READING, Pa. – Many local organizations are getting ready as we prepare for some of the coldest temperatures of the season so far.<\/p>\n
The Animal Rescue League has issued warnings for people to remember to bring pets inside during the coldest times.<\/p>\n
LuAnn Oatman, president of Berks Encore, says cold weather can cause serious health risks for seniors.<\/p>\n
“A lot of times, as we age, we don’t feel the changes in temperature as quickly and we also don’t remember to stay hydrated,” said Oatman.<\/p>\n
She says Berks Encore provides a warm place for people to come during the day and have a hot meal or warm drink, get out of the cold, and even be connected to programs that can help with heat related issues.<\/p>\n
Oatman says the center does see a group of older people come in who are homeless.<\/p>\n
“Income doesn’t keep up with the cost of living,” said Oatman. “When you look at what you might be paying for heating oil or whatever the system is in your home, electricity increases and things. When you’re choosing between medications, rent, heat, utilities, it becomes a very difficult balancing game that they play.”<\/p>\n
The Hope Rescue Mission echoes concerns about the growing homelessness issue among older adults.<\/p>\n
“The housing is really difficult right now, especially for the older guys. Guys who are on a fixed income, they only get so much a month,” said April McNally, Hope Rescue Mission’s director of shelter services.<\/p>\n
“So, it’s hard for them to find something affordable for them and so we are seeing a lot of older people come in right now that don’t have the means to afford an apartment.”<\/p>\n
They have an emergency shelter set up for those who need a place to stay overnight.<\/p>\n
“With the cold weather, I do think we’re going to see a lot of people coming in for shelter tonight,” added McNally.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"READING, Pa. – Many local organizations are getting ready as we prepare for some of the coldest temperatures…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":52532,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[12979,29682,28124,12972,28,736,128,130,129,29681],"class_list":["post-52531","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-animal-rescue-league","tag-berks-encore","tag-cold-weather","tag-hope-rescue-mission","tag-pennsylvania","tag-reading","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news","tag-shelter-services"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52531","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=52531"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52531\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}