ALLENTOWN, Pa. - After a heated recent Lehigh County Board of Commissioners meeting, members voted to restore $200,000 to the budget to help stop eviction.
The original allotment started being dispersed in 2020, near the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Since then, County Executive Phillips M. Armstrong put forward an intention to veto the budgetary change, on Oct. 31, 2022. In the October memo, Armstrong wrote that he wanted to get rid of the eviction fund for a few reasons, including an indication that he believes it’s no longer necessary.
- Lehigh County commissioners voted to restore $200,000.00 in next year's budget, aimed at stopping eviction
- It was temporarily removed from the plan, after County Executive Phillips M. Armstrong announced a plan to veto it. His reason included the line: "if people get evicted now, they can't really cite COVID as the primary cause"
- Members of the community and housing advocates spoke passionately in Wednesday's commissioners meeting, urging a vote to restore the budget line
- After a 7-2 vote, $200,000 will be allotted in the 2023 budget for eviction prevention
- According to county documents, it will not affect the tax rate
“Lehigh County first closed down in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic on March 17, 2020,” Armstrong wrote in the veto proposal from October. “We lifted the state of emergency and emerged from the pandemic more than a year ago. If people are being evicted now, they can’t really cite COVID as the primary cause. I look forward to entertaining a more strategic policy discussion around the area of homelessness.”
On Wednesday, Lehigh County commissioners voted 7-2 to veto the change, restoring the $200,000 budget for 2023, which is intended to stop evictions.
Support from housing advocates
“Maybe table this vote, and everybody go sleep in your car tonight,” resident and attorney Ed Angelo said, during public comment in Wednesday’s meeting. “And then come back tomorrow night. Perhaps you’ll have a little flavor of what it’s like, you know, to be poor.”
Another speaker during the public comment portion was Jessica Ortiz, who works for the Ortiz Ark foundation, a non-profit that aims to provide resources for low-income families in the Lehigh Valley.
Ortiz has seen first-hand how many people need help with their housing situation.
“In our little valley, I can’t believe how many people come [to us], that are working people, that need this help,” Ortiz said.
"I urge you to really think about this and consider all the options before you go and just say yes or no, and realize how many families are on the street, or going to be on the street, or living 10-15 in a room, or living at the Super 8, or Red Roof, before you make a decision."Jessica Ortiz, of the Ortiz Ark Foundation
Commissioner Jeffrey Dutt voiced his opinions on the veto with a diagram on an easel in the meeting hall.
Dutt got up to the front of the room and drew a triangle, divided into different sections. At the bottom of the triangle, the largest and bottom most section, he wrote “HOUSING," and explained how American psychologist, Abraham Maslow, once referred to this as the “hierarchy of needs”, and that shelter was the most foundational need humans have.
“If you do not satisfy that need, you cannot move up in the continuum, to move up higher in the diagram itself,” Dutt said. “I work in a school district that does have a lot of homelessness. We have a homeless coordinator in each school.”
Several other commissioners referred to Dutt’s diagram and remarks throughout the meeting.
According to the agenda item document, the $200,000 budget intended to stop evictions will not change the county tax rate.
Lehigh County Commissioners Bill 2022 - 37 by LVNewsdotcom on Scribd
