Aidan 7Mos. Old, Danon 6Yrs. Old, Gianna 20Mos. Old, Prenita and Joe.
In spite of the efforts of some good people our local family homeless shelter, “The Gatehouse,” in Danville, Pennsylvania will close its doors as of June 30Th. putting all it’s residences including this family for all intents back on the streets. This family has just enough money for the next two weeks to stay in a motel and then they don’t know what they will do?
Let me try to explain the perfect storm of bad circumstances that has led to this disaster. The shelter, which housed over 300 people last year, depended on a number of funding sources. One of those sources was an endowment of money derived from stocks, which if you hadn’t noticed has tanked. Next was a Federal Grant which the shelter has been receiving every two years and at this point is for some unexplained reason is months late with no word on when or if it will come or not. The shelter receives some money from donations and local sources, but not nearly enough to keep it alive. So that has forced the end of shelter for the families and individuals. Some of the folks have been moved to shelters out of the region and others, well who knows? This leaves the region in a bad spot with one newly homeless family turned away just yesterday. After trying for months to find a solution and failing it is just another wound on a failing system with no end in sight. I don’t just mean locally I mean Nationally. I wish I could report good news here for a change.