Pittsburgh crews clear out Downtown homeless encampment
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) — Officials have decided to take down the oldest continuing homeless encampment in Pittsburgh.
On Wednesday, outreach workers loaded up vans with people's possessions, taking what they had to shelter beds. After months of drug sales, spreading garbage and some who lived there reporting they felt unsafe, the city moved the last people out of the encampment on Grant Street in Downtown Pittsburgh in anticipation of taking it down.
"The decision was made to close this encampment," Pittsburgh Public Safety Director Lee Schmidt said. "So, we're working with those who are unhoused, ensuring they get offers of shelter."
It's the oldest continuing encampment in the city, but it has been a site of concern for some time — including a police raid months ago with the arrest of suspected dealers reportedly preying on the people there. However, according to Pittsburgh Public Safety, outsiders continued to sell drugs at the site and the situation deteriorated.
"Sometimes folks try to use encampments or areas around encampments as cover for dealing and other activities," Schmidt said.
The city-county committee which evaluates conditions at encampments decided it was time to take it down. But despite the removal of other sites, homelessness is increasing while public frustration is growing.
Schmidt says real progress won't be made until there is a community-wide strategy to address the underlying causes of addiction and mental illness.
"We have to solve the problem, not just continue to put it on the city that we have to clean the encampments," Schmidt said. "Obviously that needs to happen. But we have to have places these people can go, where they can stay, where they can be safe, and get the help they need, they can get treatment."
"The current system we have, it works sometimes, but there's not enough of it in place," he added.
