Centre County’s homeless shelters have been at, or beyond capacity for many months due at least partially to the COVID-19 pandemic, causing a “homeless crisis,” according to county adult services director Faith Ryan.
“We are definitely seeing an increase in people who are either struggling to secure housing because of cost or availability. We are finding a lot of people, especially with the cold weather, that have been living in an uninhabitable RV, a tent on family property … family relationships crumbling,” Ryan said.
Ryan told county commissioners that Emergency Rental Assistance Program funds are being used to address the issue when she provided an update on the program to commissioners on Tuesday.
In March, the county received more than $10.6 million in federal funding for the ERAP program, which provides rent and utility assistance to those impacted by the pandemic in Centre County.
So far, ERAP has helped approximately 1,000 Centre County households.
The county has received approximately 1,700 applications for the programs.
The need for homeless services has always been here, Ryan said, but it has “been exacerbated by the pandemic.” She added, the “tsunami of evictions” caused by the pandemic that the county expected, “did not happen … It is the homelessness that has been a tsunami.”
To help address the homeless issue, the county has also used the funds to shelter 45 to 55 families in hotels.
“We tell people, when you are in hotels, it is up to the hotel owner, and the hotel company on whether or not you stay … It doesn’t necessarily mean they will extend their time with us regardless of what we pay. So, this can’t be a forever situation, but we have gotten hit with it pretty hard and we are just trying to take it day by day,” Ryan said.
Adult service workers have been reaching out to maxed-out providers to help provide case management for those in need and provide additional services to help them find secure housing.
Other counties have also experienced high levels of homelessness during the pandemic, and Ryan said the county has been “seeking guidance wherever we can.”
To help those struggling with heating costs this winter, the commissioners agreed to move a contract with Interfaith Human Services to use $100,000 in ERAP funding for emergency heating assistance to next week’s consent agenda. The program runs through April 30. Interfaith is already offering assistance to the Centre County Fuel Bank and the county is moving to use the ERAP funds to help with an increased need for the services.
“Because of the level of need that we’re experiencing, having the high rate of expedited cases that we are already trying to push through, we have made an arrangement with Interfaith that if somebody is experiencing a heating crisis, whether they come through our department or contact them directly, that ERAP was just another option for them to use,” Ryan said.
The county also moved a contract agreement for Service Access and Management Inc. to provide administrative assistant service through ERAP 1 and ERAP 2 to next week’s consent agenda. The contract total is $7.9 million.
Information about services is available on the Centre County website.
This story appears in the Jan. 20-26 edition of the Centre County Gazette.
