READING, Pa. – As the weather gets colder, life becomes harder for people without homes in the city of Reading.

During its Committee of the Whole meeting Monday night, Reading City Council heard about a joint effort known as the Community-Wide Strategic Plan to End Homelessness in order to implement responses to Code Blue during the 2026-27 winter season.

Elise McCauley, executive director of the Berks Coalition to End Homelessness, and Alyssa Bushkie, CEO, Opportunity House, said a collaboration between their two organizations — as well as New Journey Community Outreach and Tower Health Medical Group’s Street Medicine — have been meeting as a group to put together its policy.

“We put the policy together to bring various funding sources into a single pot and then to have those funders be able to make strategic decisions about where that funding will go,” McCauley said.

“So currently we know that in Berks County, there’s no formally funded outreach, there’s no regular plan for wintertime shelter that the community can count on, and there’s no summer response for severe heat,” she said. “So, this plan aims to address that.”

“We would be expanding outreach, increasing emergency shelter access and tracking data, creating that single funding pod, that unified funding process and ensuring equitable access to the services,” McCauley added.

“What we’re able to do is work together to figure out what each client’s needs are and how we can each help to address that collectively, rather than one organization trying to meet the needs of each individual,” Bushkie said.

Bushkie said the main goal with the initiative and policy is to protect unhoused community members and keep them safe from hypothermia and frostbite in the coldest months of the year.

“I do want to note that despite our best efforts last Code Blue season, we did have four people who died in Berks County from being unhoused in the cold in January of 2026,” Bushkie said.

The Code Blue period is defined from Dec. 1 through March 31.

The leaders said the coalition has identified five things it hopes to achieve:

Increased street outreach, making sure there are enough people going out to people living outdoors to make the aware of resources.

A day center expansion to allow people a place to go during the day when it is cold.

An overnight program for singles so that people who are experiencing unsheltered homelessness have a place for safe rest during the coldest hours of the day. 

A hotel program for families so they can remain together rather than separating them.

Case management and supportive services for people who are willing to engage and learn about available resources to provide help.

The program has a budget of $705,000, which is contingent on both the City of Reading and the Berks County each contributing $350,000.

“Our main goal with this funding and this policy is to ensure that people can stay alive through the winter,” McCauley said.

She said they’re asking for an increase in funding due to the increase in homelessness.

“There was an 8% increase since the year before, in Berks County, of homelessness,” McCauley said.

She said the more funding they get, the more people they can get off the streets this winter.

Council President Donna Reed said funding should be sought from other municipalities, especially those that border the city.

“I’ve always been an advocate that we’ve been leading the way, and understandably because of the social service agencies here in the city,” Reed said. “But I think there’s a responsibility that’s not being met by some of the interior ring suburbs.”

“I know there’s rural homelessness as well, but it seems particularly visible to me as someone who travels the suburbs,” she said. “It is certainly not endemic to the city of Reading.”