Mahoning Township will advertise a camping ordinance to prevent a homeless encampment from expanding along the township’s section of the D & L Trail.

Township supervisors unanimously agreed to the action at Wednesday’s meeting, and said they will do a review of the camping ordinance when the board meets at 4 p.m. Dec. 30.

“We’re trying to eliminate that situation,” board Chair Deb McGowan said in addressing the encampment. “It will be illegal; they won’t have a leg to stand on.”

McGowan said the encampment is affecting not only the township, but several neighboring municipalities.

“We’re trying to do our part to try and curb this situation,” she said. “Nobody wants to see them (the homeless) out in the cold.”

At last month’s meeting, McGowan said the township plans to use the prototype camping ordinance from Lehighton Borough.

Supervisor Carol Etheridge at that time said it was a “really sensitive” issue, adding that homelessness is not a joke.

At last week’s Lehighton Borough Council meeting, officials discussed mitigation efforts at a pair of homeless encampments along the D & L Trail in Weissport.

Lehighton Mayor Ryan Saunders said the Lehigh Canal Recreation Commission is working with conservation officers and the Pennsylvania Fish & Boat Commission.

Saunders said vandalism at the pavilion in Weissport, such as damage to the electrical equipment at the pavilion on the trailhead that necessitated shutting off power to receptacles, spurred the action.

Discussion on homeless encampment ordinances have recently popped up in several nearby municipalities.

Last month, Parryville Borough Council voted unanimously to have solicitor Robert Frycklund draft an ordinance.

Weissport Borough is also weighing solutions to homeless encampments that have resurfaced in that municipality.

The issue of encampments was discussed at September’s Weissport council meeting, with the latest encampment in located behind the 200 block of Franklin Street on land owned by the borough and near or on the levee.

Weissport is also looking at an ordinance similar to one that Lehighton adopted in June 2024.

In 2024, the area known as Tent City between Lehighton and Weissport near the Lehigh River on land owned by Carbon County was ordered closed by the Carbon County commissioners.