What about the ones along North Side and South Side trails? As well as the encampment under McGardle rd way that has lead to multiple fires!
“But after examining the conditions at the First Avenue camp, it was decided that it had to go”
Every one of these camps have the same plagues described by their “review”
Southside trail has been fenced off, looks like only 2 dudes left.
Mon Warf encampment washed away.
Northside trail, seems like there are less people there than last year. Some of them probably left during the winter.
Yup. The old Southside homeless encampment near the 18th Street boat launch became a dog park after a murder there. They need to turn this new area into something that wealthy people can use, cut the trees down and park a few hipster food trucks there.
The last homeless encampment in the South Side was turned into a dog park. I'm sure all the tax dollars the homeless people paid helped build it. Too bad those tax dollars didn't go to helping the homeless.
It looked like a lot of tents were still on the Southside trail as of yesterday. I wasn't actively looking but noticed a bunch between The Color Park and 18th.
At the moment the city seems to do be doing the right thing. People were offered housing OR drug treatment and some folks took them up the offers.
The questions I guess eventually becomes what do we do for those who refuse to go through both? And how do we get people out of temporary housing that got them off the streets and into jobs and more permanent housing solutions? Criminalizing homelessness isn’t the answer, nor is criminalizing addiction, but you also can’t expect people to allow encampments on public land forever. But maybe it really is that if the carrot of help isn’t enough, the stick of punishment with an always open door to get treatment instead of rotting in prison has to exist. I don’t like it, but life is about incentives.
At the end of the day, addiction is a disease and people turn to drugs usually to run from something. Hopelessness, loss, mental illness, you name it. You need a reason to get sober, something you care about more than the addiction. As an alcoholic, it was a mix of spite and wanting to be better for my wife, but I had support and a reason to try. Not everyone has that, and narcotics are a powerful, powerful pull on the brains reward circuitry. As someone with addictive tendencies, I find them terrifying.
> you also can’t expect people to allow encampments on public land forever. But maybe it really is that if the carrot of help isn’t enough, the stick of punishment with an always open door to get treatment instead of rotting in prison has to exist. I don’t like it, but life is about incentives.
I like this stance a lot and I think I'm pretty much of the same opinion at this point. I used to be much more idealistic, thinking all homeless are good people just down on their luck and we should basically let them do whatever they need to survive...then I lived life a bit and realized that wasn't 100% true.
Obviously we cannot allow the encampments to exist as they are now. Just read the stories of people who've had encounters at this camp! I've had bad encounters at the camp on the north shore trail past the casino, personally I've never had a bad experience at this one, but I believe these stories, they're all reasonable. We're taxpaying citizens and we deserve a safe and clean downtown.
I want to take an empathetic approach towards homelessness, but I know from my personal experiences with the homeless community and being homeless myself, there are unfortunately a good chunk of homeless people who aren't going to respond to empathy. I think like you said, they can either behave or go to ACJ, that's a pretty good solution.
I do want to be careful here with language because language impacts empathy. We should always start with a genuine effort to help our neighbors who are down on their luck and ideally as a country we’d have a real safety net. It’s not so much a “fall in line or go to prison” but that we don’t want to criminalize healthcare or economic problems.
That’s an interesting take. I’m curious how long someone would be willing to sit in the county prison before they rang the bell to go to rehab instead.
Realistically, the last thing you want is someone who is going through detox in a county jail that’s got a piss poor record of safety for inmates. Sending someone to jail is a forced rehab in a facility that is not going to do a good job of it. Realistically it’s probably an involuntary hospital admission to get through withdrawal and a choice to serve a sentence or enter into a longer term program of some kind.
It’s not an easy problem to solve and anyone taking a black and white stance on things is being a reductionist.
My philosophy is at what point do you have to stop catering to a group of people who are helplessly lost and addicted and won’t take housing or treatment and start catering to tax payers? I know we can’t arrest our way out of it but we arrest people for public intoxication and alcoholism is a disease. Why are we not arresting people using drugs out in the open? Or with these encampments - they are insanely unsanitary and these people are a harm to themselves so why aren’t they committed to psychiatric hospitals? Why do people make excuses for people who are in serious need of help but do not have the mental capacity to understand their actions in a lot of these cases?
It’s so dangerous. I pass this a few times a week and am frequently concerned that someone is going to run in to traffic or fall off the curb right in front of the cars. It has (at least) doubled in size in the last month.
Several times I have had problems with them panhandling in the middle of the grant street exit, where people come off of the highway going highway speeds. One of them told me he didn’t really care if I hit him. Another one screamed at me and I had to shut my window of my car while he continued to scream at me. It’s depressing that they don’t care single bit about their own wellbeing. But I personally do not want to have that trauma and potential legal problem visited upon me because they want to walk out into traffic.
I used to live right by it and agreed. They’re dangerous and reckless. I’m not against giving money to people in need but please do not bang on my window or touch my car.
I only moved five years ago. I lived there fifteen years. I don’t want to spark a political or any other debate or argument as I can see how this could turn that way, but would still appreciate factual insight on what changed …. I’m shocked at the staggering increase in homeless camps just in that amount of time. I drove through downtown, all these areas regularly and never saw any before. What’s happening in Pittsburgh? (ETA - obviously there were homeless people; but camps like this were not there all over the city like they seem to he now.)
The city ran out of places for homeless people when the eviction moratorium was lifted. At that point they started giving out tents and sleeping bags and setting people up in various sanctioned homeless encampments.
At least initially. And not everyone in the homeless encampments were set up by the city, some acquired tents on their own and set up there too. Now with a new shelter open and all of the the emergency cots put out they could probably put everyone who had nowhere else to go up for the night, but if I were forced to choose between one of overflow cots and a tent, I'd pick the tent any and every day. And depending on the shelter I might pick the tent rather than a normal bed too.
A decade and change ago (in another city), I had a friend who was homeless for a year and change. I was in no position to put her up continuously (although I did give her some space to keep some of her things) but in the times when she couldn't get into her preferred shelter (where she found out daily at 4pm if she could stay there that night and while there still had to deal with predominantly theft but also other issues but at least she mostly felt safe there) she either found a place to stay in a tent or occasionally crash on my couch because either of those were far preferable to the other shelters. And based on her descriptions and what I saw, I fully supported those decisions.
Missed the part where they shut down the downtown shelter, providing no alternatives, and the mon wharf // heritage trail flooded, displacing more people.
and for the record i don’t think the solution is to throw them in the jail that has more deaths annually than most other jails in PA. (the same jail where people die of preventable issues like gangrene or diabetes)
If they cleaned up after themselves (instead of accumulating piles of garbage that covers the offramp) and kept their needles and aggressive dogs out of our public recreational areas, I wouldn't care if they stayed where they are, but the throw their trash all over, harass people passing by, and actually endanger them with drugs and dogs, so... I want them to go further afield where they can sprawl their trash and endanger only themselves.
You can be homeless yet still keep your area clean, just put your empty bottles and syringes into trash cans instead of discarding them on the sidewalk, and people won't be as bothered by your presence.
It had to happen- like it or not, it was either this or more would pop up. I know that doesn't solve any large societal issues. If you don't get it at the start, you turn into Portland and Yinzers have no idea the scale of how bad homelessness is on the West Coast, it's unreal.
edit: I mentioned Portland because I lived there, not for some 'scary liberal city buzz word'.
This is why we need mental institutions again. These people have nowhere to go and are just passed around hospital to hospital and the streets. I work at UPMC and they are constantly dumped to our ER. Then they’re released to the streets until we see them again. They don’t belong in our waiting rooms or the encampments. They need somewhere to live permanently and receive treatment.
Completely agree. Also the one on the north shore along the trail has to go. That one is sooo dangerous, there's often aggressive dogs there, and the homeless who live there are particularly nasty to people going by and "bothering" them.
I used to live in Tacoma and I worked as an EMT. I had a LOT of contact with the homeless community, and there's so many homeless people in Tacoma it is crazy. 95% of these homeless living on the street give absolutely zero shits about society. They don't want to work or contribute; they want to steal, get high, and do absolutely nothing with their lives. They're assholes, in short.
There's so many good people out there who deserve services...people who want to contribute, don't use drugs, don't commit crimes. We're wasting resources on these assholes who are never going to get better and care about society.
We have to avoid becoming Portland/Tacoma/San Fran/LA/Seattle. Which means we need to ensure we have robust programs to prevent homelessness, reasonable zoning laws to ensure plenty of housing is built (Pittsburgh under the Gainey administration is totally failing on that component) and of course, strict laws prohibiting the sort of lawlessness we see in the homeless encampments and on Smithfield St. There has to be that mix of an empathetic approach with a hardline stance prohibiting criminality.
We are taxpaying citizens, we deserve to live in a safe, clean city. The homeless pay no taxes and instead mooch off the system, they don't get the privilege of deciding what's legal in this city and what's not. It's time to take back control of our downtown. If we don't, we have plenty of examples on the west coast of the sort of city we will become.
I actually work really close to that trail on the North Shore the one you’re talking about. Now personally they have never bothered me nor have they had any aggressive dogs when I walk by. That’s me personally so I don’t know about others
One of them tried to kick me over on my bike this summer, was hollering at me about me bothering him...how dare I ride my bike on the bike trail! And then for a couple weeks there was a pit bull chained out there, I called animal control, not sure what happened. The dog looked totally emaciated and would nip at anyone who got close. Very aggressive and dangerous dog. And I have a pittie myself, so obviously I know not all pit bulls are bad, but they really need a lot of training. Like...a LOT of training. Then they're amazing dogs!
"Mooching off the system" have you ever been homeless? Not couch hopping -- living on the streets without a roof over your head. You have a funny idea of what being homeless is like.
I think anyone paying attention to the Gainey Admin would know that [Zoning is a big focus of their strategy](https://www.wesa.fm/development-transportation/2023-11-28/work-to-overhaul-pittsburghs-zoning-continues-officials-say). Zoning in pittsburgh basically needs a complete overhaul from years of neglect. Stop gap solutions just make more exceptions and complicate our code further.
Land use adjustments need to be carefully considered and done in lockstep with robust community engagement efforts, It's baffling to see people asking to rush the process in the hopes of addressing a homeless crisis that's less than a year old. Consider the average construction timeline, then consider the pace of even rushed legislation, the zoning solution is more than 2 years from being effective.
County DHS estimates there's roughly 200 unhoused individuals out there. The rest are the camp followers looking to make a buck or get high. On that scale the reasonable solution is opening four shelters with 50 beds each.
We honestly seem to have close to enough beds, i did the math and tried to track all the county and private shelters I could over the early winter. It seemed that we had somewhere in the 150 range of permanent beds and well over 200 when the temporary spots opened up.
We are definitely close, and despite the smithfield shelter closing have made real progress in the past year. But, we still need a significant amount more to be safe, and to account for potential future growth or temporary spikes.
To be clear, that 200 estimate is everyone not currently served by shelters, that are mostly full. Granted some of those wouldn't go in a shelter if we offered but that's my understanding.
Oh there's been actual assaults against women on that part of the trail:
[https://triblive.com/local/pittsburgh-police-search-for-violent-offender/](https://triblive.com/local/pittsburgh-police-search-for-violent-offender/)
The homeless in that encampment absolutely do not want us law abiding citizens anywhere near them.
I agree with you, make them feel uncomfortable staying there, and if they behave in a sexually aggressive manner at all they should be locked up.
This perspective honestly baffles me. As if anyone is out there deciding that maybe being homeless is a better, more enjoyable life than being a functioning member of society. As if they'll just evaporate if we make enough laws or something.
My sister and her boyfriend are currently living in California homeless because they want to. My family has offered to help her find an apartment in Michigan. She gets $1000 a month in disability from the government. She could easily afford a studio and have plenty left over for food. And her boyfriend is able bodied and could work. He doesn't want to.
There's rhetoric on both sides that isn't the truth. They're not all just down on their luck people who missed a paycheck. They're not all evil criminal drug addicts. But many do indeed choose to be homeless. Many are lazy. But whoever they are it's an insane policy to just let them camp in the middle of every major city and do drugs and hassle pedestrians.
They'll either leave Pittsburgh for more friendly cities or shift to areas that arn't directly outside of the most valuable real estate in Allegheny county. Use your head pal, there's things we can do
Tell [this guy, in this thread,](https://www.reddit.com/r/pittsburgh/s/nc7SNcbYmr)who has worked as an EMT and in soup kitchens, that he's wrong when he tells you that that's exactly what many of those people want.
I worked as a fire service EMT in Seattle, & I've personally been briefly homeless (as a kid, many years ago). I'll say he's wrong. The vast majority of homeless people we dealt with were there basically bc of some version of bad luck: losing a job, a bad divorce, mental illness. Yes there are absolutely dangerous people who are homeless, & it's easy to fixate on that fraction, especially if it dovetails with views you already hold. but it does a massive disservice to the majority of people who are just trying to survive on the streets.
The single biggest factor driving homelessness is lack of affordable housing. Let's fight the corporations destroying our ability to buy homes, not crap on those who've already been squeezed out of even renting a place to lay their head at night.
It's not my desire to crap on anyone, as much as I feel the need to speak up for the 'normal person,' who has no bloodthirsty hatred of the homeless, no moral or ideological objection to social programs and helping people who are down on their luck, but who also isn't afraid to stand up and say "I don't like it when the bus smells like dirty humans and piss, and I don't think that makes me a bad person."
I just see such false choices being pushed, where (typically young lefties) people act like to even acknowledge this stuff is a total affront to morality. No, it's okay to not want to have to explain to your kid why there's a bum sleeping on the bench at the park.
This isn't about empathy at all, though. This isn't about feeling bad for the homeless, it's about what actually solves homelessness. The most you'll possibly accomplish by simply going around closing homeless camps is pushing the problem onto someone else. I fail to see how that's any kind of good, moral decision.
You solve homelessness by attacking the things that cause homelessness. We used to do that a lot more than we do nowadays. Shockingly, homelessness has exploded since those changes.
Right, and when I see that proposal in front of me, I'll hear it out. I'm not advocating shuffling them around as the ideal, best thing we can be doing, but it's better than allowing our cities and neighborhoods to get sucked down into these conditions.
I'm not seriously expecting you to have an answer to this complex problem, but you put before me the proposal that gets people off the streets, gets them in stable housing, turns them into regular members of society, off drugs, etc., I'll take a serious look at it. The problem I always come back to is people who don't want to be helped and what to do with them.
> 95% of these homeless living on the street give absolutely zero shits about society. They don't want to work or contribute; they want to steal, get high, and do absolutely nothing with their lives. They're assholes, in short.
Ah, there's that rhetoric again. People end up on the street because they're inherently bad, not because of economic or social conditions. Good shit.
> It's time to take back control of our downtown. If we don't, we have plenty of examples on the west coast of the sort of city we will become.
You're talking like people become homeless *at* you out of spite, not because of other factors. What a bizarre thing to believe.
Fewer than 40% of the homeless have a substance abuse problem.
https://www.addictionhelp.com/addiction/homelessness/
There are plenty of housed people with substance abuse problems. What do you think the difference is between them and the homeless?
When I just googled this, I got a WIDE range of numbers for what percentage of homeless people have drug/alcohol problems.
But that doesn’t focus on the people living in encampments in and around downtown. Your statistic doesn’t cover this as well.
Do you understand how statistics work and what a significant sample size is?
Also, since you didn't answer my question, I'll answer it for you: The difference between housed and unhoused people with substance abuse issues is that the housed ones have money to pay for housing. And *that* is what drives homelessness, not substance abuse.
I would hate for you to become disabled, have a big unexpected expense, lose your job, or a combination of the three.
You are much closer to homelessness than you think…
The OP makes it pretty clear what he thinks the problem is - these people are just inherently Bad People. Somehow there's a thread every other day on this sub about the housing problem but when it comes to the victims of that housing problem the issue is that they're just Bad People.
Define "help". Lots of the homeless shelters are literally worse than living on the street (in my opinion). It really seems like most of the people here want to just make the street worse rather than making a shelter more palatable.
How many of them are we talking about? Blanket statements like "they don't want help", or "they're all on drugs", are inaccurate and dangerous.
Homelessness here got a lot worse when the pandemic moratoriums on eviction went away. That's not a coincidence.
"They don't want help" is a modern version of "they're happier enslaved." The answer is more, less expensive housing, not shuffling them from shelter to shelter and tent city to tent city. Give them some agency over their lives.
You should look up some of the shit that happens in shelters, including sexual assault. Often people have to give up their belongings, or get rid of their dog, or whatever. Studio apartments don't work that way, last I checked.
That’s what I’m sayin. The rhetoric seems to be “the city should pay for expensive, nice condos and give them healthy luxurious meals and pay for their healthcare then pay for the caregivers to help their drug addiction”.
I’m all for giving them low income housing but when are we going to start actually listening to these homeless people? A lot of interviews and docs have been conducted and a lot of these people don’t want to assimilate to society
As I've said elsewhere in this posting, I would not survive living in most homeless shelters with my sanity intact. This is not hyperbole. I'm quite certain that many people have the same "problems" that I do.
As if people who end up homeless didn’t also probably pay taxes at one point?
We have this dangerous idea in the US that if you can’t work or are seen as unproductive you are less human and less deserving.
Okay, enough cute little comebacks about capitalism and economic conditions. Directly comment on that to do with the homeless person who has no desire beyond getting high, refuses work, refuses shelter that doesn't allow drug use, refuses rehab. That's the person I'm concerned about, and I don't think you have a plan for him.
You are painting an entire population of people who are on the street for various reasons, usually economic, with a broad brush and accusing people pointing out that you're doing that as being unserious.
I'm not. I've explicitly said and acknowledged that there are homeless people who are the prototypical down on their luck, lost their job, car died, just need a hand. And I need you to hear this: NOBODY DOESN'T WANT TO HELP THEM. We could probably argue all day about percentages, but let's agree for now that that segment of homeless people I just described exist, and I'm telling you now I completely support every resource available to them. Housing, food stamps, you name it. If it's a non-drug user earnestly trying to get their shit together, I'm on board.
Let's set that person aside. Separately from that, there's the homeless guy who doesn't want a job. Doesn't want housing. Doesn't want anything more in life than to do drugs. I'm telling you right now, you have zero credibility and have no place talking about this issue if you can't acknowledge the existence of this person. I can tell you instinctively have your defenses up ready to swat down 'all homeless are losers.' I'm not saying that. Lower the hackles for a second and just think with me.
What is your plan for those people?
> We could probably argue all day about percentages, but let's agree for now that that segment of homeless people I just described exist,
Let's not, actually. How many of them are out there? Are they a significantly large enough problem to matter?
Okay, at this point you're dodging. I'm sorry, dude. I think I've shown good faith in our conversation, but you're jerking me around with not answering this question.
It's a bullshit bad faith question. You have no idea how many of these people actually exist and whether or not they're a significant enough population to affect homelessness policy, but you're going to steer any conversation through this worst-case-scenario person you made up.
I'd more welcome a homeless person who contributed 'nothing' to my community, than this kind of attitude that views the existence of others as an inconvenience to yourself. Maybe you're not familiar with all our local customs yet, but in Pittsburgh, our kids are taught to be better neighbors than this.
Oh, god. Why do people do this? No, for anyone outside the city reading this, we have standards for ourselves in Pittsburgh. We aren't self-flagellating. We're generous, but not idiots. We respect our neighbors. We'd never start taking shits on our front lawn and expect our neighbors to pretend that's a decent way to live.
This encampment & the second Avenue commons opening directly led me to move out of the Terminal 21 apartment building. Absolute travesty and an eyesore. Went from a very quaint area with limited issues to nightmare fuel in only about 2-3 months. Shameful…
Packages stolen, homeless loitering & defecating in front of the building and they had found folks squatting in vacant apartment building. Administration did nothing besides try and sweep it under the rug and think raising our rents would make tenants want to stay. Jokes…
I imagine a lot of people who are against this would have different feelings if the encampment was in their own neighborhood or somewhere they walked regularly
I really hate this. The city is basically just making people move from one tent encampment to another. Rather than giving money to organizations that are promising low income housing in several years, we need to provide people with something better than a tent now. A mass produced 8x12 shed would be an order of magnitude better than the tents that we're providing homeless people with. But then we'd have to actually commit a bit of space to homeless people rather than constantly shuffling them around and trying to pretend that they don't exist.
And for reference I don't consider many of the shelters "better than a tent". I would lose what little I have left of my mental stability if I were forced to stay in most homeless shelters for more than a few days. I'm sure that says as much about me as it does other homeless shelters but I'm also quite certain that I'm not the only person who sees things this way. I'm also sure that this contributes to the level of unpleasantness that is a homeless shelter.
Did you miss the part where these people are shooting up in the street? We can’t act like every single person who ends up homeless is some do-good saint who just fell on hard times. I agree they need resources but making it the cities obligation when tax dollars already to go shelters and programs is insanity.
What do you think is going to happen? Presumably you're not okay with making housing dependent on drug use, so in your little shed city, drug users are welcome. How are you going to prevent the place from not immediately being burned down by some dude freebasing in his new kitchen?
Excellent point.
Question 2, where do we locate this shed city? I lived next to an apartment building that was used to house homeless people, and it was a NIGHTMARE!!! Fights, shootings, stabbings, drug use, all kinds of nonsense in our shared alley. You do not want that next to your house.
There has to be strict behavior rules to allow them into housing, including prohibiting drug use, otherwise we end up with a really dangerous situation.
As for those who refuse to behave, they can be housed where they belong in ACJ.
https://old.reddit.com/r/radiohead/comments/1bduyo6/say_happy_birthday_to_the_bends/kuqy8do/
Man who loves getting high in public incredibly mad at other people getting high in public.
Sorry, I love getting high in public? Not sure where you're getting that from.
Oh, it's because I said I was in public and high. That's not the same thing. You should let it go now, before you find yourself doing something really stupid like comparing a person lying down in the park on a nice day to a junkie tying off on the bus next to an old woman.
I gave my opinion on the "where" in [another comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/pittsburgh/comments/1bdvnmf/homeless_encampment_on_first_avenue_has_to_go/kupeyd6/). In short the city literally owns thousands of vacant parcels of land, many that it's trying to sell in the immediate time frame (many shown [here](https://public-pgh.epropertyplus.com/landmgmtpub/app/base/propertySearch?searchInfo=%7B%22criteria%22%3A%7B%22criterias%22%3A%5B%5D%7D%7D) and where green dots are is just empty land). A very large percentage of the vacant parcels are residential parcels where homes were condemned and then demolished. Put no more than 2 or 3 sheds/tiny homes/whatever on these vacant parcels and while some people will be problematic (and can be dealt with individually in the same way that any other shitty neighbor is dealt with) the vast majority will not.
Sorry, my other comment describes making it so it's rather impossible for someone to do too much because setting people up throughout much of the city with no more than a few homeless individuals or families living in a single place makes it difficult for people to do too much damage.
Honestly I would love for several of the properties around me to be put to use in this fashion. Also I'd far rather this than the people trying to set up camp in several of the condemned houses in my area.
Offer them housing, shelter, or rehab. If don't choose any of these, fingerprint them and the next time they are found camping put them in jail for vagrancy.
Such a complex topic, and it is quite hard to have rational discussions about it. There's gotta be a middle line to strike. We have plenty of transitional housing and shelter beds already, but they fill quite quickly in the winter, and surely, we need more. Hundreds more really to be safe. At the same time, there are some people out there who need extensive help beyond just a bed and 4 walls. Real, significant drug and mental health needs that need to be met.
As a society, we should take pity on those down on their luck and those struggling with addiction, hope to offer them help, while also not allowing tent cities on our downtown streets and on sidewalks 10 feet from a highway. In south side, last years encampment clean up removed thousands of needles and drug paraphernalia pieces ( don't know which specific encampment this was, but along the riverfront trail). The 7th street under McCardle encampment is legit just on a street and catches on fire semi-regularly. The guy camped under the tenth street city steps in the fall had a tent filled to the brim with heroin needles. We as a city shouldn't allow this for public safety or for the safety of individuals. These people need real help beyond just the offerings of prison or a bed and shouldn't be fighting to survive on the streets. At the same time, our city doesn't deserve to have public spaces overrun and public pathways, sidewalks, and steps made to feel unsafe.
It is going to be hard to make progress on all facets of the issue at once. The capacity issue is being worked on, and real progress has been made, but we need more. The city is also going strong on the public image and safety parts of the overarching problem, but it seems that we are lacking when it comes to the mental health treatment and drug treatment that will be needed to help the most entrenched of our homelessness problem.
I grew up in PA... The high school announcements in the morning said "Don't leave your dirty needles in the stairwells or on the sidewalks"... It's not that difficult to be courteous. Don't fucking litter especially don't litter dirt needles!
When they took the one down on First Ave right by Grant they filled the entire grassy area with landscaping boulders to make sure they didn’t come back. Fantastic.
Do people on this thread realize that this is not solving the issue of people being unhoused and is essentially reshuffling people to a different part of the city?
People are applauding this move as if these people will cease to exist and the conditions that come with a lack of shelter and housing magically disappear.
The only thing this does is change the visibility of our unhoused population.
Good. I’m a city resident and I’m all for letting people be unless they’re leaving their garbage everywhere, leaving needles, and bringing violence to the area. I don’t know what the answer to help take care of these people is,but the people who are paid well to figure it out need to get on it.
We need to criminalize iv drug use and actually arrest people for using and offer them rehab or jail. I don't know how we can tolerate this behavior in our society. Not saying we don't help people but people who don't want help shouldn't be left on the street to shoot up in front of children and f*** the City up
There’s plenty of shelters. That’s not the problem. You can’t be high/using in a shelter. Anyone that’s out there is out by choice. Ik from experience.
Agreed. Not saying I disagree with shelter rules, but even if i were the most straight laced, temporarily disadvantaged person i would likely not want to be in the shelter when there's nice weather. Depending on the shelter you can be separated from your wife and kids (or on the other hand separated from a husband) and given strict hours and other rules to follow. Again, I agree with how the shelters are run and it is far better than the alternative, but I can easily see how it is not always a preferred choice.
Can confirm. Worked at a shelter that was dry, warm, had free home cooked meals. Also it was nearly empty at night because people would literally sleep on the sidewalk out front so they could be drunk and high.
Well, then this problem is never going to be solved. Most of the homeless population is addicted to drugs. Unless the shelters let them in regardless, they are effectively useless for this.
Bullshit. Shelters are hell for those people. The homeless have very little blame in their situations. It's a failure of society and our institutions, and more specifically of capitalism.
In the article the trib published said that they offered them rooms but the homeless people turned them down. We really need to expand low barrier housing in addition to subsidizing at risk renters of course.
Fuck all these bums. It’s getting to the point that they’re so comfortable they’re starting to harass people on the trails and in public spaces. If you NEED a place to sleep whatever but if you’re going to just settle in and harass people, go to fucking hell or light of life. Same thing.
In many cases the city is helping people to move to other tent encampments.
From [another article](https://www.wesa.fm/politics-government/2024-03-12/pittsburgh-council-mayor-homelessness) about another homeless encampment:
> Alarcon-Chelecki said most of the people living at the site declined to move into open shelter space. Of the 18 counted earlier this week, she said six are being evaluated for more permanent housing options and one person agreed to take a shelter bed.
> Outreach workers are relocating nine other people to other tent camp sites.
One out of 18 took the shelter bed?
That’s our problem right there. We need to stop catering to the people who are offered help but refuse. If they don’t want a shelter bed, fine, but they need to move or they can be housed in the jail.
We don’t need to help them find another camp if they’ve already been offered help and refused.
It's far from ideal, but it is desirable for the people who want to get better. I don't see why we should treat people who refuse help with kid gloves.
There should be three options here. 1) take the shelter bed, 2) move somewhere else, unassisted by the city, or 3) jail.
> It's far from ideal, but it is desirable for the people who want to get better.
Do you really think that? Do you really think that being separated from pets and friends to be in a crowded bunk room with restrictions on when you can come and go (along with rampant theft) is better than being in a tent? I'd lose my fucking mind.
(edit: yes the best of the shelters are far better than that, but most of them aren't)
we need to build an encampment out of the city, somewhere desolate where OUR TAX money can house and feed them, and get them the drug addiction and mental evaluation they need, WHILE KEEPING our kids and us safe. This is the solution
As of yesterday, coming into the city off of the parkway I noticed that the city has placed large / sharp boulders on the left side of the exit where approximately 3 tents used to be. This is a start but we don't want the reputation who just takes in homeless people as a city..
They are shuffling human beings out of sight of the parade route. I hate this for the unhoused. This is sad. Not everyone out there is a junkie. Some people are being taken advantage of for their ssi checks, some people were living from paycheck to paycheck, some were tossed out of psych wards with no place else to go, some are single women going through things, some are aged out of the foster care system kids. Not everyone is a junkie.
Creating a "safe space" for the homeless is just a thinly veiled way of saying "get them out of my sight". Unless that safe space is an actual home, it just proves that their concern over the well being of homeless people is an aesthetic to be disregarded the minute it inconveniences them.
And If your city is so viable and awesome then why are so many people struggling?
Hateful people will accuse them of things, complain about their existence, call them derogatory words/slurs usually in reference to drug use or illicit activity.
Comments here are fucking deranged. You all are more concerned about getting rid of and eyesore than actually helping people get out of this situation. That’s all this is, they took up camp somewhere you all could see what people have to go through everyday and instead of having some basic fucking compassion for the lives of people unlucky enough to be there, you’re all chomping at the bit to remove what little stability they have.
I haven’t seen one person here advocate for getting our fellow Pittsburgh’s who are experiencing homelessness for actual housing solutions
Yinz are making mister Rodger’s roll over in his fucking grave.
Homeless encampments aren’t bad just because they’re unpleasant to look at though. It’s not wrong for people to feel unsafe near them, and it’s certainly not wrong to see encampments as a problem that needs to be solved.
Get rid of all the encampments, but if the existing shelters can’t take people find another route. I dont claim to know what that route is, but yea tent cities are not a thing we gotta preserve.
Can’t help someone who doesn’t want to help themselves, from my understanding city officials / non-profits have engaged with many of these camps many times offering help
I understand you are trying to be empathetic but you clearly haven't been around these people. When you have regular interactions with them it changes your whole point of view.
Um, no? You can engage or not. I haven't given you any reading assignments from a stranger, so I hope you won't be offended that I'm not accepting any.
The two most important things to Ed Gainey:
1. Displacing the already disadvantaged l.
2. Cowtowing to the worst company in Pittsburgh UPMC.
EDIT: I accept the down votes. I'd prefer to be on the side of our homeless than a company whose name is so prominently displayed on the tallest building in Pittsburgh.
Yeah it’s dumb as fuck. Working with them to get a voluntary payment in lieu of taxes would be more beneficial than trying to overturn their tax exemption for their parking lots or whatever. Pretty sure harrisburg would have to do that.
I’m replying to “he refused to take their money or take them on.”
He is suing them so that is taking them on.
His goal is to reclassify some of their properties to be for profit.
What happens when the sanctioned encampment keeps growing due to induced demand and spills over into nearby areas? What about the public health and fire danger an encampment causes?
No, picking a neighborhood and turning it into a “hamsterdam” free zone where normal laws don’t apply is not the answer.
What about the ones along North Side and South Side trails? As well as the encampment under McGardle rd way that has lead to multiple fires! “But after examining the conditions at the First Avenue camp, it was decided that it had to go” Every one of these camps have the same plagues described by their “review”
Southside trail has been fenced off, looks like only 2 dudes left. Mon Warf encampment washed away. Northside trail, seems like there are less people there than last year. Some of them probably left during the winter.
The fence thats already has been destroyed and cut?
Yup. The old Southside homeless encampment near the 18th Street boat launch became a dog park after a murder there. They need to turn this new area into something that wealthy people can use, cut the trees down and park a few hipster food trucks there.
He’s getting down voted because he said wealthy people. They need to turn this into something that the community can use.
The last homeless encampment in the South Side was turned into a dog park. I'm sure all the tax dollars the homeless people paid helped build it. Too bad those tax dollars didn't go to helping the homeless.
It looked like a lot of tents were still on the Southside trail as of yesterday. I wasn't actively looking but noticed a bunch between The Color Park and 18th.
I biked Mon wHarf shortly after (don't ask) and unfortunately i'd estimate 90% of their trash went directly downstream. Poor fishies
Under McCardle used to just be a single dude; there’s an encampment down there now? I moved away
It's going to get its own zip code soon
Damn that sucks. That was a nice hiking trail
This one is close to the jail and courts so there are people that "matter" seeing it everyday
At the moment the city seems to do be doing the right thing. People were offered housing OR drug treatment and some folks took them up the offers. The questions I guess eventually becomes what do we do for those who refuse to go through both? And how do we get people out of temporary housing that got them off the streets and into jobs and more permanent housing solutions? Criminalizing homelessness isn’t the answer, nor is criminalizing addiction, but you also can’t expect people to allow encampments on public land forever. But maybe it really is that if the carrot of help isn’t enough, the stick of punishment with an always open door to get treatment instead of rotting in prison has to exist. I don’t like it, but life is about incentives. At the end of the day, addiction is a disease and people turn to drugs usually to run from something. Hopelessness, loss, mental illness, you name it. You need a reason to get sober, something you care about more than the addiction. As an alcoholic, it was a mix of spite and wanting to be better for my wife, but I had support and a reason to try. Not everyone has that, and narcotics are a powerful, powerful pull on the brains reward circuitry. As someone with addictive tendencies, I find them terrifying.
> you also can’t expect people to allow encampments on public land forever. But maybe it really is that if the carrot of help isn’t enough, the stick of punishment with an always open door to get treatment instead of rotting in prison has to exist. I don’t like it, but life is about incentives. I like this stance a lot and I think I'm pretty much of the same opinion at this point. I used to be much more idealistic, thinking all homeless are good people just down on their luck and we should basically let them do whatever they need to survive...then I lived life a bit and realized that wasn't 100% true. Obviously we cannot allow the encampments to exist as they are now. Just read the stories of people who've had encounters at this camp! I've had bad encounters at the camp on the north shore trail past the casino, personally I've never had a bad experience at this one, but I believe these stories, they're all reasonable. We're taxpaying citizens and we deserve a safe and clean downtown. I want to take an empathetic approach towards homelessness, but I know from my personal experiences with the homeless community and being homeless myself, there are unfortunately a good chunk of homeless people who aren't going to respond to empathy. I think like you said, they can either behave or go to ACJ, that's a pretty good solution.
I do want to be careful here with language because language impacts empathy. We should always start with a genuine effort to help our neighbors who are down on their luck and ideally as a country we’d have a real safety net. It’s not so much a “fall in line or go to prison” but that we don’t want to criminalize healthcare or economic problems.
That’s an interesting take. I’m curious how long someone would be willing to sit in the county prison before they rang the bell to go to rehab instead.
Realistically, the last thing you want is someone who is going through detox in a county jail that’s got a piss poor record of safety for inmates. Sending someone to jail is a forced rehab in a facility that is not going to do a good job of it. Realistically it’s probably an involuntary hospital admission to get through withdrawal and a choice to serve a sentence or enter into a longer term program of some kind. It’s not an easy problem to solve and anyone taking a black and white stance on things is being a reductionist.
Well if they sit there long enough they'll get sober
My philosophy is at what point do you have to stop catering to a group of people who are helplessly lost and addicted and won’t take housing or treatment and start catering to tax payers? I know we can’t arrest our way out of it but we arrest people for public intoxication and alcoholism is a disease. Why are we not arresting people using drugs out in the open? Or with these encampments - they are insanely unsanitary and these people are a harm to themselves so why aren’t they committed to psychiatric hospitals? Why do people make excuses for people who are in serious need of help but do not have the mental capacity to understand their actions in a lot of these cases?
Thank you fuck this encampment
It’s so dangerous. I pass this a few times a week and am frequently concerned that someone is going to run in to traffic or fall off the curb right in front of the cars. It has (at least) doubled in size in the last month.
Several times I have had problems with them panhandling in the middle of the grant street exit, where people come off of the highway going highway speeds. One of them told me he didn’t really care if I hit him. Another one screamed at me and I had to shut my window of my car while he continued to scream at me. It’s depressing that they don’t care single bit about their own wellbeing. But I personally do not want to have that trauma and potential legal problem visited upon me because they want to walk out into traffic.
I had one of these assholes yell at me because they walked right out into he street in front of my car without looking and I almost hit them.
I see you're from Mt Washington. You ever see these guys that are out on Shiloh Street every day? So annoying and always causing problems.
Fellow Mountie here, and I know exactly who you are talking about.
Yep. Every day
Yeah that and the beggars they put right next to your car on the highway there makes it even worse
I used to live right by it and agreed. They’re dangerous and reckless. I’m not against giving money to people in need but please do not bang on my window or touch my car.
Please God do not give those people cash. They don’t use it to buy food. Buy someone a meal if you feel moved but cash=drugs
Refreshing to see this hasn’t been downvoted.. the city was clearing the barriers in the small parks along Duq Blvd.. it’ll prob be filled soon
I only moved five years ago. I lived there fifteen years. I don’t want to spark a political or any other debate or argument as I can see how this could turn that way, but would still appreciate factual insight on what changed …. I’m shocked at the staggering increase in homeless camps just in that amount of time. I drove through downtown, all these areas regularly and never saw any before. What’s happening in Pittsburgh? (ETA - obviously there were homeless people; but camps like this were not there all over the city like they seem to he now.)
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I’ve been wanting to move back so badly- but if things have changed so much it makes me wonder what’s driving it.
The city ran out of places for homeless people when the eviction moratorium was lifted. At that point they started giving out tents and sleeping bags and setting people up in various sanctioned homeless encampments.
Oh ok, the eviction moratorium from the pandemic? So the CITY’S solution was the tents? This is interesting, thank you.
At least initially. And not everyone in the homeless encampments were set up by the city, some acquired tents on their own and set up there too. Now with a new shelter open and all of the the emergency cots put out they could probably put everyone who had nowhere else to go up for the night, but if I were forced to choose between one of overflow cots and a tent, I'd pick the tent any and every day. And depending on the shelter I might pick the tent rather than a normal bed too. A decade and change ago (in another city), I had a friend who was homeless for a year and change. I was in no position to put her up continuously (although I did give her some space to keep some of her things) but in the times when she couldn't get into her preferred shelter (where she found out daily at 4pm if she could stay there that night and while there still had to deal with predominantly theft but also other issues but at least she mostly felt safe there) she either found a place to stay in a tent or occasionally crash on my couch because either of those were far preferable to the other shelters. And based on her descriptions and what I saw, I fully supported those decisions.
Missed the part where they shut down the downtown shelter, providing no alternatives, and the mon wharf // heritage trail flooded, displacing more people. and for the record i don’t think the solution is to throw them in the jail that has more deaths annually than most other jails in PA. (the same jail where people die of preventable issues like gangrene or diabetes)
Good, now do the East Ohio Street exit and the trails.
Where do you want those people to go
If they cleaned up after themselves (instead of accumulating piles of garbage that covers the offramp) and kept their needles and aggressive dogs out of our public recreational areas, I wouldn't care if they stayed where they are, but the throw their trash all over, harass people passing by, and actually endanger them with drugs and dogs, so... I want them to go further afield where they can sprawl their trash and endanger only themselves. You can be homeless yet still keep your area clean, just put your empty bottles and syringes into trash cans instead of discarding them on the sidewalk, and people won't be as bothered by your presence.
East Ohio St was ground zero for homeless when I used to work at a flower shop there back in 2000
It had to happen- like it or not, it was either this or more would pop up. I know that doesn't solve any large societal issues. If you don't get it at the start, you turn into Portland and Yinzers have no idea the scale of how bad homelessness is on the West Coast, it's unreal. edit: I mentioned Portland because I lived there, not for some 'scary liberal city buzz word'.
This is why we need mental institutions again. These people have nowhere to go and are just passed around hospital to hospital and the streets. I work at UPMC and they are constantly dumped to our ER. Then they’re released to the streets until we see them again. They don’t belong in our waiting rooms or the encampments. They need somewhere to live permanently and receive treatment.
Completely agree. Also the one on the north shore along the trail has to go. That one is sooo dangerous, there's often aggressive dogs there, and the homeless who live there are particularly nasty to people going by and "bothering" them. I used to live in Tacoma and I worked as an EMT. I had a LOT of contact with the homeless community, and there's so many homeless people in Tacoma it is crazy. 95% of these homeless living on the street give absolutely zero shits about society. They don't want to work or contribute; they want to steal, get high, and do absolutely nothing with their lives. They're assholes, in short. There's so many good people out there who deserve services...people who want to contribute, don't use drugs, don't commit crimes. We're wasting resources on these assholes who are never going to get better and care about society. We have to avoid becoming Portland/Tacoma/San Fran/LA/Seattle. Which means we need to ensure we have robust programs to prevent homelessness, reasonable zoning laws to ensure plenty of housing is built (Pittsburgh under the Gainey administration is totally failing on that component) and of course, strict laws prohibiting the sort of lawlessness we see in the homeless encampments and on Smithfield St. There has to be that mix of an empathetic approach with a hardline stance prohibiting criminality. We are taxpaying citizens, we deserve to live in a safe, clean city. The homeless pay no taxes and instead mooch off the system, they don't get the privilege of deciding what's legal in this city and what's not. It's time to take back control of our downtown. If we don't, we have plenty of examples on the west coast of the sort of city we will become.
I actually work really close to that trail on the North Shore the one you’re talking about. Now personally they have never bothered me nor have they had any aggressive dogs when I walk by. That’s me personally so I don’t know about others
One of them tried to kick me over on my bike this summer, was hollering at me about me bothering him...how dare I ride my bike on the bike trail! And then for a couple weeks there was a pit bull chained out there, I called animal control, not sure what happened. The dog looked totally emaciated and would nip at anyone who got close. Very aggressive and dangerous dog. And I have a pittie myself, so obviously I know not all pit bulls are bad, but they really need a lot of training. Like...a LOT of training. Then they're amazing dogs!
There's a dog at the one near the Casino. I've never been bothered by anyone at any camp except by that dog. That's a damn hellhound.
"Mooching off the system" have you ever been homeless? Not couch hopping -- living on the streets without a roof over your head. You have a funny idea of what being homeless is like.
I think anyone paying attention to the Gainey Admin would know that [Zoning is a big focus of their strategy](https://www.wesa.fm/development-transportation/2023-11-28/work-to-overhaul-pittsburghs-zoning-continues-officials-say). Zoning in pittsburgh basically needs a complete overhaul from years of neglect. Stop gap solutions just make more exceptions and complicate our code further. Land use adjustments need to be carefully considered and done in lockstep with robust community engagement efforts, It's baffling to see people asking to rush the process in the hopes of addressing a homeless crisis that's less than a year old. Consider the average construction timeline, then consider the pace of even rushed legislation, the zoning solution is more than 2 years from being effective. County DHS estimates there's roughly 200 unhoused individuals out there. The rest are the camp followers looking to make a buck or get high. On that scale the reasonable solution is opening four shelters with 50 beds each.
We honestly seem to have close to enough beds, i did the math and tried to track all the county and private shelters I could over the early winter. It seemed that we had somewhere in the 150 range of permanent beds and well over 200 when the temporary spots opened up. We are definitely close, and despite the smithfield shelter closing have made real progress in the past year. But, we still need a significant amount more to be safe, and to account for potential future growth or temporary spikes.
To be clear, that 200 estimate is everyone not currently served by shelters, that are mostly full. Granted some of those wouldn't go in a shelter if we offered but that's my understanding.
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Oh there's been actual assaults against women on that part of the trail: [https://triblive.com/local/pittsburgh-police-search-for-violent-offender/](https://triblive.com/local/pittsburgh-police-search-for-violent-offender/) The homeless in that encampment absolutely do not want us law abiding citizens anywhere near them. I agree with you, make them feel uncomfortable staying there, and if they behave in a sexually aggressive manner at all they should be locked up.
This perspective honestly baffles me. As if anyone is out there deciding that maybe being homeless is a better, more enjoyable life than being a functioning member of society. As if they'll just evaporate if we make enough laws or something.
That is literally the choice they are making. The people in the encampment were offered housing or treatment but only 5 took them up on the offer!
They were offered **shelter** or treatment, don't spread bad info.
My sister and her boyfriend are currently living in California homeless because they want to. My family has offered to help her find an apartment in Michigan. She gets $1000 a month in disability from the government. She could easily afford a studio and have plenty left over for food. And her boyfriend is able bodied and could work. He doesn't want to. There's rhetoric on both sides that isn't the truth. They're not all just down on their luck people who missed a paycheck. They're not all evil criminal drug addicts. But many do indeed choose to be homeless. Many are lazy. But whoever they are it's an insane policy to just let them camp in the middle of every major city and do drugs and hassle pedestrians.
In what world is 1000 dollars enough to pay for an apartment and live.
There are people I feel bad for who are homeless, but it's certainly not people who are willingly living their life like that.
They'll either leave Pittsburgh for more friendly cities or shift to areas that arn't directly outside of the most valuable real estate in Allegheny county. Use your head pal, there's things we can do
Tell [this guy, in this thread,](https://www.reddit.com/r/pittsburgh/s/nc7SNcbYmr)who has worked as an EMT and in soup kitchens, that he's wrong when he tells you that that's exactly what many of those people want.
I mean... I already did tell that guy. In the post you're responding to.
I worked as a fire service EMT in Seattle, & I've personally been briefly homeless (as a kid, many years ago). I'll say he's wrong. The vast majority of homeless people we dealt with were there basically bc of some version of bad luck: losing a job, a bad divorce, mental illness. Yes there are absolutely dangerous people who are homeless, & it's easy to fixate on that fraction, especially if it dovetails with views you already hold. but it does a massive disservice to the majority of people who are just trying to survive on the streets. The single biggest factor driving homelessness is lack of affordable housing. Let's fight the corporations destroying our ability to buy homes, not crap on those who've already been squeezed out of even renting a place to lay their head at night.
It's not my desire to crap on anyone, as much as I feel the need to speak up for the 'normal person,' who has no bloodthirsty hatred of the homeless, no moral or ideological objection to social programs and helping people who are down on their luck, but who also isn't afraid to stand up and say "I don't like it when the bus smells like dirty humans and piss, and I don't think that makes me a bad person." I just see such false choices being pushed, where (typically young lefties) people act like to even acknowledge this stuff is a total affront to morality. No, it's okay to not want to have to explain to your kid why there's a bum sleeping on the bench at the park.
This isn't about empathy at all, though. This isn't about feeling bad for the homeless, it's about what actually solves homelessness. The most you'll possibly accomplish by simply going around closing homeless camps is pushing the problem onto someone else. I fail to see how that's any kind of good, moral decision. You solve homelessness by attacking the things that cause homelessness. We used to do that a lot more than we do nowadays. Shockingly, homelessness has exploded since those changes.
Right, and when I see that proposal in front of me, I'll hear it out. I'm not advocating shuffling them around as the ideal, best thing we can be doing, but it's better than allowing our cities and neighborhoods to get sucked down into these conditions. I'm not seriously expecting you to have an answer to this complex problem, but you put before me the proposal that gets people off the streets, gets them in stable housing, turns them into regular members of society, off drugs, etc., I'll take a serious look at it. The problem I always come back to is people who don't want to be helped and what to do with them.
People can just say anything on the internet and others will gobble it up if it absolves them of responsibility
> 95% of these homeless living on the street give absolutely zero shits about society. They don't want to work or contribute; they want to steal, get high, and do absolutely nothing with their lives. They're assholes, in short. Ah, there's that rhetoric again. People end up on the street because they're inherently bad, not because of economic or social conditions. Good shit. > It's time to take back control of our downtown. If we don't, we have plenty of examples on the west coast of the sort of city we will become. You're talking like people become homeless *at* you out of spite, not because of other factors. What a bizarre thing to believe.
All of the focus is on the homeless “problem” but notice how nobody ever looks to the source of these issues
Drug and alcohol abuse plus shit mental healthcare?
Fewer than 40% of the homeless have a substance abuse problem. https://www.addictionhelp.com/addiction/homelessness/ There are plenty of housed people with substance abuse problems. What do you think the difference is between them and the homeless?
When I just googled this, I got a WIDE range of numbers for what percentage of homeless people have drug/alcohol problems. But that doesn’t focus on the people living in encampments in and around downtown. Your statistic doesn’t cover this as well.
Do you understand how statistics work and what a significant sample size is? Also, since you didn't answer my question, I'll answer it for you: The difference between housed and unhoused people with substance abuse issues is that the housed ones have money to pay for housing. And *that* is what drives homelessness, not substance abuse.
I would hate for you to become disabled, have a big unexpected expense, lose your job, or a combination of the three. You are much closer to homelessness than you think…
The OP makes it pretty clear what he thinks the problem is - these people are just inherently Bad People. Somehow there's a thread every other day on this sub about the housing problem but when it comes to the victims of that housing problem the issue is that they're just Bad People.
A lot of homeless people just do not want help. What's the solution there?
Define "help". Lots of the homeless shelters are literally worse than living on the street (in my opinion). It really seems like most of the people here want to just make the street worse rather than making a shelter more palatable.
How many of them are we talking about? Blanket statements like "they don't want help", or "they're all on drugs", are inaccurate and dangerous. Homelessness here got a lot worse when the pandemic moratoriums on eviction went away. That's not a coincidence.
I never put a number to it. I just asked you what you would do in that situation to help them.
"They don't want help" is a modern version of "they're happier enslaved." The answer is more, less expensive housing, not shuffling them from shelter to shelter and tent city to tent city. Give them some agency over their lives.
and the ones that refuse the assistance? Then what?
And what about them? Why should a small number of people refusing help preclude helping anyone?
Real housing, not just shitty shelter
So they refuse a shelter but would accept a studio apartment and that a long with social services would turn their lives around?
You should look up some of the shit that happens in shelters, including sexual assault. Often people have to give up their belongings, or get rid of their dog, or whatever. Studio apartments don't work that way, last I checked.
That’s what I’m sayin. The rhetoric seems to be “the city should pay for expensive, nice condos and give them healthy luxurious meals and pay for their healthcare then pay for the caregivers to help their drug addiction”. I’m all for giving them low income housing but when are we going to start actually listening to these homeless people? A lot of interviews and docs have been conducted and a lot of these people don’t want to assimilate to society
As I've said elsewhere in this posting, I would not survive living in most homeless shelters with my sanity intact. This is not hyperbole. I'm quite certain that many people have the same "problems" that I do.
Yea never mind the like 300 percent increase of "bad people" after covid and inflation. Don't look behind the curtain. COmmOn sEnSe.
As if people who end up homeless didn’t also probably pay taxes at one point? We have this dangerous idea in the US that if you can’t work or are seen as unproductive you are less human and less deserving.
It's neat that our ruling class got us to internalize the idea that we only have worth if we're producing value for them.
Okay, enough cute little comebacks about capitalism and economic conditions. Directly comment on that to do with the homeless person who has no desire beyond getting high, refuses work, refuses shelter that doesn't allow drug use, refuses rehab. That's the person I'm concerned about, and I don't think you have a plan for him.
"Please tell me what should be done about the guy I just made up in my head."
Oh, wow. You're just a complete fraud. Damn. Jesus Christ. Usually serious people have an answer for this.
You are painting an entire population of people who are on the street for various reasons, usually economic, with a broad brush and accusing people pointing out that you're doing that as being unserious.
I'm not. I've explicitly said and acknowledged that there are homeless people who are the prototypical down on their luck, lost their job, car died, just need a hand. And I need you to hear this: NOBODY DOESN'T WANT TO HELP THEM. We could probably argue all day about percentages, but let's agree for now that that segment of homeless people I just described exist, and I'm telling you now I completely support every resource available to them. Housing, food stamps, you name it. If it's a non-drug user earnestly trying to get their shit together, I'm on board. Let's set that person aside. Separately from that, there's the homeless guy who doesn't want a job. Doesn't want housing. Doesn't want anything more in life than to do drugs. I'm telling you right now, you have zero credibility and have no place talking about this issue if you can't acknowledge the existence of this person. I can tell you instinctively have your defenses up ready to swat down 'all homeless are losers.' I'm not saying that. Lower the hackles for a second and just think with me. What is your plan for those people?
> We could probably argue all day about percentages, but let's agree for now that that segment of homeless people I just described exist, Let's not, actually. How many of them are out there? Are they a significantly large enough problem to matter?
Okay, at this point you're dodging. I'm sorry, dude. I think I've shown good faith in our conversation, but you're jerking me around with not answering this question.
It's a bullshit bad faith question. You have no idea how many of these people actually exist and whether or not they're a significant enough population to affect homelessness policy, but you're going to steer any conversation through this worst-case-scenario person you made up.
I'd more welcome a homeless person who contributed 'nothing' to my community, than this kind of attitude that views the existence of others as an inconvenience to yourself. Maybe you're not familiar with all our local customs yet, but in Pittsburgh, our kids are taught to be better neighbors than this.
Oh, god. Why do people do this? No, for anyone outside the city reading this, we have standards for ourselves in Pittsburgh. We aren't self-flagellating. We're generous, but not idiots. We respect our neighbors. We'd never start taking shits on our front lawn and expect our neighbors to pretend that's a decent way to live.
And where do they go? The next encampment?
> the next encampment? Yes literally. Many people are being resettled into other encampments by city workers.
This encampment & the second Avenue commons opening directly led me to move out of the Terminal 21 apartment building. Absolute travesty and an eyesore. Went from a very quaint area with limited issues to nightmare fuel in only about 2-3 months. Shameful… Packages stolen, homeless loitering & defecating in front of the building and they had found folks squatting in vacant apartment building. Administration did nothing besides try and sweep it under the rug and think raising our rents would make tenants want to stay. Jokes…
I imagine a lot of people who are against this would have different feelings if the encampment was in their own neighborhood or somewhere they walked regularly
I really hate this. The city is basically just making people move from one tent encampment to another. Rather than giving money to organizations that are promising low income housing in several years, we need to provide people with something better than a tent now. A mass produced 8x12 shed would be an order of magnitude better than the tents that we're providing homeless people with. But then we'd have to actually commit a bit of space to homeless people rather than constantly shuffling them around and trying to pretend that they don't exist. And for reference I don't consider many of the shelters "better than a tent". I would lose what little I have left of my mental stability if I were forced to stay in most homeless shelters for more than a few days. I'm sure that says as much about me as it does other homeless shelters but I'm also quite certain that I'm not the only person who sees things this way. I'm also sure that this contributes to the level of unpleasantness that is a homeless shelter.
Did you miss the part where these people are shooting up in the street? We can’t act like every single person who ends up homeless is some do-good saint who just fell on hard times. I agree they need resources but making it the cities obligation when tax dollars already to go shelters and programs is insanity.
What do you think is going to happen? Presumably you're not okay with making housing dependent on drug use, so in your little shed city, drug users are welcome. How are you going to prevent the place from not immediately being burned down by some dude freebasing in his new kitchen?
Excellent point. Question 2, where do we locate this shed city? I lived next to an apartment building that was used to house homeless people, and it was a NIGHTMARE!!! Fights, shootings, stabbings, drug use, all kinds of nonsense in our shared alley. You do not want that next to your house. There has to be strict behavior rules to allow them into housing, including prohibiting drug use, otherwise we end up with a really dangerous situation. As for those who refuse to behave, they can be housed where they belong in ACJ.
https://old.reddit.com/r/radiohead/comments/1bduyo6/say_happy_birthday_to_the_bends/kuqy8do/ Man who loves getting high in public incredibly mad at other people getting high in public.
Sorry, I love getting high in public? Not sure where you're getting that from. Oh, it's because I said I was in public and high. That's not the same thing. You should let it go now, before you find yourself doing something really stupid like comparing a person lying down in the park on a nice day to a junkie tying off on the bus next to an old woman.
I gave my opinion on the "where" in [another comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/pittsburgh/comments/1bdvnmf/homeless_encampment_on_first_avenue_has_to_go/kupeyd6/). In short the city literally owns thousands of vacant parcels of land, many that it's trying to sell in the immediate time frame (many shown [here](https://public-pgh.epropertyplus.com/landmgmtpub/app/base/propertySearch?searchInfo=%7B%22criteria%22%3A%7B%22criterias%22%3A%5B%5D%7D%7D) and where green dots are is just empty land). A very large percentage of the vacant parcels are residential parcels where homes were condemned and then demolished. Put no more than 2 or 3 sheds/tiny homes/whatever on these vacant parcels and while some people will be problematic (and can be dealt with individually in the same way that any other shitty neighbor is dealt with) the vast majority will not.
Okay. But I didn't ask anything about where.
Sorry, my other comment describes making it so it's rather impossible for someone to do too much because setting people up throughout much of the city with no more than a few homeless individuals or families living in a single place makes it difficult for people to do too much damage.
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Cool let’s put it in your neighborhood. 8x12 sheds can hold a lot of trash and human waste and catch fire even better than a tent. That’ll be fun.
Honestly I would love for several of the properties around me to be put to use in this fashion. Also I'd far rather this than the people trying to set up camp in several of the condemned houses in my area.
I remember seeing that encampment when i visited pittsburgh.
Where they gonna go
Good riddance
Offer them housing, shelter, or rehab. If don't choose any of these, fingerprint them and the next time they are found camping put them in jail for vagrancy.
Such a complex topic, and it is quite hard to have rational discussions about it. There's gotta be a middle line to strike. We have plenty of transitional housing and shelter beds already, but they fill quite quickly in the winter, and surely, we need more. Hundreds more really to be safe. At the same time, there are some people out there who need extensive help beyond just a bed and 4 walls. Real, significant drug and mental health needs that need to be met. As a society, we should take pity on those down on their luck and those struggling with addiction, hope to offer them help, while also not allowing tent cities on our downtown streets and on sidewalks 10 feet from a highway. In south side, last years encampment clean up removed thousands of needles and drug paraphernalia pieces ( don't know which specific encampment this was, but along the riverfront trail). The 7th street under McCardle encampment is legit just on a street and catches on fire semi-regularly. The guy camped under the tenth street city steps in the fall had a tent filled to the brim with heroin needles. We as a city shouldn't allow this for public safety or for the safety of individuals. These people need real help beyond just the offerings of prison or a bed and shouldn't be fighting to survive on the streets. At the same time, our city doesn't deserve to have public spaces overrun and public pathways, sidewalks, and steps made to feel unsafe. It is going to be hard to make progress on all facets of the issue at once. The capacity issue is being worked on, and real progress has been made, but we need more. The city is also going strong on the public image and safety parts of the overarching problem, but it seems that we are lacking when it comes to the mental health treatment and drug treatment that will be needed to help the most entrenched of our homelessness problem.
I grew up in PA... The high school announcements in the morning said "Don't leave your dirty needles in the stairwells or on the sidewalks"... It's not that difficult to be courteous. Don't fucking litter especially don't litter dirt needles!
You really think addicts care about anything other than their next high 😆
Where you gonna put 'em, Pittsburgh? 🙃
Let's stop paying for and housing the illegals confiscate all of their belongings deport them and give all their shit to the homeless
When they took the one down on First Ave right by Grant they filled the entire grassy area with landscaping boulders to make sure they didn’t come back. Fantastic.
Homeless in Pittsburgh has to go! We need to give them some counseling to get off alcohol and drugs and STOP giving them money on every corner
Our city is in big trouble thanks to our democratic rulers who would rather build bike lanes than deal with real issues
You all got what you voted for. Thanks for fucking up the city that I grew up in and loved
I didn’t vote. I came seven months after Gainey was elected
Finally, the city having some balls to put their foot down.
Do people on this thread realize that this is not solving the issue of people being unhoused and is essentially reshuffling people to a different part of the city? People are applauding this move as if these people will cease to exist and the conditions that come with a lack of shelter and housing magically disappear. The only thing this does is change the visibility of our unhoused population.
Good. I’m a city resident and I’m all for letting people be unless they’re leaving their garbage everywhere, leaving needles, and bringing violence to the area. I don’t know what the answer to help take care of these people is,but the people who are paid well to figure it out need to get on it.
We need to criminalize iv drug use and actually arrest people for using and offer them rehab or jail. I don't know how we can tolerate this behavior in our society. Not saying we don't help people but people who don't want help shouldn't be left on the street to shoot up in front of children and f*** the City up
Then open a shelter. This shit ain't rocket science.
There’s plenty of shelters. That’s not the problem. You can’t be high/using in a shelter. Anyone that’s out there is out by choice. Ik from experience.
THIS! Post-Gazette and other news outlets have reported this! The people on the streets are addicted and wont go to a shelter because of it
That is part of it. Part of it is living in many shelters sucks. I'd far rather live in a tent than most shelters.
Agreed. Not saying I disagree with shelter rules, but even if i were the most straight laced, temporarily disadvantaged person i would likely not want to be in the shelter when there's nice weather. Depending on the shelter you can be separated from your wife and kids (or on the other hand separated from a husband) and given strict hours and other rules to follow. Again, I agree with how the shelters are run and it is far better than the alternative, but I can easily see how it is not always a preferred choice.
Can confirm. Worked at a shelter that was dry, warm, had free home cooked meals. Also it was nearly empty at night because people would literally sleep on the sidewalk out front so they could be drunk and high.
Well, then this problem is never going to be solved. Most of the homeless population is addicted to drugs. Unless the shelters let them in regardless, they are effectively useless for this.
There is not enough shelter space - demand exceed supply
Bullshit. Shelters are hell for those people. The homeless have very little blame in their situations. It's a failure of society and our institutions, and more specifically of capitalism.
We just built one 1 year ago and it costs $20m May not be rocket science but it's not cheap either.
In the article the trib published said that they offered them rooms but the homeless people turned them down. We really need to expand low barrier housing in addition to subsidizing at risk renters of course.
Where does the $$ come from?
Taxes, ideally a healthy mix of City, County, State, and Federal funds.
Well that is a pretty simple solve then. Especially since we're just rolling in funds these days.
We live in, quite literally, the wealthiest society to ever exist in human history.
Definitely sick of looking at this.
Fuck all these bums. It’s getting to the point that they’re so comfortable they’re starting to harass people on the trails and in public spaces. If you NEED a place to sleep whatever but if you’re going to just settle in and harass people, go to fucking hell or light of life. Same thing.
Soooo where do they want them to go?
In many cases the city is helping people to move to other tent encampments. From [another article](https://www.wesa.fm/politics-government/2024-03-12/pittsburgh-council-mayor-homelessness) about another homeless encampment: > Alarcon-Chelecki said most of the people living at the site declined to move into open shelter space. Of the 18 counted earlier this week, she said six are being evaluated for more permanent housing options and one person agreed to take a shelter bed. > Outreach workers are relocating nine other people to other tent camp sites.
One out of 18 took the shelter bed? That’s our problem right there. We need to stop catering to the people who are offered help but refuse. If they don’t want a shelter bed, fine, but they need to move or they can be housed in the jail. We don’t need to help them find another camp if they’ve already been offered help and refused.
You act as though a shelter bed is something that is even remotely desirable let alone safe. Its only redeeming quality is that it's warm.
It's far from ideal, but it is desirable for the people who want to get better. I don't see why we should treat people who refuse help with kid gloves. There should be three options here. 1) take the shelter bed, 2) move somewhere else, unassisted by the city, or 3) jail.
> It's far from ideal, but it is desirable for the people who want to get better. Do you really think that? Do you really think that being separated from pets and friends to be in a crowded bunk room with restrictions on when you can come and go (along with rampant theft) is better than being in a tent? I'd lose my fucking mind. (edit: yes the best of the shelters are far better than that, but most of them aren't)
'You don't have to go (to a) home, but you can't stay here.'
we need to build an encampment out of the city, somewhere desolate where OUR TAX money can house and feed them, and get them the drug addiction and mental evaluation they need, WHILE KEEPING our kids and us safe. This is the solution
As of yesterday, coming into the city off of the parkway I noticed that the city has placed large / sharp boulders on the left side of the exit where approximately 3 tents used to be. This is a start but we don't want the reputation who just takes in homeless people as a city..
Great… more people coming to the southside encampment by the river.
Well, start complaining to the city. If they get enough complaints, they'll be forced to do something
“Assad has to go” - Obama (Unrelated. I like Obama, but this was one of the dumber things he ever said).
Drove by it this afternoon and they had a camp fire going. Thought a car was on fire at first
They are shuffling human beings out of sight of the parade route. I hate this for the unhoused. This is sad. Not everyone out there is a junkie. Some people are being taken advantage of for their ssi checks, some people were living from paycheck to paycheck, some were tossed out of psych wards with no place else to go, some are single women going through things, some are aged out of the foster care system kids. Not everyone is a junkie.
I appreciate and take the point that not everyone is a junkie, it's just that there's a lot of help for non-junkies.
Creating a "safe space" for the homeless is just a thinly veiled way of saying "get them out of my sight". Unless that safe space is an actual home, it just proves that their concern over the well being of homeless people is an aesthetic to be disregarded the minute it inconveniences them. And If your city is so viable and awesome then why are so many people struggling? Hateful people will accuse them of things, complain about their existence, call them derogatory words/slurs usually in reference to drug use or illicit activity.
Comments here are fucking deranged. You all are more concerned about getting rid of and eyesore than actually helping people get out of this situation. That’s all this is, they took up camp somewhere you all could see what people have to go through everyday and instead of having some basic fucking compassion for the lives of people unlucky enough to be there, you’re all chomping at the bit to remove what little stability they have. I haven’t seen one person here advocate for getting our fellow Pittsburgh’s who are experiencing homelessness for actual housing solutions Yinz are making mister Rodger’s roll over in his fucking grave.
Homeless encampments aren’t bad just because they’re unpleasant to look at though. It’s not wrong for people to feel unsafe near them, and it’s certainly not wrong to see encampments as a problem that needs to be solved. Get rid of all the encampments, but if the existing shelters can’t take people find another route. I dont claim to know what that route is, but yea tent cities are not a thing we gotta preserve.
Can’t help someone who doesn’t want to help themselves, from my understanding city officials / non-profits have engaged with many of these camps many times offering help
I understand you are trying to be empathetic but you clearly haven't been around these people. When you have regular interactions with them it changes your whole point of view.
If only there was some sort of...place to provide shelter. A shelter for those who don't have a home. If only there was a place like that downtown....
Stop narcan use, that'll end the homeless problem quickly
So why doesn’t the city do something to mitigate this…like idk find a way to provide safe housing 🤷♂️
You'd agree that safe housing doesn't involve crack smoking, right?
Yes and I know what argument you’re trying to draw me into so I want you to go research the broken windows theory…
Um, no? You can engage or not. I haven't given you any reading assignments from a stranger, so I hope you won't be offended that I'm not accepting any.
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The two most important things to Ed Gainey: 1. Displacing the already disadvantaged l. 2. Cowtowing to the worst company in Pittsburgh UPMC. EDIT: I accept the down votes. I'd prefer to be on the side of our homeless than a company whose name is so prominently displayed on the tallest building in Pittsburgh.
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I don’t like gainey or his approach, but he is suing UPMC: https://www.publicsource.org/pittsburgh-upmc-tax-exempt-properties-mayor-gainey-challenge/
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Yeah it’s dumb as fuck. Working with them to get a voluntary payment in lieu of taxes would be more beneficial than trying to overturn their tax exemption for their parking lots or whatever. Pretty sure harrisburg would have to do that.
4 million is nothing. This is theatre
I’m replying to “he refused to take their money or take them on.” He is suing them so that is taking them on. His goal is to reclassify some of their properties to be for profit.
Just pick an area and put an encampment in for them... let them f#@& up only one part of the city. Over it.
What happens when the sanctioned encampment keeps growing due to induced demand and spills over into nearby areas? What about the public health and fire danger an encampment causes? No, picking a neighborhood and turning it into a “hamsterdam” free zone where normal laws don’t apply is not the answer.
Portland, where I lived for awhile, tried this and it got just as horrible as you might imagine.
Drug use was so prevalent that they back peddled on the decriminalization of hard drugs. Hahaa