The city's Development Service Department has given quarterly encampment reports to the City Council for several years. Last week, the council agreed to switch to a semiannual reporting schedule after reviewing the latest report, which said just three such camps have been found so far this year.

The relatively low number reflects a downward trend in the last few years, the report said.

On Tuesday, the director of Development Services Department, Niall Fritz, said the drop-off began in 2000, when half a dozen illegal camps were found in Poway.

The number has been less than 10 every year since, except for a one-year spike in 2002, when 14 camps were found, he said.

"It's leveled off and gotten more sort of routine," Fritz said. "And it just saves paperwork to report semiannually -- it keeps (the city's two code enforcement officers) in the field instead of at their desks writing reports."

He and Mayor Mickey Cafagna attributed the lower numbers to city efforts to stay on top of the problem, the maturing of Poway -- which Fritz said means there are fewer open areas in the city, and local homeowners' tendency to call the city as soon as they spot an illegal camp or suspect one near their property.

"The (code enforcement) guys aren't going out hunting, looking for camps," he said. "It's almost always residential neighbors giving us a call."

Virtually every city in the region has to deal with illegal camps to some extent. They tend to be most common in communities with extensive agriculture, numerous hills or canyons, or a lot of construction.

The makeshift living quarters can range in size and detail from a blanket that one person spreads beneath tall bushes to dozens of people living in shacks pieced together from wood, cardboard and other materials. Some are outfitted with mattresses, cooking stoves and other items.

The camps' residents may be migrants working seasonal jobs in the area, homeless individuals, or transients passing through the region.

Regardless of who lives there, authorities say the camps are a public nuisance because they create health and safety hazards.

Several North County cities' attempts to get rid of illegal camps have made headlines in recent years.

Carlsbad, for example, has come under fire several times for ordering migrant workers to leave camps they had established in that city. Many of the workers toil in Carlsbad's strawberry and flower fields, and their supporters argue that the businesses or the city should provide low-cost housing for the laborers.

Oceanside makes periodic sweeps along its section of the San Luis Rey River in an effort to clear the area of illegal camps. San Marcos, Vista, Fallbrook and Rancho Penasquitos are among the other communities where the issue is ongoing.

Poway's two code enforcement officers work with local law enforcement officers to eliminate illegal camps found in this city. They do so by checking out reports of any makeshift living quarters and, when they find them, posting fliers in English and Spanish that tell the camp's occupants they have to move. They then return a couple of days later to make sure the occupants had left, said Fritz and code enforcement officer Marc LeDrew.

"Ninety-nine percent of the time, they take their personal belongings and sometimes their bedding and structures," LeDrew said. "And what's usually remaining is trash."

Property owners are responsible for clearing the debris. Poway paid the bill for cleanups at two of the camps found so far this year -- on city property along Metate Lane and in the creek next to Hilleary Park, Fritz said.

The third camp was on private property on Gateway Park Road, he added.

Mayor Mickey Cafagna said the city has been lucky to have so few illegal camps. If necessary, though, the city can always go back to more frequent encampment reports, he said.

- Contact staff writer Andrea Moss at (760) 739-6654 or amoss@nctimes.com.