A first-of-its-kind transitional housing space for vulnerable neighbors is coming to Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, and a community member who wanted to give back is a big reason why.<\/p>\n
Inside a building on East Main Street in Lansdale, renovations are well underway at the future site of Montgomery County’s very first 24\/7 transitional housing facility.<\/p>\n
“There are a lot of reasons people become homeless, and at this facility we’re going to treat every individual as an individual,” Neil Makhija, chair of the Montgomery County Board of Commissioners, said.<\/p>\n
There are 20 beds, and leaders expect people to stay 60 to 90 days.<\/p>\n
“This facility will help reduce the number of people who are sleeping on the streets here in Lansdale by 70%,” Makhija said.<\/p>\n
The idea, though, is to provide vulnerable neighbors with more than just a place to sleep.<\/p>\n
“It’s going to have the caseworkers and the support to help people get a job, get support for mental health needs or other health care needs, and really position those who are coming in to find a long-term stable place that they can call home,” Makhija said.<\/p>\n
For roughly two years, the county has worked on this project. This fall Nand Todi, a Montgomery County resident and leader in the local business community, joined the effort.<\/p>\n
“This country gave me the opportunities to get where we are today, so it is the time to give something back to the community,” Todi said.<\/p>\n
Todi donated $1 million to the project. He is hoping his act of kindness inspires other neighbors to do the same.<\/p>\n
“It saddens me to see this problem in most developed, most advanced, most rich country in the world, but the problem is still here and we as a community, the leaders, community leaders and well-to-do families, do what they can or what we can to provide a helping hand to eradicate the homelessness from the Montgomery County,” Todi said.<\/p>\n
The short-term housing space is another resource in Montgomery County, which also opens shelters during extreme weather conditions and runs “an emergency hoteling program” out of Pottstown.<\/p>\n
“I was incredibly grateful and also proud to see a member of our community step up at a time when people really need help,” Makhija said.<\/p>\n
The new facility is set to open this February in Lansdale. A county spokesperson said a similar program is opening later next year in Norristown.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A first-of-its-kind transitional housing space for vulnerable neighbors is coming to Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, and a community member…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":64959,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[391,34600,200,28,30,29],"class_list":["post-64958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-homelessness","tag-lansdale-pa","tag-montgomery-county","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64958","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=64958"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64958\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}