READING, Pa. – The Berks Coalition to End Homelessness is discussing a strategic plan to help focus on the growing issue.<\/p>\n
Officials say homelessness in Berks stretches to all demographics and is present in almost all school districts across the county, even increasingly affecting senior citizens.<\/p>\n
“When you see somebody on the street corner that’s looking a little haggard or maybe even with a sign, that’s just the very tip of the iceberg of homelessness,” said Jack Williams, executive director of the Berks Coalition to End Homelessness.<\/p>\n
He says a lot of factors contribute to homelessness, with rising prices being a major one.<\/p>\n
“I think the study says right now that you need about $25 an hour if you’ve got one wage earner for what they would have to pay for the average two-bedroom apartment,” Williams said.<\/p>\n
In addition to affordable housing, another important recommendation is the need for a day center.<\/p>\n
“Somewhere they can go, not only just for food, but maybe they can get mail there and maybe they can have a locker there where they can keep some of their documents, maybe they have got access to a washing machine and a dryer,” said Williams.<\/p>\n
He adds, most importantly, it could also be a place to connect with case managers.<\/p>\n
Williams calls homelessness a very complex issue.<\/p>\n
“There are a lot of economic drivers that create homelessness situations, along with mental illness, along with drug and alcohol, along with the other inflationary factors that are all playing in a negative driving force to more homelessness,” he explained.<\/p>\n
He says the coalition is responsible for making sure there is a follow through on the strategic plan, but the issue won’t be solved by one organization alone.<\/p>\n
“We learned that it takes almost every aspect of our community,” added Williams. “The public officials, private officials, community service providers, plus the community in general.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"READING, Pa. – The Berks Coalition to End Homelessness is discussing a strategic plan to help focus on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":119495,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[56645,349,391,45981,128,130,129],"class_list":["post-119494","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-berks-coalition-to-end-homelessness","tag-berks-county","tag-homelessness","tag-homelessness-organizations","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119494","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119494"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119494\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/119495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}