ALLENTOWN, Pa. \u2014 A bulldozer rolled through a homeless encampment along Jordan Creek on Monday morning as the mayor\u2019s eviction took effect.<\/p>\n
Crews showed up before 8 a.m. and got to work when the clock hit the hour mark, according to some residents still sitting nearby several hours later.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re going to be here a long time.”<\/p>\n
Allentown employee clearing encampment Monday<\/p>\n
\u201c[I\u2019m] stressed,\u201d one resident, Dana, said as he and others listened to the constant beeping of heavy machinery clearing the camp a few hundreds yards away on the other side of a line of trees.<\/p>\n
A city employee working at the site around 11 a.m. said the cleanup effort was about a quarter complete.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re going to be here a long time,\u201d he said as other workers built piles of trash and tree limbs near a dumpster where tents once stood.<\/p>\n
Demolition begins at homeless encampment near Jordan Creek<\/p>\n
Shelter to open Monday night<\/p>\n
Mayor Matt Tuerk ordered city crews to clean the camp Monday after calling for it to be shut down last month, citing safety and flooding concerns.<\/p>\n
The eviction initially was scheduled for Aug. 25, the same day city lawyers met in court with attorneys for developer Nat Hyman. <\/p>\n
Hyman sued Allentown this spring, alleging the encampment on city property was hurting the value of his nearby properties.<\/p>\n
Residents last month said more than 100 people lived at the camp some days. Several estimated about 30 people still were living at the camp as city crews and police arrived to clear it.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can\u2019t do another winter outdoors.”<\/p>\n
Dana, who lived at the encampment until it was cleared Monday<\/p>\n
Two of the four residents who spoke to LehighValleyNews.com on Monday morning said they would try to take advantage of the early opening of the Allentown YMCA\u2019s overnight shelter.<\/p>\n
Allentown, Lehigh County and the Lehigh Valley Community Foundation contributed about $75,000 to get the shelter up and running ahead of its typical mid-November opening.<\/p>\n
It has 80 beds to serve those who need a place to stay.<\/p>\n
Dana hopes he\u2019s among those who hope to get into the shelter Monday night. He said he tried to find another place to camp but couldn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re ghosts. People see through us; they don\u2019t see us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Torry, who lived at the encampment until it was cleared Monday<\/p>\n
He said he feels \u201csaved\u201d that the shelter\u2019s early opening will \u201crescue\u201d him from another hard winter as he awaits treatment for a heart condition.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can\u2019t do another winter outdoors,\u201d Dana said.<\/p>\n
‘Ghosts’<\/p>\n
Another encampment resident, Torry, said she lost her apartment in June and moved to the camp after Tuerk\u2019s eviction order. <\/p>\n
She said it was her only option despite its impending shutdown.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s nowhere else to go,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re ghosts,\u201d Torry said. \u201cPeople see through us; they don\u2019t see us.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said she has no plans to stay at the Y\u2019s shelter and called its early opening a \u201cbulls\u2014 solution\u201d from city officials.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re like a family.”<\/p>\n
Torry, who lived at the encampment until it was cleared Monday<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not a solution at all,\u201d she said, noting those who stay there overnight must be out by 7 a.m. the next day. And many may struggle to find storage for their items or be forced to leave them behind, she said.<\/p>\n
She and others said they instead will continue searching for a new place to pop up their tents \u2014 likely outside city limits.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome of us are going to stick together,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
She said it\u2019s especially important for women to have companions when living outside.<\/p>\n
The Jordan Creek encampment offered its residents a chance to form a community, she said; some feel their bonds are even deeper after being evicted.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re like a family,\u201d Torry said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ALLENTOWN, Pa. \u2014 A bulldozer rolled through a homeless encampment along Jordan Creek on Monday morning as the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2792,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[119,2456,2457,121,2458,2460,2461,2462,2454,120,2455,2459],"class_list":["post-2791","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-allentown","tag-allentown","tag-allentown-camp","tag-allentown-encampment","tag-allentown-headlines","tag-allentown-homeless","tag-allentown-homeless-encampment-demolished","tag-allentown-homeless-encampment-eviction","tag-allentown-homeless-encampment-torn-down","tag-allentown-mayor","tag-allentown-news","tag-allentown-ymca","tag-matt-tuerk"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2791","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=2791"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2791\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2792"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}