{"id":93062,"date":"2026-01-22T00:07:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-22T00:07:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/93062\/"},"modified":"2026-01-22T00:07:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-22T00:07:11","slug":"west-chester-gets-new-family-shelter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/93062\/","title":{"rendered":"West Chester gets new family shelter"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cIt is our intent that this facility will alleviate any street homelessness for families,\u201d said Dolores Colligan, director of the county Department of Community Development. \u201cWe should not have any family in Chester County sleeping outside in a car or in a place not met for human habitation. So, we\u2019re very proud of this.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

Anyone experiencing homelessness in the county enters the coordinated entry system \u2014 the Human Needs Network of Chester County<\/a>. Accessing that point is as simple as dialing 211.\n<\/p>\n

Resource navigators engage callers with a set of questions to figure out where to place them. Chester County tries to connect each person with a matching set of resources, using a \u201cperson-centered approach,\u201d Colligan said. However, there is a long line to get into permanent supportive housing.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cWe might have 70 people on that list at any given time that needs to get into a shelter,\u201d Commissioner Eric Roe said.\n <\/p>\n

\"AThe new family shelter at 825 Paoli Pike, West Chester consists of 10 multi-bedroom, fully-furnished apartment units. (Kenny Cooper\/WHYY)<\/p>\n

Colligan told WHYY News that there is not enough affordable housing anywhere in the country, let alone Chester County. Changes at the federal level could put an additional squeeze on capacity.\n<\/p>\n

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development allocates $2.4 million in Continuum of Care program<\/a> funding annually to Chester County, according to Colligan. The county spends about $1.8 million of those dollars on permanent supportive housing<\/a> assistance for roughly 75 households.\n<\/p>\n

Under the Trump administration, HUD has proposed capping the amount counties can spend<\/a> on permanent housing solutions at 30% \u2014 which, if implemented, would severely hamper Chester County\u2019s ability to provide assistance.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cIf that funding were cut at 1.8 that goes into [permanent supportive housing] would come down to like $650,000,\u201d Colligan said. \u201cSo, a significant loss of funding just for permanent housing and then you got to figure that could mean up towards 40 of those families losing housing that they have been in for many, many, many, many years.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

For now, HUD has shelved those proposed changes to its guidelines<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cIt is our intent that this facility will alleviate any street homelessness for families,\u201d said Dolores Colligan, director…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":93063,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1557,45865,28,30,29,1558],"class_list":["post-93062","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-chester-county","tag-family-shelter","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news","tag-west-chester"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93062","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=93062"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93062\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/93063"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}