Pittsburgh City Council recently unveiled a plan to provide more long-term housing options for the city’s homeless residents. But members of that committee say that a month later, they're still knocking at Mayor Ed Gainey’s door.
“[I] was hoping that the administration would be in constant contact and engage us and be like, ‘Well, look, let's try to make this work or let's try to make that work,’” said Councilor Anthony Coghill, who heads council's efforts on homelessness. “But having received no feedback or positive affirmation… it's a little frustrating to me.”
Lisa Frank, the city’s chief operating and administrative officer, said she has been meeting with council on the issue. And she pledged to prioritize getting information to the legislative body.
“It’s always going to be best when we're kind of rowing our boat in the same direction,” Frank said.
But the apparent disconnect may also reflect a difference in emphasis, with council looking toward longer-term solutions while the mayor's office has prioritized immediate concerns of getting people on the street into temporary shelters.
“I appreciate that people not taking [council’s plan] up immediately is discouraging maybe or frustrating,” Frank said. But “The order in which we tackle these ideas is pressed upon us by the urgency of the various situations that we face.”
'We have to have an alternative'
With summer well underway, the mayor's office faces two immediate challenges. Concerns have been growing about the resurgence of tent camps along trails and under bridges in recent months. Adding to the problem's urgency is the fact that Allegheny County is preparing to close a high-profile shelter at a Smithfield Street church next week.
“Allegheny County officials’ decision to close the Smithfield Street overnight shelter will complicate any efforts to address the concerns of people living outdoors,” said Dan Vitek, staff attorney for the Community Justice Project.
Frank said she has been in contact with county partners to find alternative locations for those who've stayed at the Smithfield shelter.
“We have found that there are places that are safer, better, less dense than Smithfield and are figuring out how to work together” with the county to relocate people, Frank said.
According to Frank, 58 people have been relocated so far. The shelter typically sees 125 or more people per night.
At the same time, the Gainey administration is drafting a new policy for when and how the city shuts down tent camps. The plan sets priorities for when police should clear camps and how much notice is required before crews come to remove belongings. Those belongings will be stored for 90 days at a location listed on the camp closure notice.
A draft of the plan obtained by WESA calls for the city to sweep a camp in a number of scenarios including:
- When camps are located in a public space — such as city parks, baseball fields, or tennis courts — for which people can obtain a permit for exclusive use
- When camps are considered to be trespassing on private property owned by a government entity or authority
- If there’s evidence of human trafficking, clearly visible use or sale of illegal drugs, or credible reports of violence
- If any activity threatens critical infrastructure, such as a fire beneath a bridge
- When tents are within 10 feet of roads, trails, sidewalks bus shelters and other parts of the right of way;
The draft also requires the city’s public safety director to lead the clearances.
Gainey officials say they’re still finalizing the policy, which they say is necessary so that public safety officials and residents will be on the same page about when a camp needs to be cleared.
Absent from the document is an outline for how the city might serve the occupants of a camp when officials decide to clear it. That’s raised concerns for groups like the Community Justice Project.
“To lawfully close an encampment of unhoused people on public land, alternative shelter must be available and offered to the residents of the encampment,” Vitek said.
Coghill supports closing the shelter along Smithfield Street. “It was not good to have 50, 60 people outside of this place when others are trying to conduct business” in the surrounding area, he said.
But he said he learned of the camp-closure policy from the media. And he said he shared concerns about whether Gainey's plan will include finding adequate shelter for people forced out of a camp.
“For the city to come in and just tear the camps down, if that's what their ultimate plan is, we have to have an alternative,” Coghill said.
Frank told WESA that the plan can still evolve as the city works with homelessness advocates and organizations to iron out the details.
But Chase Archer Evans, a member of Allegheny County’s Homeless Advisory Board who is homeless himself, isn't optimistic. The city's camp-removal proposal, he says, reflects a mindset of “criminalizing” homelessness.
“They’re trying to put themselves in a position to get rid of homeless people,” Evans said. “Sweeps kill people.”
Evans noted the city has been widely criticized for how it handled this past winter's closure of a camp near Stockton Avenue in the North Side. A woman was still in a tent when a front loader truck scooped it up. As a result, she fell several feet to the ground.
“This policy doubles down” on the tactics that lead to such outcomes, Evans said. The city should focus on providing public bathrooms Downtown and other hygiene services for people living on the street, he said.
“They’re entirely missing the point.”
'A step in the right direction'
Frank countered that the Stockton Avenue incident showed the city needs a “shared understanding” of how and when the city will sweep a camp — a need she said the new policy would address.
And Frank said that the city was working with the county to identify buildings with vacant or decommissioned units that could quickly be turned into temporary shelter space. The goal, she said, is that these newly identified spaces would not require people to leave in the morning with their belongings, as they must do in facilities elsewhere.
“That's the problem that we're trying to solve here,” she stressed.
City Councilor Deb Gross, who helped lead council’s efforts to explore housing options for the homeless, said that would be a “step in the right direction.” She and others on council have stressed that shelters should not be the only option the city explores.
“The congregate downtown shelters that we’ve all been relying on are overcrowded,” Gross said. “You have to leave at 7 in the morning, you might not get a space when you come back in the evening. … That is not housing.”
Council's approach to the issue has focused on a longer timeframe. Gross and others want to go beyond providing beds in a congregate shelter and focus on individual short-term housing.
Council’s plan proposed three ideas for transitional housing options where homeless residents could stay until they get back on their feet: building a village of tiny homes; redesigning an office building into dorm-style apartments; and building a long-term shelter similar to the facility that opened along Second Avenue late last year.
Frank said the Gainey administration is “grateful” for the ideas, but that the city can’t move forward on them yet.
Coghill said he’s eager to make headway on the ideas council presented last month. He stressed that work can’t proceed without support from the mayor’s office.
“We put something on the table, something that everyone can look at. So I expect and hope that the interest will be there … from the mayor's office to pursue,” Coghill added. “If not, I look forward to their plan. Whatever it might be.”
