Crews shut down homeless encampment on Pittsburgh's North Side

Pittsburgh officials on Wednesday shut down a homeless encampment in the city’s North Side and helped to relocate most people who had been living there.

City officials worked to develop “transition plans” for people living at the encampment along Stockton Avenue near Sue Murray Pool before closing it down and putting fencing around the site, said Maria Montaño, a spokeswoman for Pittsburgh Mayor Ed Gainey.

About 35 people who were living at the encampment were moved into Second Avenue Commons, a new homeless shelter that opened in Downtown last month. The shelter reached full capacity within about a week of opening, and officials were setting up extra beds in an overflow space in the cafeteria.

Montaño could not confirm whether people housed in the overflow space were able to stay there 24 hours a day, as people in single-occupancy rooms can.

Another five to 10 people at the Stockton Avenue encampment did not yet have plans in place about where to go when the camp was closed, Montaño said.

“We’re being mindful about the public health and safety of the individuals who live there,” she said, explaining that officials felt they needed to take action at a site that has been operating as an open-air drug market.

Related:

• Pittsburgh officials look to clean up homeless encampment under 10th Street Bypass

• Pittsburgh officials hoping to move homeless people from encampments to new shelter

• New Downtown Pittsburgh homeless shelter already at capacity

Early last month, the city tore down an encampment under the 10th Street Bypass. Officials said they wanted to clean up an area that was unsafe and unclean. Montaño had classified that site as an open-air drug market, too.

Montaño said some of the people who were moved from that location were taken to hotels.

She said police were not involved in closing down either of the camps. During Wednesday’s tear-down of the Stockton Avenue site, she said, police were on site for traffic control.

Montaño said city officials posted signs at the site in advance to warn people living there that their encampment would be closed down. She said officials tried to work with people to make them aware of their options once the encampment was closed.

The city also tries to preserve belongings they find at the camps, she said. They keep them for six months to allow people time to retrieve their things.

Montaño could not confirm whether other encampments would see a similar fate in the coming weeks. Such decisions, she said, are made on an “encampment-by-encampment” basis.