AUSTIN, Texas -- This week the Austin Public Works Department conducted a homeless camp cleanup on East Cesar Chavez near the Terrazas branch of Austin Public Library.

• Austin Public Works conducted homeless camp cleanup in February 2020
• Residents feared being displaced or losing valuables
• Just one of many hardships Janae Martin has endured 

The move upset many of the people living there, who were worried that the city's cleanup crew would force them to leave the property permanently, or throw out their belongings. One woman who was impacted by the cleanup said it a hassle for everyone involved, and that it was another hardship on a long list of struggles she deals with while experiencing homelessness. 

RELATED: Couple Experiencing Homelessness Impacted by City Cleanup

“Nobody is given a handbook on how to make life work," said 25-year-old Janae Martin, who had to learn that lesson first-hand when a man who shared housing with her and her husband wasn't able to pay his share of the rent. 

“He didn’t tell us until the very last moment, and I couldn’t come up with the money in the very last three days that we had, and then they evicted us," Martin said.  

Without the money to pay a deposit on a new apartment, and an eviction on her record, she and her husband ended up on the streets.

“We’re not out here to cause problems and make the citizens of Austin hate us, we’re out here trying to make it," Martin said.  

Martin works full time at a bar on 6th Street. Her husband is trying to find work, but struggling because of his criminal record. 

“He’s a really great guy, it’s just hard for him to get a job [where] they won’t judge him for what he did when he was younger because he was homeless, and that’s the only way he could take care of himself was by doing illegal things because he was 12, living on the streets behind a dumpster type thing," Martin said.  

Martin and her husband are estranged from their families, but on the streets they’ve made a new one. 

“I feel like we’re kinda like our own street family, like our own chosen family," said Martin. "But everybody is super respectful of people’s space and like our privacy and not like stealing things from each other. Like if I go to work, this guy right here, he always watches my tent, and if he goes to church and stuff like that in the morning when I’m there, 'cause I work at night from 6 to 2 or 3 a.m.”

Experiencing homelessness comes with an endless list of hardships. 

“Just keeping your stuff dry is the main issue that I have. Not being able to wash my clothes, like, go to the washer. I have to travel somewhere really far to go use a laundromat or something like that. [Having] the money for a laundromat. And just, the cold also. The elements. Heat. Charging your phone to be able to have an alarm to wake up to go to work. And just being happy, honestly," said Martin. 

For the past month Martin and her husband have lived near a branch of Austin Public Library located downtown. It’s one of the few places where she has access to resources like a bathroom, and can walk to work. 

“Well I can’t go anywhere else because this is where I make my money at. So I gotta be close to where I make my money because I can’t travel that far late at night. The buses only [run] so long, and also money to get there and back. And safety as well," said Martin. 

In the past five months, she and her husband have lived in two other spots on Cesar Chavez, and were made to move both times. But even when the city does a cleanup sweep, she said it can be frustrating. 

“On 6th and 35, the side that I stayed on was spotlessly clean. They still made us move our stuff for them to just stand there, watch us drag our stuff across the street, and then not pick up not one single piece of trash, because there was none.”

The City of Austin Public Works Department said its cleanup sweeps are just to remove debris and trash, not to displace people. 

But Martin said her community works hard to make sure their area stays clean. 

“Throughout the week - you know, daily things - you - like how your house gets messy and then you clean it up end of the week on Sundays type of thing. That’s kind of how it is out here, but we try to keep it clean. People at night once everybody goes to sleep, they’ll come out here and pick up the trash, things like that. We have trash bags hanging up on the back so people aren’t just littering. But we try to keep it as clean as possible, living outside, and dealing what we deal with on a day-to-day basis. So it’s hard, but we try our best," said Martin

Martin is also doing her best to keep her spirits up.

"Home is what you make it. It’s not necessarily a building with a roof and four walls... [But] the thing that I wish people ‘knew’ is something that people already know. That we’re all human beings. People should decide to treat people like people, and not like pieces of trash or garbage, or crazy people they’re scared of, because everybody out here is someone’s mom, dad, brother, sister, something to somebody. Someone loves somebody out here. Take the homeless part out, we’re people; not homeless people, we’re people.”

Martin says that some members of the community really go above and beyond providing them with resources like hot food, shampoo and conditioner, tampons, and other sanitary items, but she also said that they still face significant discrimination from some parts of the population. 

Martin is now is working hard to save up money for a new apartment, but says she has a long road ahead. 

A homeless camp located along East Cesar Chavez appears in this image from February 2020. (Niki Griswold/Spectrum News)