Thursday morning, a construction crew and eight Dallas police officers arrived at Camp Goodnight to clear out the encampment and anyone staying there.
But organizers and activists were on site, protesting the displacement of the camp's residents.
After some back and forth with the owners, the deadline was pushed back, giving everyone until Monday to get out.
The property owner and the manager, Nick Mehmeti and Mark Minchello, said they don’t want to displace people — they’ve even offered some residents jobs.
“We’re not the bad guys here," Minchello said. "We’re just having pressure from the city."
"And our neighbors," Mehmeti added.
They said they gave residents two weeks to vacate, but many didn’t hear about that until the last second, like Misty Calip.
"We have no where to go. I mean, it hurts. You know, you try so hard and you're just sent away."Tim Uhlver, community leader at Camp Goodnight
She’s been living near Camp Goodnight for a year now with her puppy Abel.
She was feeling hopeful after getting a new job down the street, but now she doesn’t know where she’s going to go.
“I’m really disoriented, dismayed," she said. "I don't know what I'm going to do, I just know I have to go to work because I can’t lose my job. I just started it, I can’t lose it because that’s my way out of here, my ticket out of here.”
The Dallas Office of Homeless Solutions was also on-site to provide resources. But working with the city means staying in a shelter, and many people experiencing homelessness say living in shelters is too restrictive.
Calip said she's willing to give it a chance as long as she can keep her puppy and still get to work, but she's skeptical about it actually leading to permanent housing.
Ryan Ahmadian with Dallas Stops Evictions said the Dallas Houseless Committee, a group of local mutual aid organizations, will be at the encampment Saturday at 10 a.m. to help residents get their belongings packed up and moved to a new location.
Tim Uhlver, a leadership figure at Camp Goodnight, broke down in tears as the situation unfolded Thursday. He said more than anything, he wants to keep the community they've built together.
"Where do we go?," Uhlver said. "We have no where to go. I mean, it hurts. You know, you try so hard and you're just sent away."
Uhlver said he's opposed to going through the Office of Homeless Solutions to get help with housing because that involves going into a shelter, which is a non-starter for him.
"It's like a jail," Uhlver said, referring to the strict rules some shelters make residents adhere to — like curfews and only serving meals at specific times that don't always work with everyone's schedule.
He said in his experience, people facing homelessness are treated poorly in shelters and not able to live their lives freely outside the confines of the shelter.
"It just kills me every time," he said. "We should be treated like human beings, because we are human beings. We have rights."
Got a tip? Email Rebekah Morr at rmorr@kera.org. You can follow her on Twitter @bekah_morr.
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