The Times Herald (Norristown, PA)
AFTER CHOC
One year later, Montgomery County remains without homeless shelter
NORRISTOWN >> It’s been a year since the Coordinated Homeless Outreach Center shut its doors.
Formerly operating out of Building 9 on the grounds of the Norristown State Hospital, the 50-bed facility, known as CHOC, was the largest and only space for single adults ages 18 years and older experiencing homelessness in Montgomery County.
Situated on a portion of state land conveyed to the Municipality of Norristown, it was one of several social services agencies in need of a new place when leases lapsed on June 30, 2022.
“It was certainly sad closing the building,” said Program Director Christina Jordan. “It was by no means a perfect building at all, but it was a hub, and I think we knew losing that resource … would lead to more people outside.”
It’s been a year since the Coordinated Homeless Outreach Center stopped operating. No new facility has been built as the homelessness situation in Montgomery County appears to have hit a tipping point.
A homeless encampment is pictured June 9, 2023, just off the Schuylkill River Trail in Norristown.
“I think what we’re seeing in Norristown right now could be an example of that. It’s hard for us because our hands are tied because we don’t have the resources to be able to help,” said Owen Camuso, regional director of Resources for Human Development, a Philadelphiabased nonprofit that oversaw CHOC’s operations.
Camusa was referring to the attention homelessness has gotten recently, particularly in Norristown and Pottstown. Rumblings about a possible sweep of encampments had been circulating in recent months, as Norristown officials sought to
crush those rumors by issuing a statement earlier this month. Dozens of advocates, area residents and concerned citizens came to a June 6 council meeting in Norristown where frank conversations about homelessness took place during a lengthy public comment period.
A look back: Homelessness in Montco following CHOC closure
Earlier this year, there were 357 people found to be experiencing homelessness on a cold night in January.
The Point-in-Time Count, an annual federally mandated initiative, “gives one snapshot into the trend of homelessness in Montgomery County, according to Kayleigh Silver, administrator of the Montgomery County Office of Housing and Community Development.
Along with the area’s lack of affordable housing stock, Silver cited the after-effects of the pandemic and devastating impacts of Hurricane Ida in 2021 as contributing factors for the 2022 figures. Hurricane Ida produced historic flooding levels, eliminating affordable units in places such as Riverside Apartments in Norristown. Flooding damage left the building located along Schuylkill Avenue uninhabitable, and its residents unable to find an apartment they can afford.
“The years that I have worked with the CHOC there’s always been a waitlist to get into a facility like this,” Camuso said. “So if you’re taking beds offline, that waitlist is just going to keep growing.” Smaller shelter-based resources are available for those in need for women, families and people experiencing domes
tic violence in Montgomery County. Emergency shelters are opened during instances of extreme weather. However, advocates point to a capacity issue.
With a concentration of social service agencies in places such as Norristown and Pottstown, the two boroughs often feel the weight of responsibility to care for the area’s homeless.
“The narrative has been spun that CHOC has brought homelessness to the area,” Camuso said. “I don’t want to go down that road really because I think that human services strengthen community support network, and not bring people to that situation.”
“Our community is better when we have services to help get people housed and to help get people fed and support each other,” Jordan said.
Still, it’s concerning for Montgomery County Commissioners’ Chairman Ken Lawrence Jr., who maintained the mindset of more needing to be done for the area’s most vulnerable individuals.
“You know we have 62 municipalities in Montgomery County, and I would welcome any of those 62 raising their hands,” Lawrence said.
“I always think for a county of our size, and with the population that we see, that we should have more than one shelter in Montgomery County,” he said.
Issue remains ‘complex’
Jordan and Camuso reflected on the journey they’ve taken over the past year.
She recalled how representatives “stopped admissions May 1,” ahead of the 2022 lease lapse, and “at the time of the closure,” they were tasked with helping about 20 remaining clients find places to stay.
“Every person when we closed the door at the CHOC had an option to transition somewhere,” Camuso said. “Whether that was straight to permanent housing, or straight to kind of a hotel situation, or reconnecting with family or things like that.”
Resources for Human Development has pivoted over the last year, but still remained on the ground here in Montgomery County. Instead of having people come for services, services are brought to individuals.
“Our goal is to get people into an emergency situation and then transition into permanent housing as soon as possible,” Camuso said. “So our philosophy has not changed through this — just the way that we’re doing it has changed.”
Hotels have been the main resource “to get people off the streets” in “emergency situations,” Camuso said. The nonprofit has procured “blocks of rooms” to help solve a short term problem.
“That … for a long term strategy, that’s not sustainable,” Camuso said. “Financially, it’s not sustainable, and capacity wise, that’s not sustainable, because we can’t serve as many people as what we did previously.”
Montgomery County has also provided monetary contributions, according to Lawrence, who said $2 million has been allocated since the CHOC’s closure for hoteling and the further expansion of Street Outreach services.
County officials too acknowledged how those accommodations can only go so far.
“Hoteling is a very temporary solution, and we look at the needs of those who experience homelessness, there is a range, and so we want to be able to have services that provide a full continuum of services for that population,” said Montgomery County Department of Health and Human Services Director Tamara Williams.
In March, the county launched a task force with the focus of tackling homelessness. But it remains a complicated problem without a viable solution.
“I think we talk about homelessness as a complex public health issue, and we need supportive places for folks to get inside quickly, but we also need affordable housing, and a whole host of other options and supports, and different things to help different people,” Jordan said.
Lawrence agreed.
“This is not solely a housing issue,” he said. “We need more mental health treatment beds. We need more treatment centers for drug addiction. It’s not always just a housing issue.”
“Even with a shelter, or a hotel, I mean some of the people — who are living in encampments, or on the streets — they need more help than simply housing, and we need to make sure we have more wraparound services provided for them, and we need our state government and federal government
Montgomery County Commissioners’ Chairman Ken Lawrence Jr. sits in his office on Jan. 30inside One Montgomery Plaza in downtown Norristown. to help with that,” Lawrence continued. “And that’s not unique to Montgomery County. That’s happening across the region, and across the nation, frankly.”
— Montgomery County Commissioners’ Chairman Ken Lawrence Jr.
RHD plans for new facility stuck in talks
Camuso told MediaNews Group prior to the CHOC’s closure about plans to construct a new facility in Lower Providence Township. County leadership supported that plan.
“The county and the state had funded RHD to develop a new supportive housing model out in Lower Providence Township,” said Montgomery County Chief Operating Officer Lee Soltysiak. “So this would be a new, attractive and innovative way to deal with rehousing individuals in the county, and once it’s open, I think it’ll be a site that really the whole county can be proud of, and so we’re working with the township very closely to make sure the zoning will accommodate the location, and to address all the needs that we know people utilizing the site will need in terms of transportation and supportive services to get them rehoused as quickly as possible.”
A location of a proposed site was not disclosed, but Camuso stressed the organization “feel(s) that we have a legitimate land use” to develop somewhere within the township’s 15-mile boundaries.
Discussions continue, but a year later, it appears as if plans have stalled.
“The county does not do the local zoning,” Lawrence said, adding that “we need local municipal partners for that.”
“We need to better understand what they’re trying to propose. That’s been a part of the conversations that have been ongoing is to try to pin down a little bit,” said Michael Mrozinski, Lower Providence Township’s community development director.
“It’s not going to be what I would consider in the homeless world a ‘barrack-style shelter,’” Camuso said. “It’s not going to be that. It’s going to be a short term housing program.”
The proposed project will be called Genny’s Place, a name Camuso said pays tribute to the memory of former CHOC Director Genny O’Donnell. Jordan is set to assume a leadership role, as the director of Genny’s Place, once it opens.
The estimated 20,000-square-foot space would offer “efficiency” apartment style “short term supportive housing” for up to 60 people, he said, with “specialized services to meet the needs of the population.”
“It’s still in conceptual phase,” Camuso said.
The development was met with “some resistance” from community members, who Camuso said expressed reservations.”I don’t want
to tag it, me personally, as nimby-ism,” Camuso said, referring to an acronym that stands for “not in my backyard.”
“They have legitimate concerns and we heard those,” he continued. “So we wanted to work with them on a solution for that because … if we just kept saying you’re ‘nimby’ and you’re this. If we just kept saying that’s the problem, we’re not going to get anywhere.”
Camuso said those concerns ranged from future traffic patterns to crosswalks, as well as questions about the development’s actual purpose.
“Is (it) a soup kitchen? People are going to be standing out in front and it’s going to be large people congregating. That’s not what we do,” he said.
“That’s why we’re providing short term housing.”
Resources for Human Development expressed plans to first construct a “facility that would work for possibly a temporary period of time,” before ultimately building a permanent one, Camuso said. The former could take six months. The latter, two years.
“I’m confident that we have a legitimate land use, and I’m confident that we will make it happen,” Camuso said. “It’s just the timeframe is what I’m not confident about because we need everybody to come together to get something done.”
As time goes by without measured progress, more people remain without access to shelter. It’s a problem advocates like Camuso and
Jordan struggle with as they continue to provide assistance.
He, like many others in the conversation to solve homelessness maintained the “takes a village mentality” is crucial to work towards an actionable solution.
“Everybody needs do something if we to really want this to help people that we need to help in Montgomery County, and Montgomery County does have a homeless situation, obviously, we see that,” Camuso said. “.. It (was) a real easy thing before to really turn the blind eye to that because we have safety net services.”
“We still have safety net services, but they’re kind of fractured now because we’re operating not under normal circumstances,” he continued. We need to get back to operating at normal circumstances so we can strengthen that safety net in Montgomery County, and we need everybody to work towards those goals, not just take care of those problems.”
“I’m confident that we have a legitimate land use, and I’m confident that we will make it happen. It’s just the timeframe is what I’m not confident about because we need everybody to come together to get something done.”
— Resources for Human Development Regional Director Owen Camuso