A plan to eradicate Tent City in Lehighton began in earnest Tuesday morning as Carbon County officials teamed with borough officials to clean house at the encampment along the Lehigh River.

Carbon County Commissioners Chairman Mike Sofranko said the county has been working with Lehighton Mayor Ryan Saunders, Lehighton Police Chief Troy Abelovsky, borough Manager Dane DeWire, the borough, “in reference to the camp down there known as Tent City, how we can clean it up, rectify some of the issues.”

Tent City is an area near the Lehigh River where several people have taken up residence in makeshift tents and structures.

“Negotiations have been going on for the last couple of months,” Sofranko said Tuesday afternoon. “We got the Lehighton Public Works (Department), Carbon County Maintenance Staff, Carbon County Sheriff’s Department, Lehighton Police (Department) and went down and decided today’s the day we’re going to clean up Tent City.”

Sofranko said law enforcement and the sheriff’s department went there a few months ago and handed out brochures to ensure people were aware of the agencies they can contact in the county.

“We went down a week ago, left them a note that it was time to go, that we would be coming down with the county to clean it up; today was the day they did that,” Sofranko said.

Sofranko added he wanted to thank the Carbon County sheriff “for his expertise.”

He said they had an outside group come in with a dumpster, and noted they took anywhere from 6 to 8 dumpsters of garbage out of Tent City, and added they are going to keep cleaning it up the rest of this week.

“Those that were still there, they were given information once again where to reach out if they wanted to go for help,” Sofranko said. “But they can’t be on county property.”

Sofranko said there was a fire recently in a structure illegally built.

“The county doesn’t want to see any volunteer hurt.”

Advance warning

Sofranko said those living there had plenty of advance notice.

“It’s not like we just went down there. We had homeless task force meetings, we’ve been doing outreach,” Sofranko said. “I don’t know what more the county can do to get people to those locations.

“Some just don’t want any help, that’s how they choose to live; that’s fine, but you can’t be infringing on other people’s rights either.”

He added, “They’re putting too many people in harm’s way.

“Our volunteers and police deserve better, the community deserves better. I do realize there are people that are in need and need help, and we’re doing all we can to offer that, we’re trying our best.”

Sofranko said that with the volume of people staying down there, “The numbers were beginning to grow for public safety.”

He added they will continue probably today “and finish up what we need to finish up. Back in the fall we had put a dumpster down there (meant for the homeless people) to clean it up themselves, (but) they never filled the dumpster (and), we needed that addressed.”

“I’d like to thank everyone that was involved from the commissioners office, the sheriff’s office, Lehighton police, Lehighton mayor, Lehighton borough manager, Lehighton Borough Council; it was a very good cooperative effort. “Concerns, where are they going to go now, we are doing our best to address that (by) giving them information where they can go for help.”

The homeless encampment was broken up last year when Carbon County Commissioners had the sheriff’s deputies clear the site along the Lehigh River between Weissport and Lehighton.

At one point, about 50 people stayed there.

The area in question is owned by Carbon County, but located in Lehighton Borough.

The borough has a camping ordinance that has been in effect and will continue to be enforced.

The borough continues to see a swell of homeless people taking up residence within borough limits.

Last week, Abelovsky told the Carbon County Homeless Task Force that the trend in the borough is that there is a growing population of unhoused people in the summertime.

Last year, the county attempted to clear out the people after a few deaths occurred at the site and a growing number of complaints came in.