ALLENTOWN, Pa. \u2013 Forty bunk beds laid out in the Allentown YMCA will soon offer refuge for people without a roof over their heads.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cComing here to our Warming Station, they have a warm place to stay in the cold nights, a safe place to stay. They get a hot meal, they get a shower\u201d and room to socialize and relax, according to Tiffany Henning, River Crossings YMCA\u2019s branch executive director.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The shelter is set to open its doors Nov. 15 for the start of its ninth year. Since 2018, the shelter has grown from a one-room operation to one that covers much of the bottom floor of the YMCA on South 15th Street.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cOur ultimate goal is to help our guests not be in this situation by the time we close in the spring.”
\u2013\u00a0 Tiffany Henning, River Crossings YMCA branch executive director<\/p>\n
Its capacity has grown sharply, too, from 50 to 80 beds. And the shelter now includes a community room, showers, storage areas and space where Lehigh Valley Health Partners\u2019 Street Medicine team works with guests.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery year, we\u2019ve learned and we\u2019ve just made it better,\u201d Henning said.<\/p>\n
This year, there will be a bigger focus on getting residents \u201cinto housing of some sort,\u201d according to Henning.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Case managers will be on hand throughout the shelter season to help guests \u201capply for certain services or get services that they may not know are available to them,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cOur ultimate goal is to help our guests not be in this situation by the time we close in the spring,\u201d Henning said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Allentown Warming Station is almost ready to welcome guests, but Henning and her staff will spend the next few weeks working to hire up to 20 attendants \u201cwho will be boots on the ground\u201d at the shelter.\u00a0<\/p>\n
They\u2019ll help keep operations running smoothly as the shelter welcomes up to 80 men and women over 18, who must provide photo ID.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Doors open at 7 p.m. each night. Before bedtime around 10:30 p.m., guests can get food, take a shower and hang out in the shelter\u2019s community room, which is stocked with TVs and board games.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Wake-up calls begin around 5 a.m. for some, and all must be out by 7 a.m.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The YMCA is hosting pre-registration events that speed up the intake process for guests. Pop-ups are scheduled for 1-3 p.m. Wednesday at Ripple Community Center, 4:30-6:30 p.m. Oct. 27 at Family Wash Day, and 10 a.m. to noon Oct. 28 at the Allentown Health Bureau.\u00a0<\/p>\n
And as always, it\u2019s seeking donations and volunteers to help serve meals, restock shelves and help guests throughout the winter.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Growing impact<\/p>\n
Across the 2024-25 season, the shelter filled almost 8,100 beds and served more than 6,600 meals as it welcomed 323 people, according to the YMCA\u2019s statistics.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Its impact significantly deepened last year after the River Crossing YMCA expanded the shelter by 20 beds.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Almost 12,700 beds were filled and more than 12,200 meals were handed out across the 2025-26 shelter season, which started about six weeks early.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Allentown Warming Station averaged 71 guests per night, or about 90% of its new capacity, according to Henning. About three-quarters of those beds went to regular guests, she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It\u2019s one of two overnight shelters that are open in the Lehigh Valley amid the winter season.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Last year, officials from Allentown, Lehigh County and the Lehigh Valley Community Foundation found $75,000 to open the shelter at the end of September, but there have been no public discussions about an early opening this year.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Bethlehem Emergency Sheltering is scheduled to open two weeks before the Allentown Warming Station.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Its 70-bed facility on Market Street also serves homeless adults, who must get a voucher from the Bethlehem Police Department. It opens at 5 p.m. each night from Nov. 1 through the end of April; guests must leave by 6:45 a.m. each morning.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The organization filled 11,600 beds and served almost 10,000 meals last year, according to its statistics.\u00a0<\/p>\n
And the Allentown Rescue Mission runs an emergency shelter for adult men at its headquarters on Hamilton Street. The facility is open from 4 p.m. to 8 a.m. throughout the year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ALLENTOWN, Pa. \u2013 Forty bunk beds laid out in the Allentown YMCA will soon offer refuge for people…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":310123,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[153,155,154],"class_list":["post-310122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem-headlines","tag-bethlehem-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310122","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=310122"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310122\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/310123"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=310122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=310122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=310122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}