Lehighton would like to engage other communities throughout Carbon County to assist with the homeless situation.

At last week’s borough council meeting, a resident questioned borough council about what’s going on with the homeless people sleeping in various areas throughout the borough.

Councilman Steve Hawk said he understood the concern. “It’s a big problem,” he said.

Borough Manager Dane DeWire concurred and added, “There’s no one answer.”

He said the borough is attempting to “navigate” the situation as best as it can, as it’s a county-wide issue.

Mayor Ryan Saunders said the borough has already partnered with the Carbon County Homeless Task Force.

“We’re trying to offer solutions to those who want it,” Saunders said. “We’re trying to come up with a game-plan that would work for everyone to try to help individuals who want the help.”

Hawk added, “It’s a hard topic to solve.”

As part of his report, Saunders stated he’s received several complaints about the homeless situation, and that he and borough police Chief Troy Abelovsky met with the Lehighton Cold Weather Station.

Borough seeks help

Saunders discussed the situation after the meeting.

“Because they (Lehighton Cold Weather Station) reached out to me to raise more awareness to what they’re doing and what they’re seeing,” he said.

“From their perspective, they do the day programs, what they’ve been seeing is a lot of positive feedback from the homeless that utilize the daily program where they see their spirits are better, they’re feeling better about themselves, they’re more motivated, they’re more positive.”

Unfortunately, Saunders said that’s where things seem to start and end.

“But, then they leave for the day and then they’re back on the street, like what’s the next step, that’s kind of what we’re discussing,” he said. “My goal is not only to raise awareness that it is a growing problem in our county, but also to encourage the other municipalities to get involved.”

Saunders said perhaps that could mean some type of involvement with neighboring municipalities such as Jim Thorpe or Palmerton.

“My idea is to grow this network throughout the county using some of the municipalities to not only grow the awareness, but also see what other ideas we could come up with to be able to further the progress than just the daily program or just when it’s really cold out and spend the night and you’re back on the streets again,” he said. “The problem doesn’t go away; we’re never going to solve that problem.”

Saunders explained that what he and Abelovsky tried to impress on the Lehighton Cold Weather Station “is that there’s a portion of the homeless group that aren’t welcoming the help; they will take advantage of the cold weather station for the evening or take advantage of the program, but at the end of the day, they just want to be left alone and be on their merry way and not really have to worry about conforming. There are a large amount of them that want help; those are the people we’re trying to get help for so that they can better their situation to not be homeless.

“There’s others that have drug-related issues where they really can’t conform to any type of permanent social solution, because they would prefer to do drugs. Those are the people that just want to take advantage of the system but don’t really want the help; that’s what we’re trying to bridge that gap.”

Saunders said Lehighton “doesn’t really have a facility or a building, we don’t have anything vacant or available that we could accommodate this need,” he said. “Maybe someone in Jim Thorpe or Palmerton maybe has same compassion for the needy or to get involved and help. We would be more than willing to help with transportation to that facility; that is the least we could do to get them the help that they need.”

He noted it isn’t just a problem in Lehighton Borough or Carbon County, but nationwide.

“How can we try to make a difference in our county; I think we need to utilize that county perspective,” Saunders said. “We’re limited in our capabilities, resources, but if we band together with the county, there’s strength in numbers.”

Cleaning up

A plan to eradicate Tent City in Lehighton began the morning of July 29 as Carbon County officials teamed with borough officials to clean house at the encampment along the Lehigh River.

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

Carbon County Commissioners Chairman Mike Sofranko said at that time 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.

He said that on July 29, 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 were going to keep cleaning it up the rest of that week.

The homeless encampment was broken up last year when Carbon County Commissioners had the sheriff’s deputies cleared 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.