Pittsburgh to clear riverside homeless encampment over objections from advocates
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) — Responding to complaints of drug use and unsanitary conditions, the city is set to take down a riverside homeless encampment on the North Side.
But homeless advocates accuse Mayor Ed Gainey's administration of waging war on people experiencing homelessness.
For months now, KDKA-TV has been reporting on conditions on the trail and the complaints from residents about drug activity, discarded syringes, garbage and unleashed dogs.
"We've heard from many, many residents here," Gerald Delon of Washington's Landing said. "They will not use the trail in its current form. They're afraid for various reasons to go down there to jog and to bike."
In response to those complaints, the city last month posted the trail, giving those who lived there a deadline of Dec. 15 to clear out. And as early as Tuesday, Pittsburgh Public Works crews will begin picking up the tents and the already-bagged garbage.
But the action sparked calls of brutality from some advocates who accuse the administration of waging "an unrelenting war on the unhoused community in Pittsburgh." They picketed the mayor's house on Monday evening.
"I believe their hearts are in the right place," Gainey said on Monday. "I also believe that our hearts and minds are deeply aligned on this matter."
On social media, those advocates condemned the administration's "undignified sweeps" of the encampments. But on Monday in a press conference, the mayor defended their decommissioning as a humane way to get people out of frigid and dangerous conditions, saying all who lived there had been given a credible offer of housing at the closed McNaugher School on the North Side.
"We all want to end the issue of homelessness in our city," Gainey said. "We all want to ensure our neighbors are safe and have a place to call home."
The mayor says decommissioning is now possible because the county has added more than 200 additional beds this winter and the city intends to clear an encampment on the Eliza Furnace Trail and the Southside Riverside Trail as more beds come online.
"Your goal is to clear all the river trails this winter?" KDKA-TV's Andy Sheehan asked the mayor.
"We've been working toward that since the beginning," he said. "Now we have some options that we can utilize. And since we have those options, that's the direction we're going."
How soon those other trail encampments are decommissioned is dependent on housing becoming available, but it's clear the city is committed to turning trails back to public use.
