Hello and welcome to living in the Lehigh Valley, where our focus is your health and wellness.

I'm your host, Brittany Sweeney.

Where do you turn when you don't have a home?

Many of our neighbors face this exact situation.

According to the Department of Housing and Urban Development, more than 14,000 Pennsylvanians experienced homelessness last year and more than 4500 were in families with children.

Multiple organizations and agencies in the States.

And right here in the Lehigh Valley try to help those who are unhoused.

Our own Grover Silcox paid a visit to one in Easton.

He joins us now.

Grover, great to see you.

Good to be here, Brett.

So tell us about this organization that helps people that are experiencing homelessness.

Yeah, I visited the 3rd Street Alliance in Easton.

It's a nonprofit that provides temporary shelter for women and children who are experiencing homelessness.

Shawn, which what makes this shelter unique is that it's historical, right?

It's actually in a mansion that was built by silk mill millionaire Herman Simon and his wife, Elizabeth, way back in the early 20th century.

And so, since then, it's been converted into a shelter for women and children.

Exactly.

Okay.

And so a multimillionaire mansion that now serves people who need a roof over their head.

Kind of ironic.

Here it.

Is.

And Simon, you know, built the mansion for his wife, Elizabeth and his daughter Grace, saying that it was for the women in his life.

And he's continuing to serve women even today.

That's right.

Herman Simmons wife, Elizabeth, outlived her husband and later sold the mansion to the YWCA.

Years later, it became the 3rd Street Alliance, an organization that offers temporary shelter and support for individuals, women and women with children.

So you might say the building has always served women one way or another.

Today, the Third Street Alliance not only offers women and children a temporary place to stay, but also the resources and support to find permanent housing.

That's the goal.

Desperation looks like a young mom with children who doesn't know where to go.

A mom who's fleeing domestic violence and living in a car because she has no clue about what to do.

Good afternoon.

Love how women and their children come to this historic mansion in Easton when they face homelessness.

As we come up, it's cortisone oak or hand-carved.

This ornate building, once the home of silk mill millionaire Herman Simon.

Now serves as home to the 3rd Street Alliance, a nonprofit with shelter, space, educational services for children, and resources to help women and families transition to permanent housing.

Our shelter is indeed an emergency shelter that provides 30 to 90 days of shelter services for women and children.

Sometimes people stay a little bit longer because the housing market right now is so difficult.

It's a challenge to find housing, but our goal is to get people into permanent, stable housing as soon as possible.

So this is a basic shelter configuration space for a mom and an older child, a bunk bed set up and then the dressers.

And we have a closet over here so that, you know, they can keep their clothes.

The 3rd Street Alliance provide shelter services for 25 women and their children at any given time, and from 125 to 130 families throughout the year.

So we're going to come in to look at a quick set up for a mom and a young child so we can have a mom with four children in a very large room.

We could have space for a single woman by herself, and we can have space for a mom with a toddler and a teen.

So we move the configuration around to meet the needs of the families.

They are sharing bathrooms and they're sharing kitchen facilities.

About 25% of the people we see are fleeing domestic violence, meaning actively fleeing.

One of the other reasons people come here is a significant financial challenge.

They've been evicted from housing because they can't pay the rent or someone's lost a job.

They have medical issues and aren't able to work.

And so we begin to see that there are multiple factors that are all creating large amounts of stress.

Other factors include the high cost of childcare, the need for education, job training and employment, search guidance.

We really want to look at how do we get women into living wage jobs and help them move their families out of poverty?

Finding living wage jobs without a lot of, skills are challenging.

So we're working with, you know, career link.

We work with the community college, we work with some CNA training programs to get people trained up and ready for that.

We have, rental housing program, where we work with landlords to assist people who are experiencing homelessness rapidly move into housing.

We also have some eviction prevention work, and we try and divert people out of homelessness with a small set of resources that we have as well.

3rd Street also provides a learning center for children in the eastern community, which includes the kids who are staying in the shelter.

We have a child care center, early learning for children ages six weeks to elementary school.

We have 80 kids in our pre-K counts program.

We have free infant and child care programs for people who are income qualified.

And then we have an after school program for 30 something children from the Eastern School District.

And let me tell you something.

I had breakfast with a former shelter resident who was here about nine years ago, and she told me her story.

And from shelter to beginning to work to finding a new relationship and getting married and buying a house, about to buy a house in nine years.

So even though desperation looks really, really difficult, there is light at the end of the tunnel.

If we get people enough resources to help them.

And that's really the goal.

So I never think about desperation.

I only think about possibility.

Otherwise I wouldn't be here for ten years.

Alisa also emphasized to me that there are many ways to help decrease homelessness.

You might not want to go out and volunteer to work with people who are homeless, but through your church or civic organization, you can give hours, give back in other ways.

You can make a financial contribution to help.

You could also look at what's happening in your community.

How is the price of rental units impacting the homeless?

Challenge in the Lehigh Valley?

Because there's not enough new housing development.

And so we might work with elected officials to be part of the solution rather than putting up barriers and walls.

Grover, sometimes it can seem like such an overwhelming issue, just something large to tackle.

But there are small ways, as Alicia alluded to, that people can help.

Right?

You know what gives her hope?

As she told me, is watching women, certainly from the perspective of the 3rd Street Alliance, go from desperation and homelessness to transition into permanent housing.

She's seen it many times.

She.

Sure.

And the changes in administration kind of have affected the funding to these types of places out there right now.

Right?

Right.

They're very concerned right now that the pause in funding is impeding their ability to help these women transition into permanent housing.

Sure.

Well, in coming days, we'll have to see how that all plays out.

Grover Silcox, some great information as always.

Thank you.

And that'll do it for this edition of living in the Lehigh Valley.

I'm Brittany Sweeney, hoping you stay happy and healthy.