EUGENE, Arch — About 140 residents of two licensed homeless camps in Cottage Grove will be evicted Thursday morning.

The residents of these camps were given two weeks’ notice. Most of those who packed their things were long-term residents.

Ashlie Armstrong, a homeless woman who lives on 12th Street, says, “A lot of people are really stressed right now. Nobody knows where to go. The city says, ‘Hey, you have to leave at 10 a.m. on the 22nd. So where should we go?'”

Cottage Grove says the camps are temporarily closed for extensive cleanup due to a rat infestation, drug paraphernalia and trash.

When they are ready, residents can move to the former Lulu’s Dog Park, where the city will set up a small camp open from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m.

But the camp’s residents believe that the city must provide adequate and hygienic alternative storage space or resources.

The city says it has spoken with various Lane County agencies who have visited the camps and provided support to residents.

“A lot of people have come to me and asked, ‘Hey, what’s going on? Where are you going? What are you going to do?’ And I asked, ‘Where am I going to go?’ I don’t know anywhere,” Armstrong says. “That’s why I’m here. That was my goal. But no, I don’t know of any resources other than the dog park that we could go to, like they told us.”

Curtis, a homeless man, says: “They provide a dog park where these dogs have been peeing and pooping for years. It’s so unsanitary…”

Armstrong says: “They want me to leave now… put my tent there every day, take it down every day and sleep on it. That’s not sanitary either. They haven’t done anything to prepare the area for us, but they want to kick us out of here so we can clean up the area instead.”

Depending on the cleanup required, Cottage Grove hopes to have one of the two camps completed by the end of September.

The 12th Street camp, located behind Dari Mart, will reportedly eventually be converted into a dusk-to-dawn venue due to a lack of resources.

Armstrong adds: “We’re doing everything we can to improve, and we’re doing everything we can to get out of these situations. But we’re running into obstacles, obstacle after obstacle.”

Advocacy groups say many of these homeless people have disabilities and will have difficulty leaving their encampments by Thursday’s deadline.