Allentown Mayor Matt Tuerk has indefinitely delayed a planned sweep of a homeless encampment near Fountain Park following public backlash.
In an interview Saturday, Tuerk said that the plan to clear the camp Monday was “premature” and that more city department leaders should have been consulted before public works staff posted signs in the area ordering people to leave.
“We didn’t have a chance to fully vet the situation down there, we didn’t consult all departments,” Tuerk said. “So I think it was premature decision to post [evacuation notices]. We are in the process of reviewing the situation with the encampment, so now we are delaying the evacuation until we have a chance to fully review it.”
He said that the encampment eventually will need to be cleared because it is in a flood-prone area, but the city is formulating a formal, internal policy on how it will handle clearing this and other encampments in the future.
Tuerk’s proposed encampment policy, which is still under review, would give at least 10 days notice to encampments that are in a public park or a flood-prone area. In places where there is no such hazard, the city would have an “open time window” to evaluate whether or not to clear the area.
The reversal follows backlash from City Council members, homeless advocates and camp residents at a Wednesday Council meeting. Council members voted unanimously to urge the city not to clear the encampment because the people living there had nowhere else to go.
The Lehigh Valley has no year-round emergency homeless shelters, and the YMCA Warming Shelter, which provides around 100 overnight beds during the colder months, shut down for the season Wednesday.
“We don’t know what to do, where to go, what’s going to be our next meal, shower, what is going to be anything for us. We can’t go to a homeless encampment for fear of being kicked out,” Swaine Flagg, who lives at the encampment, said during public comment at the meeting.
Leaders at nonprofits who serve homeless people also said they were angered by the city’s decision; they said they were not notified ahead of time that the encampment residents would be displaced, leaving them to scramble to help people relocate.
City Council member Ce-Ce Gerlach has drafted an alternative encampment policy which would give homeless people at least 30 days notice prior to being forcibly evacuated. Gerlach, who has spoken publicly about experiencing homelessness in the past, said that 10 days notice is not enough time.
“I have a lot of concerns with this policy. What I will do, though, is I will take my encampment ordinance, and I’ll make some adjustments to match some of the language of [Tuerk’s] policy,” Gerlach said. “I am going to keep the 30 days [notice].”
Gerlach’s proposed encampment policy ordinance will be up for review by City Council at an April 29 meeting at council chambers.
Tuerk’s decision comes around nine months after the city evacuated a larger homeless encampment in Allentown. Last August, city officials gave 103 people living at an encampment in Jordan Park around two weeks’ notice to evacuate the area.
After significant pushback, the city delayed the evacuation by one month, and allocated additional funding to the YMCA warming shelter, which allowed it to open on the same day the camp closed.
Morning Call reporter Lindsay Weber can be reached at Liweber@mcall.com.