City still has no coherent, or honest, response to homelessness
As the City of Pittsburgh continues implementing its homeless encampment sweep policy, initial hopes for abundant “credible housing offers” have been dashed: The majority of those displaced end up right back on the streets. The result is exactly what the Gainey administration has pledged to avoid: simply pushing unhoused people around without making progress toward long-term solutions.
Worse, official explanations for camp clearances are easily proven to be misleading.
The encampment decommissioned this week, nestled between Ft. Pitt Boulevard and an on-ramp to the Parkway East, had at one point ballooned up to 30 residents following the Mon Wharf flood in late January. While the camp clearly runs afoul of the city’s written encampment policy, city officials have said that camps would only be cleared if they can make “credible offers of housing” to those displaced. This promise has proven flimsy in the past, and it remains flimsy now.
At a City Council meeting on Tuesday, Council President Daniel Lavelle indicated that it was his office’s understanding that the city had waited to decommission the Ft. Pitt camp until there were enough shelter beds to accommodate the residents. He had been either misinformed or misled.
An interagency shelter list, sent out daily to service providers, showed the reality: This week, there were at most three confirmed shelter beds available citywide. This includes one half of a bunk bed in a women’s-only shelter. Coveted longer-term single-room occupancy (SRO) and transitional housing options at Second Avenue Commons have months-long waitlists. There was no way for the city to offer housing, credibly or otherwise, to residents of the encampment.
Of the 18 current camp residents, one moved to a shelter, and five to rehabilitation services. Eleven moved to other camps.
There has been no springtime decrease in pressure on the city’s (and county’s) homeless support systems. There has been no progress in improving those systems, just as there had been no plan before a winter that turned deadly. Every choice city officials make is reactive to emerging crises; there is no comprehensive strategy, and no collaboration within City Hall or with other stakeholders.
For instance, when councilors Anthony Coghill and Deb Gross proposed a challenging but creative “tiny house” scheme, they received a chilly reception from the Mayor’s Office. And last week, the administration dumped a proposal to use millions in federal grants for “homelessness” — that is, transitional housing that won’t come on line for at least two years — on Council with no communication, but with a looming federal deadline that forced the legislature to approve it without consultation.
To be clear, decommissioning the Ft. Pitt camp was necessary: The location was dangerously close to highspeed traffic, and the city had received reports of violence, including sexual assaults. City workers, outreach staff and volunteers conducted, by most accounts, a sensitive and humane cleanup.
But despite months of time to prepare, and months of promises, the city does not have a visible plan to improve its response to the problem of homelessness — and official explanations are rife with dishonesty. No one, from the unhoused to the taxpayers, is being treated with respect.