Times Chronicle & Public Spirit
Panel seeks solutions for housing, homelessness crisis
Montgomery County’s homelessness situation and apparent lack of affordable housing is grave.
These topics were the focal point of a conference that took place Monday at Bryn Mawr College. Hosted by the HealthSpark Foundation, of Lansdale, the conference, “Meeting the Moment: Taking Action on Homelessness and Affordable Housing in Montgomery County” brought 250 people together with a vested interest in addressing the issues and brainstorming possible solutions.
Advocates, developers, elected leaders, first responders, government officials, and nonprofit executives were among those in attendance.
“Montgomery County is in the midst of a housing affordability crisis,” said Kayleigh Silver, administrator of the Montgomery County Office of Housing and Community Development.
Around “one-third of our residents are struggling to afford where they live,” Silver said during a panel discussion.
Factors in housing crisis
Rising rents, interest rates, housing costs, and increases to overall cost of living have been contributing factors to the problem over the past few years, said HealthSpark Foundation President and CEO Emma Hertz.
“In Montgomery County, historically affordable communities like Schwenksville, Hatfield and Pottsgrove … have seen rents and home (prices) increase by over 200 percent in some communities since 2019,” Hertz said.
Locally, around 74,000 households “live above the poverty line but below what it actually costs to live in Montgomery County,” Hertz said, noting those making between $45,000 and $75,000 are considered the “largest growing cohort of housing unstable families.”
Silver added that 20 percent of Montgomery County homeowners are considered “cost burdened,” while 47 percent of renters pay more than 30 percent of their income to rent.
“We are at a crisis of housing affordability, and more and more people are feeling that strain and that burden,” Silver said.
Eviction rate rising
Evictions are also on the rise, with 22 evictions per day reported in Montgomery County — the third highest eviction rate in Pennsylvania.
“I think what’s happening in Montgomery County is more acute, simply because you have more population and you have more urban density,” said Stacie Reidenbaugh, president and CEO of 10,000 Friends of Pennsylvania, a bipartisan advocacy organization based in Harrisburg.
The group strives to find land use solutions, focusing on breaking down barriers and working to implement more inclusionary zoning practices, some of which Reidenbaugh said could be useful here in Montgomery County.
“This is not a Republican issue, this is not a Democrat issue, this is an everyone issue,” Reidenbaugh said.
‘A very concerning story’
Montgomery County’s growing population of homeless was a topic of conversation during the Feb. 12 conference.
“How did we get here? In one of the wealthiest counties in the state, how does that happen?” Hertz said.
Officials have long attributed factors to the area’s uptick in homelessness, including the COVID-19 pandemic, effects from the remnants of Hurricane Ida back in 2021, increasing cost of living, and lack of affordable housing stock.
Mark Boorse, director of program development for the Fort Washington-based
Access Services, stressed that “it is a crisis.” He added that “we hit a tipping point probably at least a year ago.”
The 2023 Point-in-Time Count, a federally mandated initiative that gives a snapshot of homelessness, netted 357 people experiencing homelessness on a cold night in January, but Silver acknowledged that number was actually much higher throughout the entire year, “telling a very concerning story.”
Silver said nearly 3,000 people “were either sleeping outside or in a shelter” during the 2023 calendar year, including increasing numbers of children and aging adults.
“The inflow is far exceeding the outflow, and it’s just we aren’t able to house people and there isn’t enough inventory of safe, accessible, affordable housing in order to meet the inflow of people in need of that housing,” Silver said.
The closing of the Coordinated Homeless Outreach Center, also known as CHOC, previously located on the grounds of the Norristown State Hospital has impacted the area’s homelessness situation.
The facility, overseen by the Philadelphia-based Resources for Human Development, was a resource center and 50-bed homeless shelter for single adults and closed in 2022 after the land was conveyed from the state to the Municipality of Norristown for development.
A proposal for a new short term housing space with supportive services
was introduced last month in Lower Providence Township, but as of now, no new facility has been built.
Some successes
While some successes were highlighted, such as the 8,000 people who’ve received housing assistance through the county’s Your Way Home program and the $115 million amassed to financially help those in need through the Emergency Rent & Utility Coalition, the matter at hand needs to be addressed.
“It’s becoming a much more front-and-center conversation now than it used to be three or four years ago,” Boorse said of the local homelessness crisis, noting the attention it’s received and how “it’s become polarizing in the public sphere.”
Boorse works with the nonprofit’s Street Medicine outreach program that provides medical attention and other resources to homeless people. He’s observed people “have (had) to move more” and have lost personal items as weather conditions have forced people to leave their space.
“It’s become more dangerous to live outside,” Boorse said.
Solutions mulled
Along with panel discussions, the Feb. 12 conference included a question and answer portion, as well as breakout discussions, providing attendees with the opportunity to learn more about topics ranging from how to create and preserve more affordable housing
to advocacy efforts and engaging government action around homelessness.
The Montgomery County Commissioners were also in attendance as they stressed their commitment to working to improve conditions around housing and homelessness.
“In county government, we have limitations on what we can accomplish. We don’t necessarily have the resources of the federal or state government,” said Montgomery County Commissioners’ Vice Chairman Neil Makhija. “We don’t have the legal authority, and we may not have all of the tools that these other levels of government can bring to bear, but what we can do … is serve as a convening body and a presence that brings together all levels of government to tackle the issue … we recognize we’re one of the wealthiest counties in the commonwealth, and we have to ask ourselves is it acceptable to have hundreds of people sleeping on the streets on any given night?”
He added that helping municipalities cultivate strategies with “affordable housing, inclusionary zoning (or) making space for shelters” is crucial.
“We have to bring them together and incentivize them to take those actions because that is the only way we’re going to move forward,” Makhija said. “There is no single step that we can take at the county level that will address all of the issues that we talk about.”