By Steve Klamkin WPRO News

Most residents of a controversial homeless encampment in Providence left the site on Monday, some moving less than a mile away to a site in woods off a nearby highway.

The encampment on private property off Charles Street that up to 40 people called home, some for years, was largely vacated Monday, after the Ctiy of Providence issued a notice to vacate late last week.

Several residents loaded their belongings on carts and pushed them up Charles Street, taking up residence less than a mile away off Route 146, in a wooded area not visible from the highway. Several cruisers were parked alongside as officers ventured into the woods.

Homeless advocates staged a rally upon hearing about the city’s plans to remove the residents.

“These people have nowhere to go,” said Eric Hirsch, a sociology professor at Providence College who was instrumental in forming the Rhode Island Homeless Advocacy Project, and has talked extensively with city leaders about providing services for those in the encampment, and outlined a list of demands to the administration.

“We said, hold people harmless, instead provide dumpsters, provide port-a-potties until you’re offering legitimate alternatives to living in a tent. They never responded to that demand, at all, in any way,” said Hirsch.

“We need to start looking at some solutions besides more raids of people experiencing homelessness,” said Juan Espinoza of the Rhode Island Coalition to End Homelessness.

By mid afternoon on Monday, most residents of the Charles Street encampment had left, and reporters looking over the site found a multitude of needles, condoms and other trash.