Tijuana Begins Voluntary Relocation from Deportee Border Camps Sandra Dibble - U-T San Diego | |
go to original December 20, 2013 |
Ignacio Rodriguez, 53, second from right, waits aboard a bus after leaving a homeless encampment to be transported to a temporary shelter near Tecate. The vast majority of people living in the encampment are deportees. Ignacio Rodriguez, 53, second from right, waits aboard a bus after leaving a homeless encampment to be transported to a temporary shelter near Tecate. The vast majority of people living in the encampment are deportees. (David Maung/The San Diego Union-Tribune)
TIJUANA — Baja California authorities this week launched the dismantling of a homeless camp near the U.S. border that houses many deportees, a response to rising complaints that their presence has led to growing crime and drug-addiction problems near the downtown business district.
An estimated 700 residents of the camp in Plaza Mexico and an additional 100 living in the channel of the Tijuana River are being offered transportation to a provisional, state-run shelter miles away near the Tecate border. There, each has been promised a mattress, three meals per day, warm showers, access to a telephone and help with moving forward.
“We’re calling this a temporary shelter, but what we’ve been told is that it will be permanent until we’ve resolved every person’s situation,” said Xóchitl Méndez, an official with the state’s social services agency, DIF.
On Thursday afternoon, the first group of 59 volunteers made the journey to the shelter, which is set in a vacant and unfinished state facility adjacent to the Baja California Public Safety Academy.
Read the rest at U-T San Diego
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