With temperatures forecast Friday night to dip below 0 degrees Fahrenheit, staff at Safe Harbor in Easton planned to go out and find people staying outside and offer them a place to stay until the cold snap eases.
Some homeless people don’t want to stay in shelters.
It could be because they don’t want to follow rules about no drinking or drugs, said Tyler Rogers, executive director at Safe Harbor in Easton.
“Sometimes they choose to stay out in the cold,” he said.
With temperatures forecast Friday night to dip below 0 degrees Fahrenheit, staff at the 536 Bushkill Drive shelter planned to go out and find people staying outside and offer them a place to stay until the cold snap eases, he said.
With the shelter’s 38 beds full, help could mean a bus ticket or ride in a staff member’s car to shelters in Bethlehem or Allentown. It could mean an invitation to the day program that runs 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. weekdays and a sleeping bag or blanket available for free.
“We’ll make as much space as we can up until fire code,” Rogers said.
Easton officials planned to try to connect homeless people with a hotel voucher provided by Northampton County or the Salvation Army, Mayor Sal Panto Jr. said. The Salvation Army, 1110 Northampton St., is open during the day for people to warm up and get some food, he said.
“We’ll do whatever we have to do if someone’s out in the cold and we find them,” he said. “We’ll do whatever we can to find them shelter.”
Bethlehem and Allentown
In Bethlehem, the faith-based Bethlehem Emergency Sheltering provides overnight sheltering December through March at various churches opening their doors as shelters on a rotating basis.
“We will be continuing in its normal rotation,” Craig Weidman, president of the board of directors, said this afternoon.
Each shelter site opens at 5:30 p.m. and closes its doors at 7:30 a.m.
New Bethany Ministries, 339 W. Fourth St. on South Side, planned to extend its drop-in center hours until 5:15 p.m. today and Friday to coincide with the opening of the churches. Typically, the center is open 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday.
“Whenever it gets this cold out we try to make sure people don’t have to spend any time on the street,” said Diane Elliott, executive director.
There’s been a huge increase in demand for services at New Bethany. The November population was double the usual, with people reporting trouble getting food and finding affordable housing, Elliott said.
Many participants spend their days at New Bethany or the Trinity Episcopal Church Soup Kitchen at 44 E. Market St., which reopened today after a sinkhole and water main break forced its closure.
“The real challenge is on the weekends,” Weidman said. “I think Friday and Saturday will be the worst.”
A shuttle is offered on nights the sheltering sites are too far to walk to and it happens to partially coincide with the cold snap, Weidman said.
On Friday, Saturday and Monday at 5 p.m., men can grab the shuttle at the Walnut Street garage, where they will be dropped off the next morning. Women can be picked up at 4:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday at the garage.
Tonight, women were headed to West Side Moravian, 402 Third Ave., and men headed to Church of the Nativity, 321 Wyandotte St. On Friday night, women can stay at Life in Christ Church, 51 Hillmond St., and men can seek shelter at St. Andrew’s Episcopal, 1900 Pennsylvania Ave.
In Allentown, city officials directed people in need of shelter to:
- Allentown Rescue Mission (men only, 24 hours), 355 Hamilton St., 610-740-5500.
- Salvation Army Hospitality House for Women (with or without children, 24 hours), 344 N. Seventh St., 610-432-0129.
- Sixth Street Shelter (families, referral needed, 24 hours), 610-435-1490.
- St. Paul’s Safe Haven (individuals and families, 8 p.m. to 8 a.m. daily), Eighth and Walnut streets, 610-435-9065.
Need in Warren County
In Warren County, during business hours, those who need assistance can call the county Division of Temporary Assistance and Social Services at 908-475-6301. The county also has an after-hours emergency hotline, 877-661-4357, that operates from 4:30 p.m. to 7 a.m. year-round.
There is no emergency shelter in Warren County, so the staff takes basic identification information over the phone and houses people in hotels or motels. If the temperature drops below freezing, anyone who calls is housed. Police and local municipalities are aware of the resource.
Family Promise of Warren County has homelessness prevention and supportive housing programs, but Executive Director Bob Frankenfield said the county would benefit from an emergency shelter.
“What we really need in Warren County is a static site, such as Safe Harbor. Whether we’ll ever get there, I don’t know,” he said.
Funding is funneled into homelessness prevention and rapid re-housing programs, because it’s less expensive than housing people overnight, Frankenfield said. But there will still be people who need transitional programs and emergency shelter.
Some have fallen “out of the system” because they don’t want to comply with the rules. They need people to start working with them where they are, he said.
“We don’t want them to freeze, either,” Frankenfield said. “There’s an awful lot of folks out there who need a great deal of case management. They need ongoing services.”
Reporters Sarah Peters and Sara K. Satullo and Regional Editor Kurt Bresswein contributed to this report.
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HOW TO HELP
New Bethany Ministries, 339 W. Fourth St. in Bethlehem, said it could use volunteers to help them stay open later Friday and welcomes the donation of any sort of warm clothing. The center will not be open Saturday or Sunday, said Executive Director Diane Elliott. “That is just not something we’ve been able to do at this point,” she said.
To volunteer with Bethlehem Emergency Sheltering, visit bethlehememergencysheltering.org to fill out a form.
At Safe Harbor, 536 Bushkill Drive in Easton, Executive Director Tyler Rogers said donations are always welcome of sleeping bags and blankets or of anything on the shelter’s “wish list” at safeharboreaston.com. Basic, everyday necessities are also always needed. “You basically time it by the 38 people we have living there,” he said.