ALLENTOWN, Pa. — City crews cleared another homeless encampment this week — amid National Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week.
Workers and heavy equipment rolled into the camp along the Jordan Creek Greenway early Monday, evicting a small group of residents who remained despite weeks of warnings.
They joined the growing number of people who have been kicked out of camps in the city in recent months.
“What they’re doing to us isn’t right; it isn’t fair."Joan Harwood, former camp resident
Herbert Stewart, a 64-year-old Bethlehem native, said he and his partner, Joan Harwood, have lived outdoors since losing their housing in October.
They were at the greenway camp with their cats for about two weeks before the clearing started.
Stewart told LehighValleyNews.com they had “no plan” and felt “very bad” and “very cold” as they stood by their belongings and wondered where to go.
“What they’re doing to us isn’t right; it isn’t fair,” Harwood said.
“We need a place to actually stay, a roof over our head, someplace the cats could go to,” she said. “We don’t leave without them.”
Homeless people should “have a place to stay without the aggravation of this — of moving from place to place,” Harwood said.
She called on Allentown Mayor Matt Tuerk to “do something for the homeless.”
She and Stewart urged officials to buy up vacant buildings and repurpose them for temporary or long-term housing.
“If I had the money, I’d do it myself,” Stewart said.
He said he believes some won’t care for homeless people or understand their struggle unless they experience it themselves.
Homeless residents “need to winterize their tents so they don’t die”; instead, they’re “getting moved around."Christina DiPierro, Commission on Homelessness co-chair
Christina DiPierro, co-chair of the city’s Commission on Homelessness, was at the camp Monday to help a client with Valley Youth House, where she works as a program coordinator.
She said homeless residents should be bracing for the cold weather, not looking for a new area to stay.
Homeless residents “need to winterize their tents so they don’t die,” DiPierro said. Instead, they’re “getting moved around,” she said.
National Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week, an annual event held the week before Thanksgiving, started Sunday.
Some shelter beds available
Since August, Tuerk has ordered the closure of three camps along the creek.
Crews in late September started clearing a camp along Jordan Creek just north of Tilghman Street. Residents there said more than 100 people lived at that camp some days.
Dozens of people still were living at the camp as city crews arrived to clear it.
That eviction prompted officials from the city, county and Lehigh Valley Community Foundation to work with the regional United Way to open the Allentown YMCA’s overnight shelter early.
“Our goal is to be able to tap into resources available to not have to go over capacity. If we do, we will make every attempt to secure an alternate bed.”Tami Unger, Allentown YMCA branch director
It opened Sept. 30, about seven weeks ahead of its typical Nov. 15 opening.
City workers cleared a second camp last week. One man, who spoke Nov. 10 to LehighValleyNews.com as bulldozers beeped in the distance, said he had “no clue” where he would go that night.
He said he considered going to the Y but heard the facility already is full most nights.
The 80-bed shelter is averaging about 45 guests a night and has yet to reach its capacity, maxing out at 70 guests one night, according to Tami Unger, branch director for the Allentown YMCA.
“It’s not really addressing the problem, it’s just brushing it aside. Why just bulldoze somebody’s tent if they have nowhere else to go?”Mayor Matt Tuerk in April
The shelter’s beds were used more than 2,200 times by 139 people between Sept. 30 and Nov. 11, she said.
Unger expressed concern in early October about capacity issues “in the coldest months.”
YMCA staff is working to connect some who show up at the shelter with other partners who can place them in alternative housing, she said.
“Our goal is to be able to tap into resources available to not have to go over capacity,” Unger said. “If we do, we will make every attempt to secure an alternate bed.”
Flood risk: Mayor
The mayor this spring touted a change to the city’s approach to homeless camps, saying he ordered city employees to clean up rather than “clear people out with a place to shelter.”
“It’s not really addressing the problem, it’s just brushing it aside,” he told LehighValleyNews.com in April. “Why just bulldoze somebody’s tent if they have nowhere else to go?”
But the banks of the Jordan Creek, where all three closed camps were established, are at risk of flooding during strong storms, Tuerk has said.
“I don't have anywhere else for people to go right now, but I can't let them sleep in a place where they run a higher risk of losing their life. That's just our responsibility as a city.”Mayor Matt Tuerk on Monday
He said he relied on fire officials’ risk analysis that found the area is in a 100-year floodplain after consulting Federal Emergency Management Agency maps in the wake of a devastating flood in Texas this summer.
The physical conditions of the area did not change, but “obviously, circumstances changed” when they learned of that flood risk, Tuerk said Monday.
Letting people continue to live in a flood plain is “a risk that we can't let them take,” he said.
“I don't have anywhere else for people to go right now, but I can't let them sleep in a place where they run a higher risk of losing their life,” the mayor said. “That's just our responsibility as a city.”
Tuerk called on officials throughout the Lehigh Valley to help address homelessness, an issue that knows no municipal borders.
He warned that shelters throughout the region could see more demand as Bethlehem officials work to evict homeless residents from a camp along the Norfolk Southern railroad.
Advocates and nonprofits will be responsible for providing much of the services needed by those in encampments, Tuerk said, noting the city’s role as a “funder.”
“We are funding our partners in the community to continue to meet the needs of people who are living without shelter,” he said.
