directed the city and the union to survey local streets (external source, opens in a new tab) for legal tent sites for up to 23 people — the order The Dissent covered Aug. 15.

The newer development changes the trajectory. In a Thursday order, Chen rejected the union's bid to block the closure long-term and wrote that he expects the camp will "in short order, be abated," per Berkeleyside (external source, opens in a new tab). He set an Aug. 27 deadline for advocates to propose new campsites and for the city to approve or reject them — while pointedly declining to require Berkeley to approve any of them.

At the heart of the dispute is a public-health claim. The city says a rat-driven leptospirosis outbreak has killed one person and hospitalized another, and its fire marshal declared the corridor a fire hazard and public nuisance. In court, Assistant City Attorney Katrina Eiland described daily "open flames" and rats "screaming in the night," according to Berkeleyside. Union attorney Anthony Prince has called the outbreak a "now-discredited justification" and accused the city of trying to "manufacture urgency where none exists," the Berkeley Scanner reported (external source, opens in a new tab).

In a Thursday order, Chen rejected the union's bid to block the closure long-term and wrote that he expects the camp will "in short order, be abated," per Berkeleyside.

Chen's own findings cut against the city on a different front. In a related order quoted by Berkeleyside, the judge put a figure to nearly three years of Berkeley sweeps: about 959,800 pounds of material discarded — nearly a million pounds — hauled off across more than 50 camp closures, alongside 11 RV removals and 34 large-scale cleanings. Against all that, he found, the city logged just 34 notices formally inventorying what it had seized. That gap matters to unhoused residents who, Berkeleyside reported, say the city has pushed them out of camps with pledges to store their belongings, only for those items to vanish. Storage, the outlet noted, has been a persistent grievance.

Berkeley faces litigation from both sides: alongside the union's case, a group of nearby merchants and neighbors has brought a competing suit arguing the city let the corridor's hazards fester, Berkeleyside reported. It also reported that the City Council's June budget slashed health-department positions and eliminated vacant police jobs — cuts to the departments it named as having the most frequent contact with unhoused residents. When Berkeley cleared a nearby Carleton Street camp, it handed the street to Bayer, its largest private employer, which evicted the remaining campers.

The city told Berkeleyside it will post new closure notices but would not say when. The countdown is now the story.