A man described as a “success story” for working his way out of homelessness was found stabbed to death Friday morning near a homeless encampment in Pittsburgh’s North Side.

Michael Dodson, 30, of Allison Park, was found around 6:45 a.m. in a wooded area near an encampment off Route 28, police and the Allegheny County Medical Examiner’s Office said.

Dodson had been stabbed in the neck and was pronounced dead at the scene, authorities said.

The medical examiner has not released the cause and manner of death.

The homeless encampment, located off the Chestnut Street exit of Route 28 northbound, is located across the street from the Sara Heinz House in East Allegheny, said Jerrel Gilliam, executive director of the Light of Life Rescue Mission.

Dodson was known to eat meals at Light of Life and had developed a relationship with the organization’s outreach team, Gilliam said.

“He’s a guy who was very compliant, likable, not aggressive,” Gilliam told the Tribune-Review. “It was actually a success story — he got the resources and got the housing. We don’t know why he was down at the (encampment). We are grieving and saddened by this.”

No arrests have been made.

Gilliam said there are “a lot of misnomers and myths about people who are homeless.” Police, in a news release, initially identified Dodson as an “apparent homeless” man.

“Because there’s fear, there’s a tendency to lump people together,” he said. “(But) 90% or higher of those who experience homelessness, they’re not dangerous, they’re not aggressive, they’re not a problem.”

Gilliam said the population of the encampment where Dodson was found swelled after Pittsburgh officials shut down an encampment near Allegheny Center in December.

When Pittsburgh officials shut down that homeless encampment, they said they helped to relocate most people who had been living there. About 35 people who were living at that encampment were moved into Second Avenue Commons, a new homeless shelter that opened in Downtown in November.

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