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East Lampeter Township seeks a different approach on homeless encampments

Top right: Part of a homeless encampment that was cleared out in East Lampeter Township. (Source: OUL file) Inset: The East Lampeter Township building. (Source: East Lampeter Township)

East Lampeter Township supervisors are planning to develop a set of guidelines for township staff to follow in the event a homeless encampment is cleared.

Property owners certainly have the right to evict trespassers from their land, but there’s a good way and a bad way to go about it, Vice Chairman Ethan Demme told his colleagues at the Board of Supervisors’ meeting Monday.

Their discussion, initiated by Demme, came in the wake of the back-to-back clearing of two encampments in the township late last month.

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. Then, on Sept. 30, another encampment was cleared from woods behind the Sonic Drive-In, a little more than a mile to the east. That action, too, reportedly displaced about a dozen people, possibly including some who had relocated from the first site.

Advocates and outreach workers say that clearing encampments has counterproductive effects. Homeless individuals frequently lose what few possessions they have, as sleeping bags, tents, clothing and cooking gear get tossed into dumpsters or the bed of a pickup truck. Already distrustful of mainstream society, they often react by seeking fresh refuge in remote locations that are harder to reach.

By getting involved, the township could encourage and follow best practices, Demme said: Providing advance notice, saving belongings, bringing in outreach workers to maintain connections and arrange for shelter and services.

To illustrate, he offered a draft resolution for consideration — not necessarily to get it passed, he said, but “to start the conversation.”

It would direct township staff to create an ordinance addressing encampment clearances. The ordinance would mandate a “reasonable notice period” before a clearance action — 14 days is suggested — and would require property owners to coordinate with the township and nonprofits “to ensure a coordinated and humane approach.”

The other three supervisors (Chairman Corey Meyer was absent) agreed on the importance of a compassionate, humane approach to homelessness. They were wary, however, of passing legislation that could permit trespassing or allow conditions that violate the township’s property maintenance code. Property owners and township police have reported unfit and unhygienic conditions at encampments, including discarded needles and human waste, township Manager Roger Hutchison said.

“We should not legitimize anything that’s illegal,” Supervisor Mike Thornton said. He and Supervisor Ted Gallagher cited concerns for nearby children’s welfare, were they to stumble upon dangerous debris while exploring in the woods, or if an encampment turned out to house a pedophile.

In a written opinion, the township’s solicitor advised against such an ordinance, saying the proposed measures could be challenged in court as infringing on constitutionally protected property rights.

Ultimately, Hutchison suggested developing a staff policy. The other supervisors agreed. Demme told One United Lancaster he will work on a draft to bring to an upcoming meeting for further discussion.

Homelessness has been a topic of ongoing concern for the township, as it has been in Lancaster County as a whole. The supervisors held a lengthy discussion of the issue at their August meeting, bringing in leaders of local nonprofits and the Lancaster County Homelessness Coalition. In September, they awarded $10,000 allocated in the township’s 2024 budget for homelessness services to the nonprofit Conestoga Valley SEEDS for street outreach.

On Monday, Supervisor Roger Rutt noted that township’s unsheltered population swelled after Lancaster city and county officials cracked down this summer on congregating in city parks and around the County Government Center on North Queen Street. The individuals displaced from the Walmart encampment all had previously frequented the city, the Lancaster County Homelessness Coalition said.

Countywide, Demme said, the bottom line is that “there’s no legal place to sleep if you don’t have a house,” and that reality needs to be taken into account in policy and enforcement decisions.

Demme pressed Hutchison about the extent of township involvement in the clearances, and whether it had contacted Walmart about taking action, as the company said in its statement at the time.

Hutchison said he’s had conversations with property owners about nuisance conditions, and one idea that’s always broached is “what if the brush is removed?” The township also reaches out, he said, when police encounter health and safety problems when responding to an incident at an encampment.

Is that what led to the Walmart encampment clearance, Demme asked. “They’ve been at that location a number of times,” Hutchison answered, though he did not say exactly when.

Perhaps the township could consider setting up a designated site where outdoor camping would be permitted, Conestoga Valley SEEDS’ Sue Orth suggested, citing a program in San Diego. It could be set up in an area well away from children, with port-a-potties and trash receptacles, and would allow outreach workers to maintain contact.

“Maybe we need to think outside the box,” she said.