(COLORADO SPRINGS) — Over the past two days, the Colorado Springs Police Department’s (CSPD) Homeless Outreach Team (HOT), alongside several other organizations, worked together to remove illegal campsites along the Greenway and Midland trails.

In total, crews cleared approximately 1,000 cubic yards of trash, weighing around 300 tons—enough to fill a basketball court with six feet of waste.

“There’s a lot of hazards, sadly, in a lot of these camps, needle specific, as well as other various hazards, from stumps to broken glass, I mean, you name it, it’s out there,” SGT. Olav Chaney, CSPD’s Supervisor of HOT explained. “There’s a lot of areas where they used to defecate and things like that, also become a hazard at some point.”

During the two-day cleanup, officers made five felony arrests and 60 misdemeanor arrests, and issued nine trespassing citations among others.

“It’s good to get them off the street and get them where they need to go so they can start the healing process and getting, you know, maybe back into a lifestyle that keeps them from recommitting crimes and things like that,” Chaney said.

Meanwhile, homeless advocacy groups believe the cleanup is not addressing what is causing the problem in the first place. The Colorado Springs Homeless Union is a nonprofit organization dedicated to making sure everyone has a home. When the cleanups began, the group took to Facebook to voice their concerns and posted, “These idiots think this will fix the problem. They’ve been doing this for years and it’s only gotten worse. How do we solve homelessness? How about a home or free public housing.”

“We’re doing everything we can, but there are so many times, sadly, that they just refuse the help,” SGT. Chaney explained. “There’s a lot of different excuses and some, I think, might even be fairly valid excuses, but in general, they just prefer to be out here and it’s easier to get to the drugs out here, sadly, and many of them have told us that as well.”

While the Springs Rescue Mission isn’t necessarily in support of the camp cleanups, they recognize it can help create a pathway out of homelessness.

“Homelessness is a complex issue and it takes a community really working together,” said Travis Williams, President & CEO of the Springs Rescue Mission. “I know that the city has a compassionate heart for individuals and they want to do the best thing for individuals who are experiencing homelessness and at the same time create a community that everybody can engage in on the parks and the trails, and so we empathize with all the hard decisions that have to be made to care for an entire community.”

Williams said some community members may view allowing people to camp or be in the downtown area as being compassionate when in reality it could cause more harm than good. “Very rarely do people actually get better isolated or alone, but leaving people isolated is the least compassionate thing we can do. So as tough as some of these cleanups can be, it may be the most compassionate thing.”

The rescue mission takes pride in its 450-bed capacity and the many services it offers, including being open 24/7, 365 days a year, and never turning anyone away.

“We hope that the trail will not be somebody’s forever home, we hope Springs Rescue Mission will not be somebody’s forever home, ultimately we want to help people find a pathway out of here, back into the community, back into jobs,” Williams explained. “In fact, that’s what we see every day.”

Although the city has finished the cleanups for now, police are asking the community to stop giving items like tents to those without housing because it can encourage illegal camping. Instead, they recommend donating to organizations like the Springs Rescue Mission, which offers the resources needed to help individuals transition out of homelessness.