In their own words: Columbus residents share their experiences of living through camp sweeps

These interviews were conducted and compiled with the help of Heer to Serve and Stop the Sweeps 614, along with the generous support of the Johnstone Fund.

Jackie, 54

“When they came, I didn’t know they were coming. And I didn’t know everybody else knew, and I was like, ‘Well, I didn’t get the notice.’ … And the sheriff was like, ‘You have 15 minutes to grab your stuff and go,’ so the first thing I grabbed was my dogs, but they’re huge dogs, and I needed help, so I asked another camper, please help me. And it was just devastating, because there was no time to pack up any of my stuff, and they just do not care. 

“And I’m going to cry now, but I tried setting some things off to the side so that I could come back and get them later, and they bulldozed right over them. And I watched, and it was like they aimed right for them, like they just didn’t care. I had my grandma’s things she’d given me, little pieces of jewelry. And then little trinkets my grandkids had made me, because I came from my apartment out, and I just had everything in storage boxes. And you can see it’s not trash, and that it’s taped up all nice. And they literally ran over it with a bulldozer, and that killed me. That did kill me.

“And it’s sad, because they do that to get you off of the property, but then they don’t do anything with it. And it’s like, what was the purpose of it? And we’re scared to death now that we’re gonna get swept out of here, because this is our last place. We’ve been everywhere around. We’ve been everywhere. This is the last place.”

Mr. Allen, 62

“[The sweep] just happened the other day, and we had to move over here, because of the noise, because it was a little messy. We started cleaning it up – [the mess] was from the people that were there before us. … And that’s basically it. That’s why I’m here now. And I don’t want to go on about it, because where do they want us to go? … The cops never even showed up. We just went ahead and moved because they asked us and they [said they] were going to trespass us. … We’ve been through this before, and it’s just best to find someplace else to go … which is why I don’t get too comfortable. I don’t plan on staying here. I plan on getting a place to stay. Hopefully I can get into housing again. 

“[Sweeps] don’t help. I mean, it’s not doing anything. It’s moving us around. It’s making us on edge, living on edge, always worried about something happening. … It’s like survival, you know, and people have to do what they have to do to survive. So, it’s not a healthy environment, but it’s better than the environment they offer.

“I don’t even know what to say about the housing thing. They put you in a place that’s really no different than being here [in this camp], but you got running water. You got more amenities, I guess you would say. It’s better. It’s a start. But it’s complicated because the same things go on; it’s just inside. I more or less want to talk about, like, what are they doing to improve the homeless situation? Because although we do have some programs, it seems like it’s not enough money to make enough difference, or to help everyone. Some people are able to get housing and move on and do a little bit better, but it’s not enough programs … to change the homeless situation. … Some people can’t work anymore, and they get thrown in with the same people that got drug addictions, that got mental health conditions. And it should be a situation where those things are being addressed, but they throw us all in the same category, throw us all in the same building, and whatever happens happens. And it’s not a good situation for a lot of people.

“When they do a sweep or something like that, you usually don’t have time to move out your belongings. You have to leave things behind. I’ve lost pictures of my kids, my parents. Family stuff you can’t get back. … It’s a feeling of no control over your situation. It’s a terrible feeling. If you haven’t experienced it, you don’t want to. It’s like somebody breaking into your house and robbing you. It’s the same thing.”

Kay Kay, 40

“I think it was September or October or 2025, and I actually almost got hit by one of the Bobcats as it was going backwards, because they told me to hurry up and get whatever I could, but he was coming back, and so I lost a lot of the stuff that I sold, and that was a lot of my income gone in an instant, and they didn’t care. They were actually videotaping and laughing when they were tearing down one of the campers, and one guy was excited because he was going to get to tear it down. And he was like, ‘I’ve never torn down one of these before.’ 

“To see things I’d either worked toward or made into my home, yeah, that being destroyed with no care is obviously very hurtful, because I work for everything I have, and nothing is handed to me easily. … I lost items that were given to me by my best friend. And at the time, she was going through some really bad health problems and we weren’t sure if she was going to make it or not. And so, everything she’d given to me was really extra special, and it was just gone. All gone, destroyed. … You feel completely violated. You watch your belongings get shredded and thrown into a dumpster with other people’s things that meant something to them.

“I actually lost my cat [in one sweep]. I can’t find him, Trouble. Still if I see bigger tabbies back there, I’m like, Trouble? And I think I blocked it out, which is why I didn’t remember. He was one of the reasons I made it that summer. I was in a bad place mentally and he was my baby, and he was there with me. It was nice to see his face. And at nighttime, I would holler for him, because he would go and visit everybody in the neighborhood, as we called it, hanging out with everybody. But around 10:30, I would holler for him, and I’d hear his little bell coming. And then we’d go to bed, and he’d sleep under the blankets with me every night. 

“Every event where you lose things that meant something to you, it impacts you. And that is loaded on to everything else I’m already dealing with. And sometimes it’s like, can’t you just get a break? I understand there’s trash and whatnot, but if someone is maintaining things, not causing trouble, why is it such a huge deal? There are more important things than worrying about us being in a tent back here, I feel.”

Elizabeth, 37

“This is the third sweep I was in. … But we’ve been at this camp about two years, and the one prior we were at for a year or two years, and the one before that, we were at about three years. So, it’s been a couple years at a few different places, but they seem to come and get us everywhere we go.

“It’s uncomfortable. You make us move from where we’re at, only to [set] up somewhere else. And we lose a lot of our stuff, our possessions, our prized belongings. And they are that way because we don’t have much, so what we do have, it’s very precious to us. When they do the sweeps, we have to move everything. And it’s not like we have vehicles. No. We’re moving shit by hand, by foot, or on bike. And we can’t do that in 24 hours. It’s our whole lives we have to move from one spot to the next.

“I don’t feel like [sweeps] are effective at all, and I feel like they need a different approach. The housing programs are great, but are they helping with stability? Are they helping people find jobs? Are they helping people find permanent housing? Are they helping people with their mental health? Those are the things we need help with, and those things not being provided only makes it harder.

“I feel like I lost my sanity [in the sweeps]. But no, on a serious note, I feel like I lost my life in 2018 … when I had a baby, and I had an emergency hysterectomy after delivery, and then the baby died of a heart murmur, and I really went through it. And since I’ve been out here, I’ve lost my sense of self, and trying to get help is hard to come by. I feel like I’m doomed to be out here forever, and it shouldn’t be that way.

“I want to get out of the woods. I don’t like being out here. I want a home. I want friends, family, [and] to have something that’s my own again, like I once did. So, the plan is to stay strong and keep moving forward and find as many resources as we can that will help us. I want to get help for my mental health, because I definitely need it. I have PTSD, anxiety, depression. I want to get rehab for alcohol, because I never drank before 2018, but when everything happened, I picked it up, and now I can’t get rid of it. I want to get better. I want the tools to help myself get better.”

Jessica, 37

“I have been through a few [camp sweeps]. The last one was maybe a year ago, in October 2025, and they brought bulldozers out and everything. I was there a couple years before this one happened. … You go losing stuff and everything else, and you don’t know what to do. It’s hard. It’s stressful. You can’t just pick up and go stay somewhere else and have somewhere to lay your head. 

“I lost my place to stay. I didn’t have a tent no more, and you either have to lay on the ground or find somebody who will let you stay with them until you get your own thing to lay on or have somewhere to sleep. … They bulldozed over everything. They destroyed it, picked it up, put it in the back of a dump truck and hauled it off. We watched him crush over our tents and everything. We’ve lost our cats like that. We’ve lost our animals like that, too. They hide in something and they’ll just bulldoze right over them not paying attention. … And it’s hard, because losing your pet is like losing your kid, your baby. Mine are my everything, and I’ll do anything for them.

“After it happens, people are upset, stressed really bad. People are scatterbrained, trying to figure out what to do next, or how to come up with somewhere to lay. It’s not easy to come up with another tent or somewhere to stay. They make it sound like it is, like you can just pick up and go somewhere else, but you can’t.”

Rodney, 52

“[The sweep] was in March 2022. The camp was next door to the Walmart on South High Street in Columbus. … I was there about four to five years, and we had the essential things we needed to keep it dry and warm in the winter, and to just make it your home. 

“I lost a lot of personal items. … You know, personal photos. Things that were maybe left behind by a close relative who might have passed, a father, mother, sister, brother. And those are things you can’t replace. It’s like somebody breaking into your house, and you feel violated, and it’s not a good feeling. … I haven’t had an ID since then. They threw away a lot of stuff. Propane tanks. Jackets. Blankets. Anything, everything you can think of. Tents, canopies, tarps. My documents, they were in an envelope, and it’s written on it, ‘birth certificate.’ A wallet with my ID in it. If you had it, it didn’t matter what it was, to them it was trash. But it wasn’t trash. Those were my things.”

Jenna, 23

“April, this month, about a week ago, if that. I was sleeping, and I woke up with an AR in my face. And they said there were gunshots and they patted me down. And they seen I didn’t have nothing, so I asked if I could leave, and they said, no, it’s too dangerous. So, they walked me back to the quarry, and as I’m walking, I had no shoes on, and the one cop, he’s pushing me on my back, go faster, go faster, go faster. … And when they’re walking me back, the cops, they’re like, ‘Make sure you let them know that they’re trespassed.’ I’m like, ‘You guys really like making it hard for the homeless.’ And he just scoffed, like, so what? … And it was just one spot, but I thought it was going to last. And nothing seems to last in my life. You think you take five steps forward and then you get knocked 10 back.

“The way they treated me just disgusted me. You shouldn’t treat other people like that, especially if your job is to help people, save people. And the cop even said, ‘I know your life is in shambles.’ Well, if you know my life is in shambles, why are you trying to make it worse? … The way they treat me and the other people out there makes it hard for us.

“[I’ve been outside] since I was 18. … And the reason I’m out here is because I found my mom dead in the house and I couldn’t handle being there anymore. My brother was an asshole, controlling, so I jumped ship. … People should try to be more understanding and understand that anything can happen, and it could only take one thing for you to be in this position with the rest of us.”

Nikki, 45

“I’ve been out here 10-ish years, 12 maybe. … My first [camp sweep], behind Ollie’s, was brutal, because they actually bulldozed us up the hill. … And you don’t get help, you do it all by yourself. And I’m the kind of person who’s like, why buy something up if you already have it? People will be like, ‘It’s just trash.’ But I buy things with my money, however I earn it.

“This more recent [sweep], I was more, I guess, mentally prepared. I already knew what to expect. … I’ve lost many things, as far as food goes, as far as bedding goes. I lost two cats this time. … And that was emotional there, because I’ve yet to find them, either to lay them to rest or to nourish them back to health.

“It’s rough. It’s uncomfortable. I don’t like moving, like I said, and I always seem to have the most because I’m not trying to lose nothing I’ve gathered up over the years. … And trying to watch your stuff at two spots is impossible, because you’re not two people. I don’t expect my 70-year-old mother to watch everybody’s stuff. She’s struggling, too.”

Kitty, 32

“There were two sweeps literally back-to-back. I was swept out from behind the bowling alley, which was in December three years ago, and then I moved back by the tracks, and they ran that down. They ran everything down because they seen lights. I just thought it was weird. We weren’t doing anything. They’d just seen the lights. 

“[After a sweep] you have nothing anymore. You have to do something quick. You have to find shelter. You need to make sure you’re safe. You still have some items that maybe you saved, or that you wanted to protect, that last little bit of your life that you’re holding onto. … I lost my teddy bear I’d had since I was 3 [in a sweep]. It’s almost hard to pinpoint one thing, because there’s so much you do treasure. … You have some things that you’ve managed to keep through all of this shit. … And this last [sweep] hit me bad, because it was books that I wrote in, journals, and they just come in and demolish it. They don’t care.”

Kiki, 36

“The last time I was moved out was probably about three months ago, and I had just gotten to that spot, too. … And it was a nice little spot, but it was so muddy that you stayed wet back there. And I don’t even know why. There was no water. … But when you actually have a tent – one that hasn’t been destroyed, that closes, that protects you from the weather – you feel like you have a home, in a way.”

Jessica, 36

“The last time I was swept, it was back in August, and we were on 161 behind the smoke shop. … We were there probably the whole summer. … At first one person came and said as long as we kept the property clean, it was okay, and not too many people, don’t cause attention over there. But of course, that didn’t work out well, because people started coming. And it was hard to keep it clean, because not everyone lives the same way. … I feel like trash is always the main reason [camps get swept]. For one, as far as the trash goes, a lot of places don’t be having trash cans near and things like that. And sometimes what they consider trash is not trash to somebody else. And then you have some who just look down on people who’s living on the land. … And I hate that, because you don’t know somebody’s story or how they ended up there or anything. They don’t take the time to come and talk to us and ask our needs.

“They come out here and tell us to go somewhere else, but there’s nowhere else to go, because every time we go somewhere else, here comes ODOT posting up letters, tearing down the woods, the trees, the environment. How are we supposed to go somewhere? We have nowhere.

“I had certain things that belonged to my kids that I had taken from me, or that I had to leave because of a sweep. … And you’re watching them throw your things like they’re nothing, like it’s just trash. I just felt disrespected. It felt like we weren’t even human beings to them. We were just trash, scum.”

Barbara, 43

“I was [swept from a camp] on March 25. I was there probably two and a half, three months. The last camp we was in was over by Loyalty [Inn], the motel. … [I’ve lost] my ID, social security cards, clothes, pictures with my kids, a picture of his dad that passed away, everything. And you won’t get that back. It’s frozen time, when the picture was taken, and you don’t get that back. You can only remember it and tell people about it.”

Ashley, 34

“I’ve been in three or four [camps] total, and every one of them has been cleared. … There have been a couple places where we had our camps and we didn’t cause no trouble. We kept it clean, made sure there wasn’t trash lying around. I made sure it looked nice to the community. And they still made us get up and move. I’ve seen a few people, they were breaking into motel rooms and staying there, because they didn’t have nowhere to go. … And that was a big problem in these motels, especially over the winter time.

“In February or March, they cleared out a camp. … I had a bunch of cards my wife got me, and letters she sent me. And when they came in there … and bulldozed everything, I wasn’t there that day, so she was having to move everything out by herself in a short time, and she couldn’t grab everything. And those was left, and they got bulldozed. She didn’t know where they was at, and I wasn’t there to help her. And I’ll never get them back. And it meant something, they meant something to me.”