Name: Philly PATCO homeless encampment site is cleaned, but occupants are allowed to return
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Philly PATCO homeless encampment site is cleaned, but occupants are allowed to return

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The encampment is one of 30 that currently exist in the city.City workers on Wednesday power-washed areas where people had established a homeless encampment in the concourse of a Center City PATCO station, then allowed the occupants to stay — for now.The grouping of 30 to 60 people living beneath Locust and 15th Streets, and Locust and 13th Streets, is believed to be the first indoor encampment with tents ever created in the city, according to Liz Hersh, director of Philadelphia’s Office of Homeless Services.The encampment is one of 30 that currently exist in the city, she said. Encampments can be as small as one to two people, or as large as the 200-plus along the Benjamin Franklin Parkway last summer, Hersh said.On Wednesday, inhabitants of the Locust encampment were asked to throw away trash and move their belongings as the area was cleaned. Hersh said there are no bathrooms in the area, and one visitor described the smell as “awful, almost unbearable.”Asked whether she plans to break up the encampment, Hersh said: “Yes, we are going to have to close it down. Right now, though, there is no timeline for doing so.”OHS first became aware of the encampment in early winter, Hersh said. “We always have an uptick in in transit hubs because they’re protected from the elements,” she said.Hersh added that the group at the PATCO station is a subset of the approximately 950 people designated as “unsheltered” who live on the city’s streets. That number dropped 12% between 2019 and 2020 from 978, she said.Hersh labeled the encampment as “organic,” meaning that it wasn’t formed as a political statement for Black Lives Matter and other issues, as was the Parkway encampment.The number of encampments around the nation is increasing for the simple reason that housing is becoming less affordable, Hersh said, adding, “If people had places to live, they wouldn’t be in encampments.”She said city outreach workers were on hand to offer occupants at the PATCO site places to stay. Many who started out living in the encampment two months ago have already left, Hersh added.Initially, people believed that the city was planning to clear out the encampment on Wednesday, said homeless advocate Stephanie Sena, a professor who teaches courses on poverty at the Widger School of Law at Villanova University. She’s the founder and executive director of the Student-Run Emergency Housing Unit of Philadelphia (SREHUP) and filed an unsuccessful lawsuit to prevent the city from shuttering the Parkway encampment.“It’s great they’re not being evicted today,” she said. “If they were, I’d have asked a court for an injunction.”Sena, who’s often at the PATCO encampment, said occupants have received food from a nearby Dunkin’ Donuts. She added that lawyers for advocacy groups were at the encampment Wednesday to “make sure people weren’t being abused.”Sena said: “In this encampment, people have more access to food and out of weather, and they’re together. These are survival mechanisms for them.”

The encampment is one of 30 that currently exist in the city.City workers on Wednesday power-washed areas where people had established a homeless encampment in the concourse of a Center City PATCO station, then allowed the occupants to stay — for now.The grouping of 30 to 60 people living beneath Locust and 15th Streets, and Locust and 13th Streets, is believed to be the first indoor encampment with tents ever created in the city, according to Liz Hersh, director of Philadelphia’s Office of Homeless Services.The encampment is one of 30 that currently exist in the city, she said. Encampments...

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Philly PATCO homeless encampment site is cleaned, but occupants are allowed to return

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