NBC Montana is investigating after a viewer reached out to us saying they witnessed Bozeman city staff scooping up homeless people’s tents and belongings and tossing them into a dumpster.

“They brought in a gigantic front loader and started grabbing peoples tents out of the right-of-way and putting them in a big 40-yard dumpster. Which just got hauled off right over here. We got a video of that,” Pastor Edward MacOrr, Aspherical Studios executive producer.

MacOrr showed NBC Montana the video of the front loader hauling away people’s tents and belongings.

He also showed us a video of himself dragging a tent a half mile back to where it was set up.

“They were hoping to come back tonight to sleep in their tent. And it’s heartbreaking. Where do we live? The Warming Center is already filled up,” said Kyle Kennedy, who is homeless.

We went to the Public Safety Center to speak to Neighborhood Services to find out why people’s tents and belongings were taken.

“With ordinance 2147, we started a monthly cleanup. What that entails is posting out signs, areas to be cleaned. They’re big orange signs that we put on grade stakes and post in areas that we intend to clean up. It’s nothing out of the ordinary from last Thursday that we’ve done on a monthly basis,” said Ben Bailey, Bozeman Neighborhood Services and code compliance program manager.

Bailey said code enforcement officers are out daily checking on campers and tents to make sure they’re abandoned before they get removed.

However, if a tent gets taken by accident, Bailey encourages folks to reach out to him at 406-599-5347 to get their belongings back.

Bailey adds there’s a process outlined in state law for the city to hold people’s belongings for 30 days before disposing them.

The new permit system will go into effect this week, and tents will be illegal to have in the public right-of-way.

Bailey said city code enforcement is doing what they can to ease people into the new law.