HOUSING THE HOMELESS IN LANSDALE

New description, 12/11/24

Last winter, 2023-2024, this “Housing the Homeless in Lansdale” GoFundMe raised $32,000 from over 450 wonderful donors, to put 5 women and 1 man from Lansdale into hotel rooms from late November 2023 to April 2024.

This was necessary since when the overnight weather or windchill is forecast to go to 32 degrees or below, meaning “Code Blue” conditions are declared by Montgomery County, men were accepted into an overnight church shelter in Lansdale, but not women. The hotel rooms sheltered the women, not only during Code Blue conditions, but all winter.

This coming winter of 2024-2025 , women as well as men in Lansdale will be provided overnight shelter during Code Blue conditions. The addition of a shelter for women has been the result of efforts by a group of women in Lansdale, including Linda Rowland who was instrumental in the hotel room effort mentioned above last winter.

While shelter during Code Blue conditions is essential, this shelter is only overnight, usually about 8 PM to 8 AM the next morning. In the morning the men and women must leave the Code Blue shelter and go back outside, regardless of the outside weather conditions. This is a harsh way to live, especially during the winter. Even criminals are given better than this - they receive food, clothing and shelter in the prisons. Our community needs to do better for our homeless population.

Linda Rowland has started a nonprofit organization called Linda and Friends Helping Hands, at

www.lindaandfriendshelpinghands.org

Linda’s charity concentrates on helping the homeless, both men and women, who live outdoors in Lansdale, and aims to

“provide food, clothing and shelter … and, importantly, provide guidance to ultimately allow individuals to be more self-sufficient. We recognize that addressing other issues faced by homeless individuals is nearly impossible while they remain on the streets so our long-term goal is to secure housing to allow people to stabilize their lives and then address other challenges.”

If everyone who donated to this GoFundMe last winter would donate even half that amount to Linda’s charity this winter, the charity would receive an enormous financial boost of about $15,000, which would allow it to do so much good for the homeless, not only this winter, but year round. As noted in the last paragraph above, this would help the charity work towards their goal of providing food, clothing, shelter, and counseling to the Lansdale homeless, to provide for their immediate needs, as well as to work towards moving them off the streets.

Will you please consider donating at least half of what you donated last winter (to this GoFundMe) to Linda’s charity?

There is a Donate Button at the charity’s website,

www.lindaandfriendshelpinghands.org

Note: These donations are tax-deductible.

Thank you, and God Bless You.

Sandra Salveter

GoFundMe organizer

Former description, 4/7/24

The goal of this GoFundMe campaign is to provide temporary emergency housing to homeless individuals in and near Lansdale, PA. A secondary goal is to help these people obtain permanent housing for after they leave the temporary housing.

This past winter, from January through March 2024, approximately 450 extremely generous donors to this GoFundMe provided over $30,000 in donations to put 6 homeless people (5 women, 1 man) from Lansdale in hotel rooms, protecting them from the frigid winter temperatures and the snow/wind/rain/mud etc which occurred on many of those winter days. This hotel housing was especially important for the women, since no Code Blue (temperature 32 degrees or below at night) shelter is provided for women in Lansdale. Only men receive such shelter.

The temporary winter hotel program ended on April 1st, 2024. I am now re-orienting this GoFundMe campaign to help two of the six people complete their exit from homelessness to permanent rented rooms. This GoFundMe will continue to exist until that goal has been reached.

 The other four people have either been able to save enough money while they were in their hotel rooms to obtain a permanent apartment when they exited the hotel on April 1st (2 of the people), or have been successfully connected with Montgomery County’s Rapid Rehousing program and are expected to receive permanent housing from the program sometime in May (2 people).

 The two people who need additional help to complete their exit from homelessness are women who are on their way to being able to obtain permanent housing by renting a room on their own, but have not yet saved enough money to do so.

 With my help, one of these women - who I will call Ms. R - was able to obtain a car in early March, while she was in the hotel room. The car has allowed her to start working, and she has been accumulating money from that job in preparation for renting a room in a private home. She will start a second job soon, which will speed up her accumulation of funds. She expects to be able to rent the room around June. She is now living in her car, and I am keeping in contact with her.

 The other woman. the 6th of the people in the hotels this winter - who I will call Ms. A - is a young woman who was kicked out of her parents home in January 2024, and became homeless at that point. She fortunately entered this GoFundMe’s winter hotel program immediately afterwards, so she has never been forced to live outdoors.

 She obtained a part-time job about a week ago, and has been doing well in it so far, although the lack of a car has made getting to and from the job difficult.

Since the hotel effort ended April 1st, I have continued to stay in contact with Ms. A.

On April 1st, an unbelievably generous woman from the community learned of Ms. A’s situation, and paid for her to stay in a very nice hotel until April 30th (! The generosity of some people in this area is hard to believe. This woman who stepped up to pay for an entire month at the hotel for Ms. A is one amazing example. This campaign’s generous donors this past winter are another.)

A few days ago, I was able to help Ms. A enter a unique drive-share program which will give her a new car (!), and allow her to pay it off with part of her earnings doing driving for the ride-share service. She will receive the car on April 16, 2024, and will then begin driving for the service, allowing her to add to her earnings from her part-time job mentioned above.

After April 30th, Ms. A may have to live in her car for a time until she can save enough money to rent a room on her own, which I suspect will be sometime this summer. This woman has a small child who is still living at the home of Ms. A’s parents, and her hope is that long-term she will be able to rent an apartment large enough for both her and her child to live in together full time.

 This GoFundMe campaign will continue until Ms. M and Ms. A described above rent their permanent rooms . Donations from 4/1/24 forward will be used to help the women towards that goal. Examples of the help the donations will provide include short additional hotel stays (on particularly hot summer days for example, or to take a shower and have a good night’s rest every once in a while), cash infusions for urgent situations, Uber rides to Ms. A’s part-time job until she receives her new car on April 16th, additonal food if food stamps are not enough, help with the security deposit necessary to rent a permanent room, help with basic furnishings for the women’s rented rooms after they obtain them, and other miscellaneous uses of the donations to help the women on their way to exiting homelessness.

 Any donations this GoFundMe receives will be very much appreciated by me and these two women. Any amount is helpful. A common donation amount this past winter was $25, but the campaign has received donations ranging from $5 to more than $100 (God bless them), and every single one of these donations will help Ms. A and Ms. M find their permanent housing and exit homelessness.

Thank you!

 Sandra Salveter

Campaign Organizer

4/7/24