READING, Pa. – The dangerous cold has settled in as we plunge to single digits overnight.<\/p>\n
“The reality is, people do die because of the elements,” said Elise McCauley, assistant director of Berks County Coalition to End Homelessness.<\/p>\n
It’s a sad reality that the Berks Coalition to End Homelessness and a number of other shelters and organizations are fighting against as they do everything in their power to provide shelter and food to a vulnerable population during these extreme temperatures.<\/p>\n
“Right now, because of the cold, we’re prioritizing the outreach to people who are unsheltered,” McCauley said. “[We’re] handing out more blankets and we’ve gotten a lot of donations of warm weather gear, scarves, socks, hand warmers. Also, [we’re] trying to connect with people and encourage them to go inside to the shelters.”<\/p>\n
“With this inclement weather we realize that those who are unsheltered are the most at risk,” said Robert Turchi, CEO of Hope Rescue Mission.<\/p>\n
The Hope Rescue Mission in Reading has added extra sleeping accommodations and is allowing people to stay inside during the daytime. They’ve even had extra heaters installed in the chapel.<\/p>\n
“We’re going to do whatever it takes to keep people out of the dangerous weather,” Turchi said.<\/p>\n
Opportunity House in Reading has expanded services to meet the growing need, repurposing a classroom that will allow additional women and couples to come in overnight. They are also finding shelter for families.<\/p>\n
New Journey in the 100 block of S. 6th Street in Reading is functioning as a daytime warming center and providing three meals a day.<\/p>\n
“It’s not something they normally have the capacity to do,” said McCauley. “They really are just doing it because of the cold.”<\/p>\n
Berks Coalition to End Homelessness can help connect people to the resources they need if they don’t know where to turn.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"READING, Pa. – The dangerous cold has settled in as we plunge to single digits overnight. “The reality…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":92099,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[45400,29997,27630,17788,12972,736,128,130,129],"class_list":{"0":"post-92098","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-reading","8":"tag-berks-county-coalition-to-end-homelessness","9":"tag-bitter-cold","10":"tag-extreme-weather","11":"tag-homeless-shelter","12":"tag-hope-rescue-mission","13":"tag-reading","14":"tag-reading-city","15":"tag-reading-city-headlines","16":"tag-reading-city-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92098","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=92098"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92098\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/92099"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}