'There's nowhere to go': Pittsburgh clears homeless camp

Four homeless Pittsburghers stood Tuesday afternoon near tents at the wedge of land where Grant Street meets Fort Pitt Boulevard and said they didn’t know what comes next.

City officials announced last week they were tearing down a Downtown homeless encampment, and posted warning signs ordering those living on First Avenue to the west of Grant Street to vacate. Outreach workers had given “credible offers of housing” to everyone living at the encampment, said Maria Montaño, a spokesperson for Mayor Ed Gainey.

But in a Downtown encampment mere feet from the site that officials were working to clear, several homeless men on Tuesday said they were told to relocate but received no offers of help or housing. The men asked not to be named.

“All the shelters are full — there’s nowhere to go, there’s nothing set up,” said one of the individuals, a man in his 40s who has been living for a year both along Grant Street and in the Mon Wharf parking lot. “There’s no help and we have no clue what we’re going to do.”

Montano and Gainey press secretary Olga George said on Tuesday that city staff and social workers met regularly with residents of the First Avenue encampment “over the past three to four months, and nearly every day over the past couple of weeks.”

“The city has made the decision to decommission this encampment for a variety of factors, most notably the ability to make offers of housing for the estimated seven to nine individuals who live there, as well as over safety concerns for the residents of the encampment,” George said.

Homelessness is increasing in Allegheny County.

As of May, there were about 900 homeless people living in Allegheny County, an estimated 150 of them unsheltered, according to Allegheny County Department of Human Services officials. Data from February 2022 showed the county had about 880 homeless people last winter, and about 105 were unsheltered.

Officials from Second Avenue Commons, a year-round Downtown shelter that filled to capacity soon after it opened last year, did not respond Tuesday afternoon to a request for comment.

Tents had been removed by mid-day Tuesday from parts of First Avenue. Nearby, at the PNC Firstside Center office building, workers on their lunch break chatted on cellphones.

Around 12:30 p.m., though, three tents remained along Grant Street between First Avenue and Fort Pitt Boulevard. Four more were located on the grassy wedge.

One of the homeless men said city officials need to do more to address homeless individuals’ underlying problems with drug addiction or their struggles to find affordable housing.

The man, who appeared to be in his 30s, kept busy Tuesday afternoon by filling black trash bags with discarded food items and empty soda bottles. He said he plans to sleep Tuesday night in Point State Park.

“They just move you along and put you in another spot,” he said. “I don’t like that we’re judged by how we live. We’re still human.”

A second man said he found a place to stay but was checking in on his brother. The two had lost their mother to a drug overdose. He declined to elaborate.

“(Officials are) moving the problem around instead of addressing it,” he said.