D.C. is moving to permanently clear a homeless encampment located on K Street NE in NoMa, declaring the sidewalks “pedestrian passageways” that cannot be blocked by tents or other personal belongings.

The move was announced by bright orange signs posted late last week warning that starting on Jan. 16, “all property blocking this sidewalk is subject to immediate removal and disposal.” In the past, the city has given advance notice of its plans to periodically clear homeless encampments from sidewalks and parks, but many of the tents and other belongings would quickly reappear. The new signs in NoMa indicate a more aggressive approach to keep tents from reappearing—though one that is also somewhat limited.

While the clearing of tents and other personal belongings could impact dozens of people experiencing homelessness who sleep under the train bridge crossing over the street, it will not extend to encampments on L and M streets, which are just to the north. City officials say the new policy is necessary because of the high number of tents crowded along narrow sidewalks on K Street, which could pose a hazard to people who walk along them to get to and from home and work.

“When we do our regular cleanups we also look for whether or not the encampments create issues with safe passage when they are placed on sidewalks,” says Wayne Turnage, the D.C. deputy mayor for health and human services. “We were noticing over time that pedestrians were stepping into the street to not interfere with the encampments. We needed to address it before someone got hurt.”

The issue of homeless encampments in NoMa, a fast-developing neighborhood of office and residential buildings, has been simmering for years, but burst into an open boil late last summer when Robin Jasper, the president of the local business improvement district, published an open letter raising concerns with how some of the tents were encroaching on sidewalks along K, L and M streets.

“Conditions are worsening at the encampments in the underpasses and on First Street NE, and … people are worried about their ability to safely traverse these public spaces,” she wrote.

“Many report that they have been harassed as they walk by the tent encampments, where people frequently engage in aggressive panhandling and occasionally menace passersby. Used and bloody hypodermic needles and other drug paraphernalia, rotting food, trash, broken glass, public nudity, prostitution, sales of illegal drugs and human urine and feces are encountered by those whose routes take them by the encampments and pervade the space in which encamped individuals are living,” she added.

Jasper proposed that D.C. create “pedestrian safe-passage zones” through the neighborhood. Turnage says the city’s decision to do so on K Street was not spurred by Jasper’s letter, but rather observations done during encampment cleanups. Jasper was not available for comment, but a person with knowledge of the situation said the NoMa BID was given no advance notice that the signs were being posted.

The letter and D.C.’s frequent cleanups have prompted criticism from homeless advocates and some residents, who say that the city should instead focus on housing more people experiencing homelessness. And it also falls in the middle of a national debate over homeless encampments, with President Donald Trump threatening to use federal power to clear tents out of certain cities. D.C. has not yet been the target of his ire, but he did once claim to have “ended” homelessness in the city.

According to a point-in-time census conducted on one night in January 2019, there were 6,521 people experiencing homelessness in D.C. A fraction of those—607—were fully unsheltered, which can mean sleeping in a car or on the street.

Keesha Rodriguez Davis, 53, has lived on K Street for the last month, sleeping on an unsheltered mattress and panhandling in the area during the day. She found out about the new policy when a paper announcing it was left on a cart of her belongings, prompting a discussion with her neighbor, Jim.

“Jim was like, ‘You know we gotta get up out of here?’ I think everyone is going a little crazy, because where are they going to move to next?” she says. “I think it’s a bad decision for them to do that to us. I really do. We don’t really have anywhere else to go, we don’t really have nowhere else to keep our clothes.”

Turnage says he understands the policy of periodically clearing encampments can be controversial (and has prompted a lawsuit), but added that officials are always trying to strike a balance.

“The most humane situation would be for everyone to have safe and secure shelter. We’re trying to expand the number of units in this city that folks who are struggling can live in. In the interim, we have this shelter system that we invest in every year that we would prefer people to use rather than live on the street. But if they insist on being in an encampment, our job is to ensure they don’t create a health and safety issue,” he says.

Rodriguez Davis, who has been homeless for a decade, says she doesn’t like staying in the shelter system. “It’s real nasty in there, and there’s a lot of arguments with women and I don’t want to be in there,” she says. But she also concedes that the encampment has its challenges, with some residents using drugs and getting into fights.

Eric Tars, the legal director of the National Law Center on Poverty and Homelessness, says it is “particularly cruel” that D.C. is implementing this new policy on K Street just as winter is intensifying. And he says that more individualized work with people living there and in other encampments is a better practice than periodically clearing away tents or prohibiting them in certain areas.

“You send out outreach workers, find out what the barriers are to every individual to getting into shelter and housing and you work to resolve those barriers. It takes a bit longer, but then once you close the encampment, it’s closed permanently because people don’t need it anymore,” he says.

Tars also says that D.C. and the NoMa BID can work to find creative solutions to the challenge of homeless encampments.

“If you look around the NoMa area, it’s so overbuilt that there are dozens if not hundreds of vacant units around there. Probably more than enough to house, even if temporarily, every single person living under the bridge. If folks really are concerned about clearing out the sidewalks, they can be coming forward with actual solutions,” he says.

In the meantime, Turnage says the cleanups and periodic encampment clearings will continue across the city. (One took place on K Street on Tuesday morning, separate from the new policy that will fully kick in Jan. 16.) And he says city workers will keep trying to get people experiencing homelessness into shelter and eventually permanent housing.

“We have a shelter system that is improving every day and currently has enough capacity,” he says. “Our hope is that we can consistently move people into safe shelter.”

As for Rodriguez Davis, she says she’ll do what she’s always done—adapt. But that won’t mean moving far. She says she expects to move to another encampment in NoMa.

This story originally appeared on WAMU.