Some ‘choosing to live outside’ after flooded Mon Wharf homeless encampment cleared, official says
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Many of the homeless people who were living in an encampment wiped out by flooding on the Mon Wharf opted to move to other encampments instead of accepting repeated offers of shelter, Pittsburgh officials said.
“These are people who are choosing to live outside. They won’t necessarily take shelter,” said Assistant Public Safety Director Camila Alarcon-Chelecki said.
The city’s ROOTS team — an arm of the Office of Community Health and Safety that focuses on homeless outreach — and other outreach workers visited the encampment regularly, Alarcon-Chelecki said. They offered shelter options, storage for personal belongings and other services, she said.
Alarcon-Chelecki said people have the right to determine whether or not they want to leave their encampments or move to shelters. OCHS workers could not force them to move into shelters, even when their encampment was at risk of flooding.
“We were warning people,” said Ben Talik, who manages the ROOTS program. “We just can’t restrain you and take you out of the flood zone.”
There were 17 people staying at the site, plus some others who were coming by the area occasionally, he said.
Outreach workers discussed with each of them the risk for flooding and options for shelter and storage, Alarcon-Chelecki said. They printed out weather forecasts so people could make informed decisions about whether to stay or move.
“We really want to ensure people have agency and we provide them with the right tools to make decisions,” she said.
One person opted to stay with a relative during the flooding, Talik said, while many others chose to relocate to other encampments. Alarcon-Chelecki said outreach workers have found some of those people at other sites in the Downtown area and are offering them additional services and support.
Three people accepted help moving to shelters, Talik said. Two went to Second Avenue Commons in Downtown, and a third went to a 24-hour drop-in center in the city’s South Side neighborhood.
At least one of the people who initially moved into a shelter has since moved in with family instead, Talik said.
An emergency shelter also opened at Ammon Recreation Center in the city’s Hill District. It can house about 80 people and opens when there’s inclement weather, including flooding or low temperatures.
One homeless man who had stayed at the Mon Wharf site was rescued from about a foot of water Sunday evening. Emergency crews checked other tents at the site to ensure no one else was trapped there.
Officials have posted signs around the Mon Wharf alerting people the area is closed, Alarcon-Chelecki said. There are concerns about the floodwaters there, she said, as well as garbage and debris left behind.
“It can be a health hazard,” she said. “It’s not really a safe place.”
Officials are waiting for the water to recede before they can clean up the site. Alarcon-Chelecki said they “don’t project things to be salvageable.”
OCHS workers will continue to offer services and support to people who were impacted, she said.
Public Safety Director Lee Schmidt on Monday said people won’t be allowed to move back into that encampment because of safety concerns.