ALLENTOWN, Pa. \u2014 Allentown City Council on Wednesday night implored Mayor Matt Tuerk \u2014 through his deputy \u2014 to slow down the city’s push to clear another homeless camp.<\/p>\n
Council voted unanimously to approve three resolutions.<\/p>\n
The first calls on Tuerk and Lehigh County Executive Josh Siegel to find a plot of land where people can camp without fear of eviction and immediately release approved funding for emergency hotel stays and other initiatives.<\/p>\n
That request was made with particular urgency, as the Allentown YMCA prepares to close its shelter that’s served more than 100 people this winter.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey’re not bothering nobody. They’re just living their lives.\u201d<\/p>\n
Councilwoman Ce-Ce Gerlach on residents of the Little Lehigh camp<\/p>\n
The second resolution was passed to give council some oversight over the administration’s process of identifying and addressing homeless camps.<\/p>\n
And with the third, all seven council members urged the mayor to postpone the eviction of a small camp hidden along the Little Lehigh Creek behind a retaining wall at Fountain Park.<\/p>\n
City crews on Friday posted eviction signs that declare the area a flood risk and give the nine residents until April 20 to vacate.<\/p>\n
A handful of people living in tents near Fountain Park were ordered to vacate by April 20.<\/p>\n
Council members decried the mayor’s move to quickly clear another camp, hours after several of them visited it.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey’re not bothering nobody,\u201d Councilwoman Ce-Ce Gerlach said. \u201cThey’re just living their lives.\u201d<\/p>\n
Councilwoman Cynthia Mota called the pending eviction \u201cinhumane.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have to have a heart, and we should not kick them out,\u201d Mota said.<\/p>\n
The mayor is \u201ccausing more homelessness\u201d by shutting down a longstanding camp where people have formed a \u201cvillage,\u201d Councilwoman Candida Affa said.<\/p>\n
Councilman Jeremy Binder commended city Managing Director Frank Kane for taking the \u201cproverbial hotseat\u201d Wednesday night in place of Tuerk.<\/p>\n
But Binder lamented not being able to get immediate answers to his questions, with Kane in his first few days on the job and Tuerk out of town at a conference.<\/p>\n
Kane pledged to council members that Tuerk\u2019s administration would decide by Friday evening whether to honor their request to delay the eviction.<\/p>\n
‘People first’<\/p>\n
Many in Allentown City Council\u2019s chambers Wednesday night also criticized Tuerk for giving the camp\u2019s residents less than two weeks\u2019 notice.<\/p>\n
\u201cTen days is not enough,\u201d Mota said.<\/p>\n
\u201cGiving people ten days to move what they have left is immoral,\u201d West End resident Regina Padilla told council.<\/p>\n
Padilla urged officials to \u201cthink about people first and money second.\u201d<\/p>\n
And Gerlach said she worried the city could face potential claims of housing discrimination if homeless people get only 10 days to vacate their living spaces while most tenants get more notice.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don’t feel like citizens of Allentown. We feel like we’re trash; we’re pushed to the side.\u201d<\/p>\n
Resident Michael Johnson<\/p>\n
She is pushing for homeless residents to get at least 30 days in her bill to establish what she calls \u201cstandard operating procedures\u201d for camp evictions.<\/p>\n
Tuerk\u2019s administration on Wednesday countered with an internal policy to codify its responses to some of council\u2019s concerns.<\/p>\n
Advocates say the six-figure investment could save up to seven times that amount in prevented emergency medical care, law enforcement and shelter costs.<\/p>\n
Among the crowd Wednesday was about a dozen people who have relied on the YMCA\u2019s shelter throughout the winter.<\/p>\n
Several spoke before they marked their last night together with a Chinese takeout dinner back at the shelter.<\/p>\n
A woman who identified herself as “Tina” told council members she and her 20-year-old daughter \u2014 who stood by her side \u2014 \u201care scared\u201d because they \u201chave no place [to go] tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cPlease help us,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Michael Johnson urged officials to establish a year-round shelter for homeless residents.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don’t feel like citizens of Allentown,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cWe feel like we’re trash; we’re pushed to the side.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ALLENTOWN, Pa. \u2014 Allentown City Council on Wednesday night implored Mayor Matt Tuerk \u2014 through his deputy \u2014…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":169714,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[119,2748,121,2458,282,120,45546,76387,3553],"class_list":["post-169713","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-allentown","tag-allentown","tag-allentown-city-council","tag-allentown-headlines","tag-allentown-homeless","tag-allentown-housing","tag-allentown-news","tag-allentown-shelter","tag-homeless-camps-allentown","tag-mayor-matt-tuerk"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169713","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=169713"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169713\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/169714"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=169713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=169713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=169713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}