Allentown’s Latest Masterclass in Compassion: “Pack Up, Move Along, Try Not to Drown”

If you ever needed proof that Allentown’s homelessness strategy is basically a rotating scavenger hunt designed by people who don’t care about the homeless, behold the City Council and Mayor’s eviction saga.

Tuerk is in California this week at another “conference” according to a post on Facebook.  ON THE TAX PAYERS MONEY.    PLEASE TRY AND PUSH THE REMOVAL OF TERM LIMITS. #yourdonein3yearsorless

I like the end "nice city mayor." I hardly think any visiting mayors would say the same. Curious but why is his left hand doing a reverse pepper grinder???  Tattoo was probably free if you give a happy ending.  I'll be here all weeek lmao

Anyways

The only standard with this mayor is that he will be out of town on a business trip or conference when a crisis happens in Allentown. Why do we even have a mayor in this city? I find it convenient that our self-described loser “Punk Rock Mayor” is in California during Coachella? 

The controller better pay closer attention to his travel reimbursements. Coachella tickets are not an authorized expense.

People have lived peacefully by the waterway for years, which in Allentown time is basically since the earth’s crust hardened. Suddenly in the last few months and rather shockingly the city has discovered the area is a “high flood risk.”

Amazing how the flood risk only becomes life‑threatening the moment someone decides it’s time to print a notice and slap it on a retaining wall?

The latest evacuation has residents ordered to uproot their lives in 10 days. We have been waiting for answers from the administration and Finance Director related to the budget for 8 months, but timelines only matter when Pee Wee decides to attack his enemies.

Oh! and the YMCA shelter? Closing Wednesday.

Perfect timing.

It’s like the city looked at the calendar and said, “What if we shut down the only warm beds and evict people at the same time? Efficiency!”

Where are the people supposed to go? The city’s answer basically translates to “Not our problem, but please remove all personal items so we don’t have to pretend we didn’t throw them in a dump truck.”

The notice even warns that anything left behind will be “considered abandoned.”

Right — because the real tragedy here would be a tent left unattended, not the fact that people are being shuffled around like human pushpins on a corkboard.

Residents say they’ll likely move together to another patch of land until they’re evicted again.

In Allentown, homelessness isn’t a crisis — it’s an American Gladiator obstacle course the city keeps expanding…all because the Mayor has moved his target to the homeless population. That should be a very welcome relief to the city staff.

Cece has claimed that there are resolutions, proposals, and calls for emergency action floating around — they sound great on paper and on social media, but other than talk about action, what has Council done but throw money at the situation? This is not an attack on Cece – I know her roadblocks to correcting the situation are put up by the people on the dais and mayor himself. They have had months to put a plan in place. A plan and a response should have existed before the eviction notices were taped up like yard‑sale flyers. 

There is some talk of action on the horizon and although I am not a fan of County Executive Siegel, I must applaud him for introducing a declaration of emergency to call attention to the homelessness crisis in the county; time will tell if there is just talk or real action out of the declaration. Matt Tuerk chooses to post notices to vacate and ignore the crisis. We all know that Tuerk will be there at a press conference standing next to Josh when/if the county announces next steps. Tuerk will never miss a media opportunity and an opportunity to hijack someone else’s accomplishment and package it as his own.  

But hey — why solve a problem when you can just relocate it every few months and call it “public safety”?

Part 2. Maybe Ill add memes to this section later

Recap of the council meeting:

So I wrote this part before the meeting.  I am going to bet council comes up with some grand resolution to help the homeless but it never gets implemented.   That they all feel awful for these people and somehow Ripple get money out of this.  Somehow they will push the blame somewhere else.  Affa will thank Chief Roca for something. 

What did we miss tonight?

Bill 29 – Borrowing $5.05million for capital improvement, including a fire station that is being replaced.

Bill 30 – More promotions! An S10 Project Coordinator is now a S14 Project Manager.  

“Project Coordinator (s10) with a total budgeted salary of Seventy-Three Thousand One Hundred Ninety Dollars ($73,190) is replaced with Project Manager (s14) with a total budgeted salary of Eighty-One Thousand One Hundred Twenty-Three Dollars ($81,123).”

R57 – Homeless Crisis that Tuerk exacerbated 

Kane – Had absolutely no idea what the resolution even said – great start to your time as Managing Director. Publicly stated that he had “glanced at it” but didn’t “read it”. Couldn’t even speak clearly, probably because you are following your boss’s mantra of just not caring. You said that the city administration shares the concerns…yet, the administration has really done nothing but bully and ignore. Don’t believe me? Look to Vicky Kistler and she can tell you about how she has continued to FAIL the homeless. She may be just executing the directives of her corrupt and incompetent leader. Mr. 

Kane: You struggle to bullshit like Matt Tuerk does each day and that is a good thing. In fact, it is something that he has mastered. UPDATE: Found out later he lost his cell phone at the homeless encampment.  

Gerlach – Thank you for being a champion for the homeless but where have you been pushing the administration to keep the funds from being “tied up in a legal process”? It is great to be vocal from time to time, especially when you are trying to get elected to PA House, but I suggest you follow through in the future. If you are to be elected to the PA House, you realize that you can’t wait for someone to do something. You didn’t know the camp was there – but you knew the actions that the Council committed to were stalled.

Affa – Thank you for bringing light to the fact that this administration does not communicate with the council. This government is broken and Ms. Affa should be applauded for bringing attention to the dysfunction. She asked “why?” because Mayor Tuerk, Vicky Kistler and the administration DO NOT like homeless.

VP Dr. Mota – “It is inhumane!” Amen. She underscored the broken communication between the administration and the council.   

Pungo – It is unfortunate that we have to have another issue to address the broken communication. The council and administration need to act. Request the administration push the sweep.

Binder – Thanked Kane for being there – which is more than Matt Tuerk typically does. Asked Kane to explain what happened. Kane mentioned that the administration supports everything in the bill. Do they? They did nothing but hold up the money and action. Maybe he should ask the Civic Innovations Manager, Michaela Boyer, to tackle this problem? Mr. Kane claimed the city did not know and the Public Works and Police Department unilaterally acted without the administration knowing? Seriously? Sounds like a blame game to keep the administration’s hands clean. More BULLSHIT! Tuerk and the Administration directed last time for the city to handle the homeless issue. They were acting based on your directions. Binder was the hero tonight! “Get the mayor on the phone….he can make the decisions” Kane was deflective and afraid to call Tuerk at Coachella.

Napoli - Didn’t even know if they had the right document. 

Hanlon – looked to be downloading music from Apple iTunes the entire time.

This was outright sad.  I feel for these people.  I think Kane is now a fraud.  You had your chance, and came up way short. Hey I lost my phone too.  I was hiking in truth canyon over the weekend.