A homeless encampment in a wooded area near Harrisburg Area Community College’s Lancaster campus was vacated this week, officials said.
Responding to an inquiry from One United Lancaster HACC said that on Wednesday, Oct. 23, it posted “notices to vacate” by Oct. 28. HACC owns the property, which sits between its campus the Weis Market at 1603 Lincoln Highway East in the Bridgeport area.
The college did not forcibly remove anyone or request intervention by law enforcement, it said.
As of Friday, Oct. 25, two days after the posting, about nine people remained on site, said Deb Jones, director of the office of the Lancaster County Homelessness Coalition. The following Monday, street outreach staff from three social service agencies went to the site to help people relocate.
“A few individuals were temporarily housed in a hotel/motel, one individual found housing, and others were dispersed,” Jones said via email.
Outreach staff from Lancaster County Food Hub were already working with two people who lived at the encampment, Executive Director Paige McFarling said. The staff had been working to get them into an apartment and were able to do so, she said.
The encampment site is in East Lampeter Township and is the third in the township to be cleared or vacated in the past few weeks. On Sept. 25, roughly a dozen people were displaced from a wooded area between the Walmart Supercenter and East Towne Center shopping plaza along Lincoln Highway East. A second encampment behind the Sonic Drive-In was cleared on Sept. 30.
East Lampeter Township Supervisor Ralph Hutchison said Thursday he was not aware of the HACC encampment “or of any efforts to clear one if one was there.”
Homelessness service providers say many people relocated to encampments in East Lampeter Township and other suburban areas after city and county officials stepped up no-trespassing enforcement in Binns Park and other city public spaces.
Last month, East Lampeter Township supervisors agreed to move forward with developing a set of guidelines for township staff to follow when encampments are cleared, to ensure that social services agencies are notified and best practices are followed.
Demand for shelter beds is high, providers say. At the end of June, the sole low-barrier emergency shelter in the city closed down. It had provided up to 80 beds over the 2023-24 winter, and up to 40 beds thereafter.
The coalition is overseeing construction of an 80-bed low-barrier shelter at Otterbein United Methodist Church, which it plans to open in December. In the interim, Tenfold announced this week that it is opening a temporary shelter on Monday. It will have 50 beds and operate for up to three months.
