Click HERE for Your Way Home 2017-2018 Community Impact Report

HOUSING RESOURCE CENTER

In January 2014, the Pottstown Cluster of Religious Communities began a partnership with Your Way Home Montgomery County (YWH) including the Pottstown Housing Resource Center (HRC) as a program offered at PCRC. YWH is a county-wide system to prevent and end homelessness. Since its inception, homelessness has been reduced by 47%. YWH’s Rapid Re-housing (RRH) program is housing-focused case management and financial assistance to homeless households, to quickly find and move in to permanent housing, and then to obtain the supports needed to maintain that housing long-term, as described by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).

Guiding Principles of Rapid Re-housing (RRH):

• Inclusivity and Flexibility — Intervention designed for and flexible enough to serve anyone not able to exit homelessness on their own.
• Progressive Engagement — Efforts to maximize the number of households to be serve by providing households with the financial assistance in a progressive manner, providing only the assistance necessary to stabilize in permanent housing.
• Finding and Maintaining Permanent Housing — Within the limits of the participant’s income, RRH helps households access units that are desirable and sustainable — those that are in neighborhoods where they want to live, that have access to transportation, are close to employment, and are safe.
• Landlord Engagement and Retention — Housing identification efforts are designed and implemented to actively recruit and retain landlords and housing managers willing to rent to program participants who may otherwise fail to pass typical tenant screening criteria.

Homelessness and housing instability are best solved when philanthropy, government, health and human service providers, law enforcement, housing developers, landlords, consumer advocates, and community partners strive to address this complex social problem together. With collaboration, we are able to get people into permanent housing and coordinate the resources they need to stay there.

1,624 unduplicated people were served by the YWH system in 2017, which includes eviction prevention, street outreach, emergency shelters, rapid re-housing, and permanent supportive housing. PCRC provides programming for each of these, including the Eviction Prevention and Intervention Coalition (EPIC) pilot project designed to stabilize vulnerable families and individuals in Montgomery County who are facing eviction by providing them with free legal and social services support on the day of their eviction hearing.

Homelessness

The YWH Call Center, accessed by dialing 610-278-3522, is the central door where homeless families and individuals can seek assistance from YWH. Callers are screened through the Call Center and then, pending eligibility, referred to one of three HRC’s in the county, Pottstown being one. PCRC has staff members providing RRH services.

For more information, call the Pottstown Cluster at 610.970-5995.