Bethlehem police, social workers and other first responders helped clear out what remained of a homeless encampment near Lehigh Street and Sand Island Trail on Monday morning.
Despite below-freezing temperatures and several inches of snow, a handful of people still remained at the site Monday, working to relocate themselves and their belongings elsewhere as they faced a deadline to evacuate.
Norfolk Southern, a major railroad company, in August requested the city remove people camped on its property near Sand Island Trail, saying the encampment poses health and safety concerns including improper disposal of waste, open fires and possible interference with rail operations.
Norfolk Southern posted signs on its property Sept. 15 with a deadline for people to leave the area by Monday. Nearby land owned by UGI, PennDOT and Bethlehem — which owns a small parcel of land on a steep slope that city officials say is unsafe for habitation — also was evacuated Monday.
According to Bethlehem Director of Nursing Susan Benay Berger, six people camped at the site overnight, and several more homeless people were there Monday morning helping members of their community move their belongings. As many as 50 people lived at the site during the past year, city officials said.
One of those people was Julius, who declined to give his last name and who said he has been living in the Lehigh Street area for around two years. He plans to move to an encampment elsewhere in the Lehigh Valley.
He said one of the difficult things about being homeless is that poor behavior from a select few — like public drug use, littering and polluting, all of which were problems at the encampment — can perpetuate negative stereotypes and attitudes toward all homeless people, some of whom are just trying to get back on their feet.
“All it takes is a few people to really control the narrative, and then the rest of the population is suffering,” Julius said. “There are people here who are just struggling with housing. That’s their main goal to find. There’s people who are struggling with housing and addiction. There are people who are struggling with housing and addiction and mental illness. So these things tend to pile up.”
“It would be very helpful that, you know, a lot of that city officials and the powers that be can have a little bit more of that nuance integrated into their policy,” he said. “So that way, the people who are showing a genuine effort aren’t left to fall between the cracks.”
A media sheet from the Bethlehem Police Department said the city’s Community Connections program, which pairs social workers with police officers to conduct homeless outreach, has engaged with all 92 homeless people in the city.
Seventy-eight of them have been connected to social service resources including medical care, mental health services and transportation. Thirteen formerly homeless people have been connected to housing, 10 are using the Bethlehem Emergency Shelter, 24 relocated to other outdoor camping sites and 11 are in jail or prison on outstanding criminal warrants, according to the media sheet.
Community Connections personnel and other nonprofit providers — including the emergency shelter, New Bethany, Treatment Trends and others that work with the homeless population — established relationships with all of the city’s homeless residents via weekly outreach efforts.
Those who remained at the encampment Monday were people who have thus far, for one reason or another, declined services offered by Community Connections, Benay Berger said.
She said she was on site for “one last effort” to try to persuade any stragglers to accept the city’s offers of mental health, substance use or other services.
“There are a lot of reasons for that, there is mental health, there is a lot of substance use, there is trauma, years and years of trauma,” Benay Berger said. “There are a lot of factors that go into, like I don’t understand why you would want to sleep outside in the 12-degree weather, but some people really don’t want to be inside.”
“We always try to figure out what solutions we can help come up with to help people who just simply don’t want to be inside, but right now, we just want to make sure everyone is safe,” she said.
Norfolk Southern hired a contractor to physically clear the area, Bethlehem officials said. The Morning Call was not permitted near the site where contractors used industrial equipment to clear out abandoned belongings Monday.
As of 10 a.m. Monday, city police had not conducted any arrests or run into problems while helping to clear the area, according to Bethlehem Public Information Officer William Audello.
Bob Rapp, director of the Bethlehem Emergency Shelter, said the shelter has been close to capacity in recent weeks, and expects that trend to continue.
A lack of affordable, attainable housing is fueling the spike in homelessness, Rapp said — according to a comprehensive housing study conducted by Bethlehem in 2023 and ’24, the city is facing a housing affordability crisis. Last winter, more than half of the regulars who stayed at the shelter nightly were new to homelessness, he said.
“The housing market being what it is, the numbers of folks that are outdoors are going to continue to rise,” Rapp said. “We need to house folks, we need to figure out new and creative ways, maybe some old ways we don’t use anymore, to house folks.”
Allentown evacuated a homeless encampment along the Jordan Creek this fall, leaving dozens of people without a place to go. While cities and property owners say that homeless encampments pose health and safety risks, homeless people and their advocates have said that cities should not clear out encampments without giving people an alternative place to relocate.
Reporter Lindsay Weber can be reached at Liweber@mcall.com.