The man dubbed the "Mayor of Martin Place" says some residents being forced to leave the homeless camp don't have anywhere else to go, and he's attacked the NSW government for focusing on the tents rather than the people inside them.
After more than six months camped outside the Reserve Bank building in Sydney's CBD, the homeless community is peacefully moving on after police asked them to leave.
Legislation passed NSW parliament on Thursday empowering police to tear down the tents if it was deemed there was a "public safety issue".
But the "Mayor of Martin Place", Lanz Priestley, says the homeless residents would never have let it come to that.
"I don't care what political kudos we lose ... my first responsibility is to make sure the people in the space are looked after," he told AAP on Friday.
"Yesterday one of the local cops asked us to go and I thought that was quite a reasonable request and we're leaving."
Mr Priestley said some camp dwellers would move to friends' homes or their backyards. But some, he said, "don't have anywhere to go".
As the camp was packed up around him on Friday, Mr Priestley said he would have preferred to stay until everyone had somewhere safe to go, and the issues leading people to sleep rough were properly addressed.
"But they (the state government) are not interested in that. They're not looking at the people - they're looking at the tents," he said.
Two women with nowhere to sleep came to the tent city on Thursday night and found shelter - a safe option that occupants say won't exist once the camp is dismantled.
"They were scared, but we said 'Sleep here, we'll set you up a tent right in front of our kitchen, no one will do anything to you, it's safe'," former tent city occupant Tony Castle told AAP.
"It is sad everyone is going."
