Fog partially covers the Walnut Street bridge in Harrisburg on Dec. 31, 2022. Jeremy Long - WITF
Harrisburg orders people living in tents along riverfront to leave; urges them to move to winter shelters
Overnight winter shelters will be open through March.
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Gabriela Martínez/WITF
Fog partially covers the Walnut Street bridge in Harrisburg on Dec. 31, 2022. Jeremy Long - WITF
Harrisburg is ordering people living in tent encampments along the riverfront to vacate the area due to sanitary and health concerns.
The Capital Area Coalition on Homelessness – a group of service providers in Dauphin County – is helping them find temporary shelter for the winter, as well as other resources they might need.
The city has set no deadline for people to leave Riverfront Park because it does not want to cause disruptions over the holiday and wants to give service providers enough time to help.
“No one is getting arrested, as we’ve stressed all along it is not a crime to be homeless, and we are purposely not setting a date, yet. We will continue to work with CACH to get individuals into winter shelters,” said Matt Maisel, Harrisburg Communications Director.
Harrisburg city code prohibits people from camping on park grounds. It is also illegal to dump anything into a body of water that is at or adjacent to a city park.
The park has no standard sanitation facilities and, because of this, City Public Works has had to repeatedly clean up park areas that are heavily trafficked.
Roughly 20 people live in tents at the park, Maisel said.
There are at least two main encampments along Riverfront Park. One is at a grassy overlook by a walking path and another is under a bridge near PennDOT headquarters on South Front Street. People also camp in other spots along the riverfront.
Harrisburg officials are having discussions with PennDOT and the governor’s office in mid-December about the city’s long-term plan for addressing homelessness.
Jeremy Long / WITF
Harrisburg officials have declared the encampment under the Mulberry Street bridge a danger and is forcing all the people living there to move out so it can be cleaned.
Darrel Reinford is executive director for Christian Churches United, which is helping encampment residents find shelter and other resources. He said CCU is mainly focused now on encouraging people to go to winter shelter facilities and providing case management support.
“We often hear stories of people whose family situation has changed somehow, whether it’s divorce or domestic violence and that causing them to lose housing,” Reinford said. “There’s certainly a lot of folks dealing with substance abuse and mental health issues.”
Winter shelters in Harrisburg run by CCU will be open from Dec.1 through March. The organization runs a 25-bed winter shelter for women and nonbinary people, and a men’s shelter that serves about 23. Downtown Daily Bread also has a 40-bed men’s shelter open during cold-weather season.
Reinford, who works daily with the city’s homeless population, thinks the increase in people camped at Riverfront Park is tied to the removal this past year of other city encampments such as the one under Mulberry Bridge, which is now filled in with large rocks.
But larger issues contribute to housing instability among city residents.
“Overall, I think the issue of affordable housing has continued to grow worse as rents have increased following the pandemic,” Reinford said.
In general, finding rentals in Harrisburg has become difficult. A 2022 report by Rentcafe.com ranked Harrisburg among the top five most competitive rent markets in the United States, where demand for rentals is high but few new apartments are built.
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