3 city council members to introduce bill declaring homelessness 'public health emergency'
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) — City leaders are calling for action related to the sudden surge in people experiencing homelessness and the spread of tent encampments.
Pittsburgh City Council is demanding immediate action to address what it's calling a "public health emergency."
Over the past few weeks, KDKA-TV has shown the encampments — tent villages that have sprouted up in parklets and on the trails along the rivers — an unprecedented surge in homelessness.
"This is a public health crisis right now, the homeless situation here in our city," said Jerrell Gilliam, director of Light of Life Rescue Mission.
Light of Life Rescue Mission on the North Side is now well over capacity, even though it sets up 25 cots in the cafeteria every night. It still has to turn people away, many of whom now live in tents.
While the city hopes the crisis will ease when a new Downtown shelter opens in the fall, Gilliam said it will be a drop in the bucket.
"It'll bring on approximately 90 new beds to the system. We're talking about hundreds and hundreds of people right now," he said.
That's why three Pittsburgh City Council members are introducing a bill Tuesday declaring the surge a "public health emergency."
The members give the Gainey administration two weeks to come up with proposals to "address the public health emergency of homelessness in the City of Pittsburgh and to suggest temporary, but immediate, policies and programs until more permanent solutions are codified."
The three council members, Theresa Kail-Smith, Deb Gross and Bobby Wilson, declined to comment until the bill is introduced but Gilliam said such solutions include finding places like an empty hotel.
"Finding rooms that can be converted quickly. Those usually are closed-down hospital buildings, hotels and sometimes dorm rooms," Gilliam said.
Some groups have given people experiencing homelessness tents to live in, but Gilliam calls this misguided, perpetuating a bad situation.
"We want to find solutions that are with dignity and respect," Gilliam said. "I understand the good-hearted nature behind it. But what they often don't consider is that now when a person is in a tent, they also need other resources around it."
