READING, Pa. \u2013\u00a0During its Committee of the Whole meeting Monday night, Reading City Council heard presentations from community development and several partner organizations to address homelessness, as well as the need to renew funding in the 2027 budget.<\/p>\n
Focusing on Code Blue funding,\u00a0Patricia Vasquez, community development deputy director, explained Code Blue is a critical emergency response initiative.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s a clear, critical emergency response initiative that helps protect vulnerable individuals during periods of extreme winter weather by providing access to emergency shelter, warm safety and supportive services,\u201d Vasquez said.<\/p>\n
Opportunity House and Hope Rescue Mission are the primary locations of Code Blue emergency shelter operations during coldest months of the year.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cHomelessness is a year-round challenge that requires a coordinated community response, while Cold Blue provides a critical safety during the winter months,\u201d Vasquez said. \u201cContinued investment in prevention, housing stabilization, supportive services, affordable housing and strong community partnership and Code Blue reflects our commitment to public safety, public health and human dignity.\u201d<\/p>\n
David Barr, community development director, said in the most recent funding year, the city invested $350,000 in Code Blue, while other funding included $100,000 from the Wyomissing Foundation, $50,000 from the Janssen Foundation, $50,000 from the United Way and $15,000 from Berks County.<\/p>\n
Barr said the county\u2019s contribution reflected 2% of the program funding.<\/p>\n
\u201cRequests for shelter come from all parts of the county, and the homeless are sent to Reading from surrounding townships,\u201d Barr said. \u201cI get it; this is where we have the services, the food, the counseling and the shelter. It’s a humane thing to do to bring them to Reading, but we end up dealing with a lot of the problems and issues of the county’s homelessness here in Reading.\u201d<\/p>\n
Barr said the county should step up its funding to match the city, or in the alternative, give access to land or facilities for housing units.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn short, the city cannot carry this burden alone,\u201d Barr said. \u201cCode Blue and homelessness in general is a countywide issue.\u201d<\/p>\n
Councilmember Chris Miller said he appreciates the fact that the conversation about Code Blue is happening in June rather than in November.<\/p>\n
\u201cI appreciate that a lot, as I think that\u2019s the first time this has happened,\u201d Miller said. \u201cThis is a team effort that must happen. It’s a topic that\u2019s not going to go away. It is growing, and we need to accept it and deal with it in an educated way, which I feel is happening tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"READING, Pa. \u2013\u00a0During its Committee of the Whole meeting Monday night, Reading City Council heard presentations from community…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":214346,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[349,1089,93917,2001,12972,93916,5208,128,1095,130,129,89719],"class_list":["post-214345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-berks-county","tag-chris-miller","tag-code-bue","tag-david-barr","tag-hope-rescue-mission","tag-janssen-foundation","tag-patricia-vasquez","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-council","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news","tag-wyomissing-foundation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214345","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=214345"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214345\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/214346"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=214345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=214345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=214345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}