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Pittsburgh officials look to clean up homeless encampment under 10th Street Bypass | TribLIVE.com
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Pittsburgh officials look to clean up homeless encampment under 10th Street Bypass

Julia Felton
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Metro Creative
Homeless encampment

Pittsburgh officials are hoping to relocate homeless people living in an encampment under the 10th Street Bypass and clean out the site.

Outreach workers from the city, the county and various organizations have worked with the “small handful” of homeless people who actually live at the site to help them find safer, warmer shelter as winter approaches, said Maria Montaño, a spokesperson for Mayor Ed Gainey.

Most of the people had left the encampment as of Tuesday night, she told the Tribune-Review on Wednesday.

Officials have been working with those people for weeks, she said, to ensure they have safe places to go. She declined to provide details about where they may be seeking better shelter now.

“It’s all voluntary,” Montaño said. “This isn’t a law enforcement sweep.”

Still, Montaño said, it’s important for people to leave the area so the city can clean up an area that is unclean, unsafe and has reportedly been operating as an open-air drug market.

“This is a place that, for public health reasons, needs to be closed off,” she said.

Officials may fence off the area to restrict access while city crews clean it up, Montaño said, though the details of those plans have not yet been finalized.

This won’t impact homeless people who are living in other encampments throughout the city, she said.

The effort comes as Second Avenue Commons, a new 45,000-square foot homeless shelter in Downtown Pittsburgh, is slated to open by next week. Montaño has said the city hopes that some of Pittsburgh’s homeless population will move into the facility.

City officials have said they are working to address the city’s homelessness issues. They have suggested an array of potential solutions, including building tiny houses on city-owned land.


Related:

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

New homeless shelter to open in Downtown Pittsburgh

Pittsburgh eyes homelessness solutions, including tiny houses


Julia Felton is a TribLive reporter covering Pittsburgh City Hall and other news in and around Pittsburgh. A La Roche University graduate, she joined the Trib in 2020. She can be reached at jfelton@triblive.com.

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