Man In His 70s Found Dead on Sidewalk Near Berkeley's Harrison Camp

A man in his 70s was found dead on a Berkeley sidewalk near a long-troubled homeless encampment, just days before the city was set to begin clearing personal property from the block. Berkeley police said the man was reported unresponsive at about 8:20 PM in the 900 block of Harrison Street, west of Ninth Street, and arriving paramedics declared him deceased at the scene.

Authorities found no apparent signs of foul play, according to The Berkeley Scanner, which first reported the death. As of yesterday, authorities had not released the man's name, and the outlet said it had asked the coroner's office for further details. The death occurred inside a stretch of Harrison Street that the City of Berkeley has designated a no-lodging area, a zone the scanner reports extends from the railroad tracks to San Pablo Avenue and from Gilman Street to Codornices Creek.

The block where the man died sits at the center of a bitter, multi-year standoff between the city and the people living there. The scanner's reporting notes that Berkeley has cited fires and public health issues as safety concerns along the Harrison Street corridor, and that the city has worked to close encampments in the area since 2025 — efforts that have been repeatedly slowed by an ongoing lawsuit brought by the Berkeley Homeless Union.

A Site Under Federal Court Order

The legal fight reached a new milestone this week. A federal judge permanently extended court protections for Berkeley Homeless Union members across city encampments, according to KALW, barring the city from conducting sweeps unless officials provide 72 hours' written notice, replacement survival gear, physical relocation assistance, and individualized disability assessments under the Americans with Disabilities Act. That litigation was originally filed in February 2025 by unhoused residents.

Earlier this month, U.S. District Judge Edward Chen ordered city officials and Berkeley Homeless Union representatives to walk city streets together to jointly identify candidate tent relocation sites for up to 23 unhoused residents before any clearing of the Eighth and Harrison encampment could proceed, as reported by Berkeleyside. Separate federal orders issued in April barred Berkeley from enforcing its 3-by-3-foot limit on personal sidewalk property without individualized ADA assessments and blocked officials from seizing RVs used as dwellings without proving specific health or traffic hazards, stemming from consolidated lawsuits filed by disabled camp residents.

Fires, Rats and a Looming Deadline

City attorneys have pointed to mounting emergency calls to justify clearing the site. Berkeley Fire Department crews responded to 55 calls for service in the Harrison Street corridor in 2026 before August, according to The College Fix, prompting municipal officials to formally declare the encampment a public fire hazard on July 27. The site has also dealt with a leptospirosis outbreak among rats and dogs identified by city and county health officials earlier this year, a bacterial disease spread by rodent urine that prompted advisories about exposure to standing water and soil — a cluster Hoodline first reported on in January.

Just two days before the man was found unresponsive, the city posted public notices warning that all non-vehicle personal property along several blocks of Harrison Street would be removed starting September 8, according to CBS News, a notice that has already triggered a renewed legal challenge before a federal judge. The encampment sits directly adjacent to UC Berkeley's University Village, a university-owned residential complex housing roughly 3,500 residents, including more than 700 children under 18, per The College Fix.

A Camp That Kept Growing

The population at Eighth and Harrison expanded from roughly 37 residents in late 2024 to more than 80 residents by mid-2026, the scanner's reporting shows, as court-ordered injunctions repeatedly delayed municipal clearing operations. City attorneys have argued in filings that those delays contributed directly to overcrowding on the block.

Regional mortality data offers some context for the circumstances of the man's death, even as the specific cause remains undetermined. Alameda County Health Care Services Agency data found that 66% of all homeless deaths in the county between 2018 and 2020 occurred in non-medical outdoor settings such as sidewalks, streets, vehicles, parks, and encampments. Men accounted for 77% of homeless deaths recorded countywide over that period, with acute and chronic medical conditions — including cardiovascular disease — listed as the cause of death in half of all cases, according to The Oaklandside.

The death adds to a string of troubling incidents at the same encampment this year. Hoodline previously reported that a 60-year-old Berkeley man was charged with felony arson earlier this month at the same Harrison Street camp he called home. No further details on the identity of the man found dead on Wednesday, or the cause of his death, had been released as of publication.