HARRISBURG, Pa. — Scores of people still living in an encampment along the Jordan Creek have less than a month to leave.
Many are trying to figure out their next move as officials and advocates work to find immediate and long-term solutions with the camp’s Sept. 29 eviction looming.
Some plan to head to the Allentown YMCA’s overnight shelter, due to open this month after the city, Lehigh County and a local nonprofit teamed up to fund its early launch.
“When you know that you can get up and go into the community and see friends that you've been connected with for the last three weeks, you look forward to that."Marsha Curry-Nixon, Amiracle4sure executive director
The shelter has beds for 80 people and can add cots for more. Despite its expanded capacity this year, it cannot serve all residents of the encampment — and those who spend their nights in other parts of the city.
But less than 90 miles west of the encampment, another potential solution is rising in an unpaved parking lot a short walk from the Pennsylvania Capitol.
About 60 tents are pitched in neat rows span part of the gravel-covered space where tractor trailers recently parked.
The people who live in them are the first residents of “A Miracle Community,” a safe camping space in Harrisburg.
They were pushed out of a nearby encampment known as Tent City, which officials are shutting down so the state Transportation Departments can widen Interstate 83.
All Tent City residents must leave by Sept. 22 — a week before residents of Allentown’s encampment must vacate.
Amiracle4sure founder Marsha Curry-Nixon, who leads the “Miracle Community,” is preparing to welcome up to 120 more people over the coming weeks.
It's a way of addressing the matter that some have advocated in Allentown, and which residents there say they would welcome, but also has generated concern.
An address ‘changes everything’
The Harrisburg community is barely a month old; its first residents moved in Aug. 1.
But Curry-Nixon, its spiritual leader and on-site manager, worked for about three years to make it a reality.
“It seems to be small, but it's a big, big thing for folks [to know] that you care. When we show people that we care, they feel that they care about their future, and they feel valued.”Marsha Curry-Nixon, Amiracle4sure executive director
“We started to plan” after PennDOT signaled its intent to widen the highway in the area of Tent City, she said.
Curry-Nixon and other members of the Capital Area Coalition on Homelessness met monthly as they worked to clear a host of hurdles, she said.
Finally this summer, a 3-acre parking lot became available, and Curry-Nixon leaped at it.
Amiracle4sure bought the former tractor-trailer parking lot for $670,000, thanks to a coronavirus pandemic-relief grant from Dauphin County.
An address "humanizes us — because if we don’t have an ID, we don’t matter; if we don’t have an address, we’re not legit."Marsha Curry-Nixon, Amiracle4sure executive director
At the new space, residents get a tent and an almost-200-square-foot plot, access to an array of services from nearby nonprofits, and a budding sense of community, according to Curry-Nixon.
“When you know that you can get up and go into the community and see friends that you've been connected with for the last three weeks, you look forward to that,” she said.
“It seems to be small, but it's a big, big thing for folks [to know] that you care,” Curry-Nixon said. “When we show people that we care, they feel that they care about their future, and they feel valued.”
Each resident also gets a mailing address, which enables them to get an ID and other important documents.
That “changes everything,” Curry-Nixon said.
“It humanizes us — because if we don’t have an ID, we don’t matter; if we don’t have an address, we’re not legit.
“Addresses are important. People have to feel as if they belong in the community in which they can live, breathe — and vote.”
An attractive alternative
Some residents at the encampment in Allentown told LehighValleyNews.com they’d prefer to continue living in their tent over spending nights in the YMCA’s shelter.
“It’s all safe camping here now."Josephine, a resident of the encampment
A safe camping site would let people keep their belongings and could be less restrictive without a curfew or closing time, which is what they face in the shelter, according to one resident who asked not to be identified.
Several said the encampment along the Jordan Creek is little different from safe camping and welcomed council’s directive to the mayor to find a suitable location.
“People have been camping here for over 30 years,” according to a resident named Dana.
“It’s all safe camping here now,” Josephine said.
One resident plans to move back into the area after the Y’s shelter closes in mid-April; others expect the encampment to be “flattened and paved” for an extension of the Jordan Creek Greenway trail.
‘Super cold feet’: Mayor
Allentown City Council last month gave Mayor Matt Tuerk just 30 days to acquire a property where residents of the Jordan Creek encampment can safely live in tents.
Councilwoman Ce-Ce Gerlach urged city officials to “take a leap of faith” and explore a safe-camping initiative like “A Miracle Community” in Harrisburg.
But a similar site won’t be coming to Allentown that fast.
“I’m not meeting the deadline,” Tuerk told LehighValleyNews.com. He said a feasibility study will require more time.
He said he’s “cautiously optimistic about safe camping as one of many alternatives” for unhoused people, but he has concerns about public safety and health issues in a communal camping area.
Safe camping is "completely new — and doing something that's completely new when livelihood is at stake, that's where I get super cold feet.”Allentown Mayor Matt Tuerk
The mayor, who ordered the encampment’s closure over flooding concerns, said he also has “reservations” about a safe-camping initiative being run by an organization without experience.
No one has “effectively done that before,” Tuerk said. “It's completely new — and doing something that's completely new when livelihood is at stake, that's where I get super cold feet.”
‘No formula’
Harrisburg's Curry-Nixon said she lived through homelessness about 30 years ago while struggling with addiction and dealing with abuse.
She said she spent three years in prison before landing in Harrisburg, where she rebuilt her life, gotten several degrees and launched Amiracle4sure.
“I take a risk trusting that we’ll figure out what we need to do next."Marsha Curry-Nixon, Amiracle4sure executive director
She spoke openly about not knowing exactly how she will help residents of the new community each day.
“I’ve never done this before,” Curry-Nixon said. “I don’t have a plan.”
“There's no formula."
But she said "people have to be willing to take a risk" to make a difference.
“We have to think on our feet," she said. "If I would have blinked at the opportunity to take advantage of this space, we wouldn't be having this conversation.
“I take a risk trusting that we’ll figure out what we need to do next.
“I think we overthink things; sometimes our degrees get in the way. This is not where that happens.”
She highlighted some of the simple, do-it-yourself improvements her son has made at the “Miracle Community,” including wooden clothes-drying racks and light poles.
'Don't give up'
Curry-Nixon has had few moments to fully assess the camp’s fledgling phase, but she offered some advice to Allentown residents advocating for safe camping and other solutions for unhoused people.
“Understand that you need to seek guidance and direction from those who have lived it,” she said. “If they're not sitting at the table, then you're defeating the purpose.”
“Allentown is a strong community, and in that community are the answers to the problem."Marsha Curry-Nixon, Amiracle4sure executive director
The property’s purchase was government-funded, but safe-camping initiatives must be “community-driven ministry,” Curry-Nixon said.
“Nonprofit organizations have a commitment to community, and I need them to live it up; I need them to live it out,” she said, while urging faith-based organizations to also play a part.
“Allentown is a strong community, and in that community are the answers to the problem,” Curry-Nixon said.
“Continue to seek out the solutions to the problem, but don't give up. If one door closes … go to the next door; find another solution."
Digital content producer Makenzie Christman contributed to this report
