ALLENTOWN, Pa. – Allentown City Council saw a packed house of residents Wednesday night to address the city’s action last Friday to post a homeless encampment behind the wall in Allentown’s Fountain Park and give its residents 10 days to vacate.
Last August, the city came under fire for clearing a Jordan Creek homeless encampment, deeming it to be a flood hazard.
Allentown City Council members were united in the frustration of not having been consulted before the administration acted in Fountain Park.
As a direct result, council unanimously adopted a resolution and passed two motions to address the issue.
The resolution strongly urges the city and county administration to address the crisis created by the recent posting of the encampment sweep during the same time that the YMCA warming station is closing.
Mayor Matt Tuerk did not attend the meeting, but Managing Director Frank Kane attended in his absence.
The first motion is a recommendation to the administration to stop the current eviction sweeping and/or closure at the encampment behind the wall scheduled for April 20 and to have council and the public be informed of the mayor’s decision by the end of business on Friday.
The second motion approved is to have city staff work with Councilmembers Ce-Ce Gerlach and Jeremy Binder along with the Commission to End Homelessness to suggest a plan for oversight and reporting on how the administration manages encampment procedures and to have that communicated to City Council. It also calls for any planned or future action by the administration be reported on at each council meeting.
Kane told council that the administration is taking the issue very seriously and that a draft policy was been created that would:
Address safety issues in encampments so that anytime the city becomes aware of an encampment, the matter will go to the Department of Health, the mayor’s office and public works to decide on how to move forward.
Identify $50,000 in the city budget to be set aside for the hoteling of improperly housed people.
Have the city work with the county to identify some county land to be used as a safe location for homeless people and to provide services to keep them safe.
Take another look at real estate within the city for the possible location of homeless encampments.
“We’re concerned about the warming station closing and about where people are going to go,” Kane said. “It’s not ideal to move people from one place where they’re not able to stay to another place where they’re going to have the same problem. We’d like to find some permanent solution, and we hope to work with you.”
Kane said it will be up to the mayor to sign the policy, and council was frustrated that it had not received copies of the proposed policy Wednesday night.
Council President Santo Napoli said everyone is looking for the same thing.
“We want transparency and we want consistency,” Napoli said. “We want a policy that we understand as councilpersons and residents. So, I think that’s important to know how this works, and it’s so important that we do a better job of communicating.”
Council heard public comments from residents who face eviction from the encampment and from people who have been utilizing the YMCA warming station, which is now closed.
Michael Johnson told council that the Allentown is a beautiful city, but the thing that makes the city is the people.
“And to be honest, we don’t feel like city of Allentown residents,” Johnson said. “We feel like we’re trash. We’re pushed to a side. We feel like we can’t do nothing. I think we will make the city of Allentown even better if we find some solutions for the future. Let’s build a shelter year-round. We need solutions; we need resources; we need things that can make our city much better.”
Gerlach said she was happy to hear that there do not seem to be any objections from the administration for the resolution that council adopted.
“The resolution is just simply stating that once again we had an ‘oops,’” Gerlach said. “There wasn’t any communication. I found out from an unsheltered person on the street that this was happening. The resolution is an attempt to rectify that in the future.”
Council did caution the public that the motion passed to stop the closure of the encampment is only a recommendation to the city administration and does not carry any weight to stop the eviction.
Councilmembers visited the encampment earlier on Wednesday.
Councilmember Candida Affa said it is unconscionable for the city to only give the residents of the encampment 10 days to vacate when people who are evicted from housing are granted 30 days.
Affa also said that the tent encampment is the home to its residents and that if the city kicks them out, it will only be contributing to the growing problem of homelessness.