Montco to open year-round shelter in Lansdale for people experiencing homelessness

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Montgomery County is opening a year-round, short-term shelter in Lansdale for people experiencing homelessness.

The facility, set to open in the first half of 2025, will provide beds, meals, and wrap-around services for up to 20 people at a time. The shelter will be operated by national nonprofit Resources for Human Development, which currently works with the county to provide homeless services in the area.

Annual operational costs for the shelter are estimated to be $1.3 million. Funding for the facility will come from a combination of county, state and federal funds designated for emergency shelter and rapid re-housing, American Rescue Plan Act funds for eviction prevention, and other funding sources that make up the county’s budget for its housing and homelessness programs.

“This speaks to the importance of partnerships between a local municipality that saw a rise in the unhoused population,” said Jamila Winder, chair of the Montco Board of Commissioners, “and how we’ve partnered together to come up with real, tangible solutions to address the most vulnerable in Lansdale.”

According to county officials, there are approximately 27 to 38 people experiencing homelessness in Lansdale on any given day. The new shelter can reduce that number by up to 75%. The lease agreement for the property at 1107 E. Main Street, owned by Liberty Bell Realty Company, will begin on Jan. 1, 2025 and last through 2034.

“Since a core group of us have started this conversation in Lansdale to identify potential properties for the county to partner with us on, we got nothing but support from our residents,” Mary Fuller, president of Lansdale Borough Council, said at Thursday’s Board of Commissioners meeting. “I think we expected some negativity, and I’m proud to report that the feedback we’ve gotten has been nothing but positive, and our residents are grateful that we’re stepping up to help those vulnerable people in our community.”

Shelter residents will have access to child care and physical, mental and behavioral health services, as well as employment and job training resources, public benefits access and veterans’ services.

County officials declined to give the exact address of the facility for “everybody’s privacy and safety and security,” but said unhoused residents can call Your Way Home Montgomery County for more information at 610-278-3522.

Montgomery County has been without a 24/7 homeless shelter since the RHD-run Coordinated Homeless Outreach Center in Norristown and Pottstown’s Al’s Heart Warming Center closed in June 2022.

The county’s 2024 Point-in-Time count found that 435 people were experiencing homelessness on the Code Blue night of Jan. 23, up from 357 people in 2023.

Winder said the Lansdale facility is a first step in addressing homelessness throughout the county. She said her goal is to have three additional shelters up and running by the end of 2025.

“Lansdale is demonstrating real courage as a municipality, that then we can see other municipalities follow suit,” Winder said. “That you can lift up your most vulnerable friends and neighbors and provide support in the communities where people are, and still have a vibrant and safe community.”

Throughout the county, unhoused residents in outdoor encampments have been forced to move, with few if any other options for shelter. In Pottstown Borough, unhoused residents in a tent city by the Schuylkill River are facing an impending encampment sweep on Jan. 2. Reading-based homeless services provider Opportunity House has been conducting an intake to place some of the encampment residents in short-term housing at a nearby hotel, but residents told WHYY News it’s not a long-term solution.

Winder said Pottstown Borough, as well as West Norriton Township and Norristown, are among the municipalities that county officials are working with to explore permanent shelter options.

“We still have a lot of work to do,” she said.

Winder said the county is also working to address the housing crisis by exploring long-term solutions, including a master leasing program, a land bank to create more affordable units, and a strengthened home repairs program.

“We can stabilize people, we can get people the services they need,” she said. “We can get them off the streets with these transitional housing facilities. But the long-term goal is to ensure that we’ve got a diversity of housing inventory and that we play a role in kind of shepherding the opportunity for people to plant roots in Montgomery County, or just be able to have … an apartment.”

Unhoused residents can seek emergency overnight shelter at nine facilities throughout the county whenever the county’s Office of Public Health issues a Code Blue alert, due to nighttime temperatures and/or wind chill at or below freezing for two or more hours.