Fighting to Stay
A long-standing encampment community in West Berkeley lives under the constant threat of permanent closure
By Cole Haddock & Maria Toldi | April 25th, 2026
“We thought the city was gonna come and sweep today,” said Yesica Prado, an encampment resident and lead organizer with the Berkeley Homeless Union (BHU), who has helped file at least eight lawsuits against the city demanding that her neighbors receive fair treatment.
For now, two of these lawsuits are barring the city from closing the encampment: Berkeley Homeless Union v. City of Berkeley (2025) and Prado v. City of Berkeley (2023), which argue that the city's encampment management practices violate the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) and the constitutional rights of their plaintiffs.
“The Court finds that the city failed as a matter of law to provide reasonable accommodations to certain disabled encampment residents in connection with its planned abatement operations,” one order reads. “In addition, the City’s proposed abatement…would, absent compliance with the framework or protections set forth in this order, violate the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights of BHU members.”
We first visited the encampment at 8th and Harrison in 2023, on assignment for a story about the cycle of incarceration and homelessness. But we kept returning as freelancers to write eulogies, and other news stories. While we initially spent our time conducting formal interviews, over the years we started dropping by to distribute water, and chat. During our fellowship at Street Spirit, we went to the encampment twice a week: On Mondays, we distributed sandwiches, and on Fridays, we distributed water. We have known some residents for years.
Residents often tell us that 8th and Harrison is the only place in the city where unhoused people can stay without being immediately moved by the police. “Right now, if you get swept away in other parts of the city, you know that you can at least come here to spend the night, or a few weeks, and put yourself back together and find another alternative for yourself,” Prado said. With her lawsuits, she says she is trying to maintain at least one place in Berkeley where unhoused people can be. “This encampment is providing a service to everyone in the city—a safe place to land, access to services, [and] community. Everyone knows each other.”
When the encampment was scheduled to be closed in March, we spent an afternoon documenting the community that we have come to know there. These photos were taken in about three hours on March 9, 2026, the day before the scheduled closure. We collected signatures from each person, and asked them what they wanted to remember about the encampment.