Tacoma city crews on Wednesday began clearing a notorious homeless encampment linked to a recent tripling of calls to the city's 911 center about shots fired or small blazes.

Between January and March of this year, the encampment near People's Park in Tacoma generated 243 calls to 911. While for that same period in 2021, only 65 calls were made for help, according to city data.

The number of calls in March alone jumped 359 percent year-to-year, the data shows.

"We've repaired their cars. We've given them food," said Bernal Baca, who works with Mi Centro, which provides services for the Latino and Indigenous community. "We've been good neighbors for them and it's gotten to the point that it's gotten overwhelming for us."

The group's building is located right next to where the clean up occurred.

"Most of my staff don't want to come to work because they're afraid to get out of the car," Baca said. "They're harassed by them and i personally have been accosted."

He approves of the city's work but others in the area said they do not.

"These people, everything they have is gone when they come through and take their stuff and everything," said Andrea McCullough, who lives in the area. "There's people that go overboard and stuff like that, but we need resources."

And other organizations who were at the site Wednesday were just trying to help how they could.

We are "helping those people who are homeless get resources," said Harold Odom, who works with the Lived Experiences Coalition. "We don't believe in the sweeps. We don't believe anybody should be displaced."

Tacoma city officials said there is shelter space currently available and they are working to add more.

"We have shelter vacancies for those that want it," said Caleb Carbone, spokesman for the city. "We can't force people to go into shelter, nor do we want to. We want to be able to support every individual and where they're at. But we also have to keep in mind safety concerns with the rest of the community."

Officials said they don't want to just shift the homeless from from street to street.

"It is not our intention to move folks from one area to another and have that," Carbone said. "We really do want to help get these folks housed."

City officials said there are three different locations they're working to grow the city's shelter capacity while some are closer to completion than others.

One of those Is a plot of land on Martin Luther King Jr. Way near 23rd Street.