City of Pittsburgh workers begin dismantling Downtown homeless encampment
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) - City workers have begun dismantling a Downtown homeless encampment, which office workers say had become the site of lewdness and open drug sales. But what of the dozens of other tents that have sprung up in and around Downtown?
KDKA-TV Lead Investigator Andy Sheehan spoke with the city's Public Safety Director, who says there is no place to put between 150 to 200 people living on its streets, and the removal of other encampments will be slow.
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After complaints from office workers and concerns about their safety, the city has begun dismantling an encampment along First Avenue and placing the people who have camped here into shelter beds.
"So far, we have space for everybody here. We're helping them pack their belongings," said Public Safety Director Lee Schmidt.
But while it's a significant step to get people off the street, the city concedes it's really a drop in the bucket. The encampment represents only a small percentage of people living unsheltered in and around Downtown. Like those on nearby Grant Street and another tent community set up on the Mon Wharf.
Sheehan: This is only a small slice of the homeless people.
Schmidt: In Downtown. Right. It's really a small slice of the homeless across the city.
And with winter approaching, this is the problem: Even if the city were to decommission other encampments, Schmidt says the shelter system is fully up, and there is no place to put them.
"Doing our best to manage within a system that's overwhelmed already. There's probably 150 people living outside in the city right now. We don't have the space for them right now."
Allegheny County's Department of Human Services is set to announce its plans to shelter homeless people this winter, but currently, Second Avenue Commons is filled, and Schmidt confirms there are no plans to reopen the Smithfield Street shelter, which merchants complained became a magnet for crime and drugs sales last winter.
For its part, the county is offering landlords financial incentives to rent to homeless people and is trying to establish satellite shelters outside of Downtown.
Schmidt says overnight emergency shelter can be available on frigid nights but expects a deficit in round-the-clock shelter beds. The city has a committee to decide which encampments should come down, but the process will be slow.
"We have to be realistic about what we can and can't do," Schmidt said.
Schmidt told KDKA-TV that the Department of Public Works will remove all tents on First Avenue beginning at 9 a.m. on Thursday.
