Homeless move out of city

The rainy season is late in coming this year. Down in the former Hollywood Trailer Park, a small, tightly knit group of the area's homeless have had time to batten down the hatches.

A few residents have gone out on this sunny weekday afternoon to gather wood for the evening, but beneath the shelter of their makeshift communal tent, a kitten sleeps soundly in a camp chair, not far from a pot-bellied stove.

The homeless people who live here are among the few in Hollywood deemed by Marysville Police to be living outside city boundaries, and beyond the reach of an ordinance that prohibits camping.

Those within the city's juri diction packed up their camps and moved elsewhere in Hollywood.

"Everyone was very cooperative," said Capt. Mike Wilson, who took on the business of looking out for this population earlier this year, when fire safety had become a political issue for the city.

A survey taken by the Police Department in early September worked out the jigsaw puzzle of city land, privately owned tracts and Yuba County property within this wooded riverbottom.

Rather than face legal citations, which police repeatedly warned Hollywood residents would be forthcoming, about 14 residents living in six different camps packed up and moved their settlements to areas that lie within the county's jurisdiction instead of the city's.

Wilson said this arrangement allows an increasing number of area residents who have fallen on hard times to stay in Hollywood for the time being.

"Nobody was happy about having to move," said Don "Shortstack" Oliver, the community's unofficial mayor and minister, who had just returned from his day labor job. "But now, they can all go about their business."

He and his neighbors were relieved to learn that they were not among those having to relocate their camps.

With the season's first heavy rains right around the corner, they reconfigured their tents and covered this central living space with wooden posts and plastic tarp. They jury-rigged an old wood-burning stove so they can warm themselves and stay dry.

"This is a hard life," said Oliver, "but this place here ain't too bad."