- [Announcer] Live from your Public Media studios, WVIA presents "Keystone Edition Reports," a news and public affairs program that goes beyond the headlines to address issues in Northeastern and Central Pennsylvania.

This is "Keystone Edition Reports."

And now, moderator Julie Sidoni.

- Welcome to "Keystone Edition Reports."

I'm Julie Sidoni, the director of journalism at WVIA.

According to the Federal Housing Department, the number of people experiencing homelessness last year in the U.S. hit a record high.

The reason behind the spike in those numbers and what shelters need to keep people off the streets is the focus of this "Keystone Edition Reports."

(air whooshes) On any given day in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, more than 12,000 people will find themselves facing homelessness.

That's a statistic from the state Department of Community & Economic Development.

Officials think that number is widely under-reported, and it's not just happening in cities.

Even the most rural counties of the state deal with homelessness, many right here in our area.

There are resources available, but is it all enough?

We're talking with those on the front lines of helping those experiencing homelessness.

(pensive music) And joining us is WVIA News reporter Sarah Scinto, Maureen Maher-Gray, the executive director of the NEPA Youth Shelter in Scranton, and Lasha Wyman-Klein, the program director at the Scranton Innovation Center, as you can all attest to the number of people seeking help has really gone up, we know that.

Before we discuss the reasons why with this great panel, Sarah stopped by some shelters and spoke with former guests who are now giving back and helping others in need.

(air whooshes) (people chattering) - [Sarah] Every night at Keystone Mission in Wilkes-Barre, Diana Delgado sees firsthand how the number of people in need of shelter keeps rising, but she takes it as a challenge to learn the names of as many guests as she can.

- I have bragging rights.

I know, okay, let's say, I guess, 70 guests, I would say I know all 60 first names at least because I like to interact with each and every one of them.

- [Sarah] Keystone Mission's 365-Overnight Shelter opened in summer 2024, a year when the Federal Housing Department says rates of homelessness hit record levels for nearly every population.

- So, definitely the point-in-time contact has captured the information, and we are definitely seeing the results of the amount of numbers going up, we are experiencing it here every single day.

- [Sarah] The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development found the number of people experiencing homelessness in the U.S. increased by more than 18% in 2024.

In Pennsylvania, they reported a 12% increase, with more than 14,000 people experiencing homelessness during the 2024 point-in-time count.

- I think one of the reasons that we're seeing such an uptick is the economy, cost of living in terms of housing.

There needs to be more affordable housing.

And when you have individuals at this level, even if they do get a job, the job that they have is not enough to sustain really what the monthly rent for a lot of the landlords are asking for.

- [Sarah] In Scranton, the NEPA Youth Shelter runs up against housing costs frequently.

The shelter has one apartment building in the city with three units.

They're able to keep rent on those units affordable, but assistant executive director Janell Johnson wants to do more.

- Well, with the housing program, we make sure that the rent that we charge is affordable, especially for the teens in our program.

And I guess it's sort of about, like, spreading the information that, hey, these people can't afford this rent.

What are you gonna do?

I mean, I don't know.

Sometimes it feels like, what can we do?

- [Sarah] When Luis Torres needed a place to live, he says the NEPA Youth Shelter helped him quite a bit.

He'd been coming to the shelter's teen center and afterschool program, and when he was 17, nearly became homeless.

- I was actually one of the first kids to be in that program, and it really did help me get on my feet, because at that time, I had nobody to help me.

I had just moved to Scranton with my aunt, and she just kicked me out.

So I was just, you know, I was couch surfing from friend's house to friend's house, and Ms. Maureen helped me out.

- [Sarah] Delgado was also once a guest at Keystone Mission.

She credits the organization with changing her life.

- Unless you're there, you wouldn't understand.

But they provided support in every sense when other programs did not help me.

- [Sarah] As housing costs and other prices continue to rise, Keith-Alexandre says organizations like Keystone Mission need the community's support.

- Organizations like ours really need public help and support to know that these individuals who are unsheltered or are homeless, they are actually, they are members of the community as well.

(air whooshes) - I really love that first soundbite.

Diana Delgado says she knows 60 of the 70 names.

That was almost a little emotional for the two of you watching that story, can you speak to why?

- I think that we have this narrative that homeless individuals or unhoused individuals are different than us, but if you look on your payrolls, you look in your classrooms, you look the person sitting next to you, the face of homelessness is every single person you've ever met.

It reaches out and touches everyone.

And I think making that connection, making people feel like they are not defined by their housing status, using their first name, calling them a guest, that makes a big difference because we have to be dignity-forward when we address homelessness, because no longer is homelessness a person's deficit, they've done something to get themselves into this, this is a societal, structural, systemic issue, and it's important.

- I would like to go to Sarah first.

You came to us and said, "You know what, this is a topic we really want to dive into."

I know you've been doing a lot of reporting in this area.

What have you found?

- So, one of the things that I've found is that as this need has been rising, one of the good things that's been happening in the area is places like Keystone Mission have been able to open permanent programs.

When I first started reporting on this issue and I spoke with Keystone Mission, this was a temporary space that would only open on code blue nights when it was- - Very cold.

- Yes, when it was dangerously cold and we wanted to bring people inside from the cold.

Now there is this permanent space.

People who are experiencing homelessness can use Keystone Mission as an address.

- Yep.

- And those little things that I see these organizations doing are adding that dignity that you spoke about and making these people feel less invisible and less out of society.

- Mm-hmm, yeah.

- Absolutely.

And I think that, like you mentioned, it used to be just a place where you can come and have this reprieve from the cold weather, but what we recognize is there's such a higher need of services, especially with vital records and getting IDs and things like that for individuals, that we had to expand, and we're thankful that we were able to.

- Maureen, I know that you handle teens at your center.

Can you talk about some of the challenges there?

- Well, it's been a very interesting education for me over the last few years about homeless teens.

You think that they're out there, but you aren't really sure.

And then when somebody comes to you and says, like in Luis' case particularly, he turned 18, and the check that his aunt was receiving for supporting him stopped, and no money, no housing.

And that's been the case for many of our teens, is they age out of state benefits, WIC, EBT, but that mouth still needs to be fed.

- That's a very vulnerable time too, 18.

I can imagine that that's a vulnerable time.

- Because they're not mature yet, they don't have life experiences, they don't have very good decision-making abilities.

And what I have found is that when they're kicked out, they're so ashamed.

And they also feel very incompetent because they don't know how to take care of themselves.

They don't know how to find an apartment.

They don't know that you need 2 to $3,000 to get an apartment right now, cash, right?

Because you have to have first and last month's rent, damage deposit.

- Security.

- Yeah, and also the utility companies require deposits when you're a first-time customer ever.

They don't have credit scores, they don't have credit cards.

They don't have their, very often, their personal documents, their social security card or their birth certificate.

And so we try to help them find those things and then show them the order that they can obtain those documents, get services, and teach them how to budget.

And if they're working, if they're still in high school, we request that they work part-time.

But part-time work is not gonna pay the rent in the open market, forget it.

But if they are done with school and they work full-time, we work with them to learn how to budget to save for their own apartment when they're finished with our program.

- You were talking about the pit count, and I think that's a lot of where Sarah's statistics came from.

Could you explain what that is and why you would go through that?

- Yeah, so, the point-in-time count is the federal survey that is used nationally, it is one time a year, it's one night in January.

The Department of Human Services and HUD administers the test.

They create it, or excuse me, they create the survey, and they give it to shelters.

I believe shelters, schools sometimes.

And it just asks the individuals who are participating where they slept the night before.

So, on January 30th, it'll ask, where did you sleep on January 29th?

It'll give a list of options.

And they use that to kind of get an idea of how many homeless individuals are within the area.

Homeless individuals or unhoused individuals are hesitant to participate in any kind of survey or information-gathering devices because of fear of the system, a lack of trust in the system, a lack of trust in individuals.

So that's very hard.

It's a great thing because at least we have some numbers, but homeless tracking, tracking unhoused individuals, it's very under-reported due to the lack of trust in the system.

- So there's one reason why we think it's very under-reported.

What are some other reasons, Maureen, that someone might not know?

- Well, I think the definition of homelessness is different for the federal government than what we consider homeless.

The federal government says that homelessness is someone staying overnight in a situation that is not fit for human needs.

So, maybe there's no restroom or there's no furniture, there's no heat or air conditioning, versus we would say homelessness is couch surfing, sleeping in a vehicle, bouncing from relative to relative, if you've got them, sleeping in dumpsters, (chuckles) anywhere, that's warm.

A few years ago, kids told me that they were sleeping in the garage at Steamtown Mall.

- They find the nooks and crannies, and they set up a little sleeping place, and they hope they aren't found.

But that's not fit for human existence, so.

- There also is, I think too, and I know Maureen can attest, like, the lack of wanting to disclose.

So especially for families that are doubled up or living in their cars, are more reluctant to disclose their housing status for fear of losing their children, fear of losing their benefits if they're receiving benefits.

- Section 8.

- So, yeah, we have to do better as a society to decriminalize these things and not have this fear to report so that we can provide the services that are needed.

- It's interesting that you bring up families, because the point-in-time count did find that across the nation, people and families with children had the largest reported increase.

So that could be changing a little bit, but, as we say, that is under-reporting still.

- Yeah, so what we have seen, what I have seen is that we're seeing an increase in the individuals we see, not just as adults, but dual-income households, families.

Typically, we would see an increase in adults that are experiencing homelessness.

But as of the point-in-time from last year, we have seen an increase, not just on the paper, but also calls, individuals coming in needing food assistance for their families.

And they're living doubled up, they're living in their cars, and they're not reporting that because they're afraid that they're gonna lose their children.

- And the school district reports over 350 families, again, self-reported, are homeless, so, using the HUD definition.

- Using that.

Well, I guess, I wonder why, you know, the definitions vary very widely.

Are they different even in the state or among different districts?

Would that help be helpful for you to have?

- Well, the public school system has to use the federal definition.

- Sure, right.

- But nonprofits have more latitude (chuckles) to accept what a homeless person is living with.

- Yeah, displacement, transitional.

We kinda have the leeway to kind of come as you are.

We'll help you in every way that we can.

- We are gonna continue this discussion on homelessness right after this short break.

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So what are some of the biggest barriers you're seeing people wanting housing, I know we talked about very, you know, high rent prices or a lack of affordable housing, what other barriers are you seeing?

I'll let either one of you take that.

- I think the social stigma.

We have this perception that homeless people are a certain drain on society, they're all drug addicts or alcoholics, they don't want recovery, they don't want to be part of society.

And as a consequence, we ignore them.

We walk right past them.

Or we think if we give them $5, they're just gonna go buy drugs or something.

And that's the biggest, to me, one of the biggest social stigmas.

Very often when people say unkind things about homeless people to me, I really would like to say to them, "Give me your wallet and give me your car keys.

Now go home."

- Yeah.

- Mm.

- And see how you get there.

See, you know, how tough it is to find a bus after 6:00 PM.

- Yes.

- You don't have any cash, you don't have your phone.

"Gimme your phone," right?

Who are you gonna call?

How are you gonna call?

And I think if people had to experience that, people who have resources had to experience that, they would hopefully- - That's interesting point.

- Become more aware of how tough it is to be without a support system.

- You were gonna, I heard you all over that one.

- Yeah.

It's dual, right?

It's the social aspect, right?

It's our society views individuals who are homeless as they have done something to get themselves there, and that's just not the case.

Maureen mentioned drug addiction.

There are more people housed that are addicted to substances than are unhoused.

That's just, that's known.

And there is, there's so much that...

The only thing that's gonna solve homelessness is more affordable housing, and we just don't have that.

We have a lack of incentive for landlords to participate in subsidized programmings, like Section 8.

We have a lack of incentives for developers to develop low-income housing or to apply for grants that will help them with supplies that don't cost a lot so they can develop in neighborhoods.

We criminalize individuals who need help, asking for help is shameful.

I think we need to focus on keeping people housed, because once someone is unhoused, studies show that once someone is unhoused, if you can't get them sheltered within three days, it now becomes a three-year issue.

And Maureen- - Say that one more time.

- If you, once someone becomes unsheltered, you have a three-day window to get them sheltered before it can become a three-year process.

- Wow!

- 10 years ago, homelessness was expected to be eradicated in 88 years.

I would assume at now that those numbers are higher, that it would be an infinite number of years that we can expect to eradicate homelessness if we don't do something now.

Maureen mentioned the bus passes infrastructure, a lack of infrastructure, lack of public transit.

A car-centric city is not gonna do well for individuals who need to get to work.

Centralizing all your industrial warehouses and employability in one location but not making that location accessible by bus or public transit is a problem, is a problem we see in this area very much.

- A lot of services for people in need are downtown, but we've lost a lot of downtown housing to higher-end development.

- Agree, yeah.

- And I don't, you know, judge them that people want to make money, and that's fine, but there's been no accommodation for those people who've lost their housing.

There's no place else to go.

You can't push them out to the suburbs because that kind of housing doesn't exist in the suburbs.

So that's why they sleep along the river or behind the grocery store, in some abandoned cars.

And that's, we have no means of compensating for that change in development.

- Those are wonderful ideas, all, but very big, expensive initiatives.

What would you love to see as a first step?

Where do you go from here?

- I think that we have to get away from top-down economics.

Charles Marohn wrote a really great book, "Strong Towns."

It talks about a bottom-up.

And it's incremental changes over time, it's getting your community involved.

Would we love to see beautiful new buildings in our area?

Of course, but with that comes, then you have to now focus on your water waste and how your water is being in your community, and then that's a cost for the city and the taxpayers.

So, massive and mega development is wonderful, but I think we're missing the mark in helping the underserved and the real community and the real heart of our community.

And you're only as good as the worst of your community.

So if your community is suffering, then your city is suffering, and you have to pay attention to that.

And I think that, I think it's possible.

I think small changes over time is possible.

I don't think it's this expansive, build a brand new shelter, spend millions of dollars, I think it's invest in your landlords, invest in affordable housing, incentivize those landlords to participate in subsidy programs, incentivize these landlords to assist, or more federal funding for utility assistance, keeping people in their homes.

We could talk about, you know, families that have to choose between their utilities and then their parenting, right?

Like, a parent can't focus on parenting if they have to choose between keeping their lights on and they have to work two jobs.

Now the parenting suffers, now the school numbers suffer, now the academics suffer.

And then any child, Maureen knows this as well, you know, children that are at risk of housing insecurity or facing housing insecurity or facing homelessness then grow up to also be at higher risk for homelessness and housing insecurity.

So it's this generational trauma and cycle.

And we haven't even talked about trauma and how that keeps people in the cycle of homelessness.

I'll be here all day.

(laughs) - I was just gonna say, 26 minutes is pretty tough to get into a topic as big as this, and of course there's no way we could, but we're trying to at least spawn some conversation elsewhere.

So I guess to you, Maureen, I would say, oh, you were gonna say something, you go ahead.

- Well, I was gonna say, because of the rising rents specifically with COVID, a lot of landlords came in from out of town, caught up a bunch of houses, and raised the rents.

We ended up buying our own apartment building because we were priced out of the market for our kids.

And now having our own building has been pretty good for us.

It's not a moneymaker, right?

We're not in it for the money, we're nonprofit.

And if I had the money from the government or the city or somebody, I would buy another building, absolutely.

And I would encourage public private partnerships where a developer has a property and maybe it's going slow or it's not what they want, you know, sell it to us for next to nothing (chuckles) and let us take it and run with the ball and make low-income housing.

- Get some creative ideas out there.

- Exactly, you don't have to build something brand new.

We can take the existing structures in the city and make them into reasonable housing.

We don't need marble countertops.

- No.

- We don't need pot fillers.

We don't need, (chuckles) you know, we don't need a balcony- - As someone who's seen that apartment.

- We don't need, yeah, exactly, yeah.

- It's incredible.

- Yeah, you're right, we don't need balconies, we need- - No.

- Plumbing, electricity, and enough bedrooms for the family to live like human beings and respect their dignity as human beings.

- And not have to worry about if they're going to eat or if they're going to have a place to stay.

Just be a parent, be there for their children, focus on academics, focus on, you know, instilling values into their child.

I think we do a real disservice when we look at parents and we- - Criticize.

- We criticize them for working but then also criticize them for being homeless.

(chuckles) So, I think we do a disjustice to the individuals that are in this area.

Most individuals in the United States are one emergency away from housing insecurity.

It is everybody, and I just want that to be very clear, that housing and security touches everyone.

- Yeah.

- Sarah, any parting thoughts here?

- Well, one of the things that I think is so interesting about the work that you all do is that there are so many ways in which we could help, things to tackle, so everything that you are doing, you're doing so much.

And I know you all feel like it's maybe just a drop in the bucket, but, you know, that seems to be the way that you work, right?

- Yeah.

- Person to person.

- Yeah, that's the only way we'll ever solve this, is it's not, well, this is amazing, right?

And it's gonna reach many people.

What's going to change the homelessness and the conversation is you going home and having a conversation with your husband, you going home and having a conversation with your husband, and they have a conversation with someone that says, this isn't just about someone who's drug-addicted, drunk, or junkie, this is your coworker, this is your neighbor, this is your sister's friend.

They're human beings, and they deserve to have safe places.

Housing should be a human right.

Housing is a human right, and the face of homelessness is us.

- Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

- Well, Sarah, Maureen, Lasha, I appreciate your time and your wisdom.

Thank you for sharing all of that with us.

We've covered an awful lot on the show.

Maybe you have some questions or thoughts about something we didn't cover.

If that's the case, we'd love to hear from you.

Head over to our page, submit your questions, and we might just answer it on our new YouTube show.

It's called "The Loop" on Friday afternoon.

By the way, this and every episode of "Keystone Edition" is available on demand, on our YouTube channel, and now is a special podcast so you will never miss an episode.

That's wvia.org/keystoneeditionreports to stream episodes or subscribe to the podcast.

Thanks so much for joining us, and for all of us here at WVIA, we will see you next time.

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