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Fewer people are living there, they’re more dispersed and the communal atmosphere of previous years has diminished.

If things keep going this way, as is planned, the camp will be empty of residents by late this year. And a new, more elaborate mountain-bike park will be under construction.

I’ve visited the 100 Acre Wood, across East Golf Links Road from Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, a half dozen times since mid-2023. Tuesday’s visit, my first in some months, was different.

Many of the people I used to know there are gone. Some of the big campsites are cleared out. The people I tried to talk with were more suspicious and less friendly.

Dabbing eye shadow on her lids with a Q-tip, resident Vianna Allen told me city officials have told her to expect to leave by June.

“They say ‘We’ve got this rapid rehousing,’ “ Allen said. “They sell you a golden ticket, then they give you nothing.�

When I asked her what the options are, she said, “Option 1 is to get the (hell) out. Option 2 is to get the (hell) out.�

That’s, of course, not at all how city officials put it, or see it. But a plan is moving forward this year that would have a similar effect.

Mountain biking for city kids

The 100 Acre Wood was created as a mountain bike park, on Air Force-owned land leased to the city, by . It was intended as a place accessible to city kids to go and ride, without having to be driven out into ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥â€™s outskirts.

Years back, I rode it several times, enjoying its curving desert trails and jumps.

But as addiction and homelessness rose five-plus years ago, and then the pandemic struck, the inevitable happened. It turned into a camp, and bicyclists gradually stopped going.

When I first visited the camp as a journalist in 2023, I had to admit there was something functional about the place. Yes, many people were addicted to fentanyl or otherwise deeply troubled, but there was also a communal spirit about the place as people supported each other with hauling water and other jobs.

Some police officers would even recommend that homeless people go there instead of camping in ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ neighborhoods.

But inevitably crime and fires have cropped up. In the 49 days since Jan. 1 this year, ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ Fire Department has gone to 22 calls at the site, 14 times for fires.

In a Jan. 30 meeting, city officials and a mountain-bike trail designer explained how all that is planned to change, beginning in about August.

There is a pot of about $340,000 available to redesign the area as a much improved mountain bike park. The money comes from the ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ State Parks Heritage Fund, Sonoran Desert Mountain Bicyclists and the Trek Foundation, said city project manager Stephanie Kopplin.

Nat Lopes of Hilride Progression Development Group in Berkeley, Calif., said the space could accommodate about 10 miles of trails. There could be all sorts of trails, too, Lopes said: Skill trails, cross-country trails, flow trails, jump parks and jump trails.

“It’s a beautiful site,� Lopes said. “Natural beauty with huge sweeping views of the mountains.�

“Pump and jump flow is what the site lends itself to,� Lopes said, using a phrase I don’t really understand but that nonetheless sounds enticing.

A city of ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ survey about the site’s redevelopment through Thursday, Feb. 20.

Population has dropped

Of course, the question is, what to do about all those people. City officials and local social service agencies have been offering services for years and moved many people out of The Acres, as the site is sometimes known.

“The population is half of what it was,� said Justin Hamilton, the multiagency resource coordinator for the city, who visits the site often.

He said they counted 38 people total in recent weeks.

“The last couple of years, we were able to house many of the people who were willing,� he said. “We’re left with a lot service-resistant folks down there.�

Some, too, are always moving to the 100 Acre Wood for the first time.

On Tuesday, I met Barbara Sale, who told me she is 75 and just moved back to ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ from Hawaii in the last week. She’s camping with her son down there.

She returned here to get her pacemaker adjusted, she said, but is surviving on about $1,000 per month in Social Security.

“I don’t make enough to rent a place here,� she told me.

“It’s been rough,� Sale said, “but I don’t have any choice.�

Hamilton said he’s not hurrying to move people out until he knows the firm deadline, but he and social service agencies are constantly offering what is available to whoever lives there.

In fact, Allen acknowledge she had participated in , which tries to disrupt the cycle of jail, release, street life, and back to jail. Still, she eventually drifted down to The Acres.

She knows it’s probably doomed as a camp though. And city officials are hoping that creating an improved bike park will cement that reality.

Brandi Champion, the city’s community safety program director, told the Jan. 30 meeting, “When you activate a space with other things, the outcome is that (unhoused) people don’t tend to return there. When other people are enjoying the space and on their bicycles and the space is activated, people don’t tend to want to continue going back there and living there.�

Maybe so, but it is going to take steady effort, from bikers, resident and the city alike.

Contact columnist Tim Steller at tsteller@tucson.com or 520-807-7789. On Twitter: @timothysteller