COLMAR — HealthSpark Foundation CEO and President Emma Hertz knows housing and homelessness issues are top of mind for many in the Montgomery County communities where the foundation she heads has widespread influence. Hertz recently took time to discuss those issues and her hope for solutions.
“I think right now we do have this moment because the issues around homelessness and housing are so pervasive across so many different communities that there’s a lot more people from different spaces calling for action and investment, whereas five years ago, 10 years ago, you actually had to make a case that homelessness was an issue,” Hertz said in an interview with MediaNews Group.
“People didn’t believe it, they didn’t see it, they thought that it was only present in very specific neighborhoods and very specific communities,” she continued. “Now it’s a lot more clear that it’s a lot more widespread.”
The HealthSpark Foundation, headquartered in Colmar, hosted a conference in Bryn Mawr last month with 250 people who came out to discuss affordable housing and homelessness in Montgomery County. Advocates, developers, elected leaders, first responders, government officials, and nonprofit executives were among those in attendance.
Officials have long attributed the area’s uptick in homelessness to a number of factors including the COVID-19 pandemic, damage to buildings from Hurricane Ida in 2021, increasing cost of living, and lack of affordable housing stock.
According to county housing officials, 20% of Montgomery County homeowners are considered “cost burdened,” while 47% of renters pay more than 30% of their income to rent.
Around 74,000 households “live above the poverty line but below what it actually costs to live in Montgomery County,” Hertz said during the Feb. 12 conference, noting those making between $45,000 and $75,000 are considered the “largest growing cohort of housing unstable families.”
Additionally, evictions are also on the rise, with 22 evictions per day reported in Montgomery County — the third highest eviction rate in Pennsylvania.
“So really the issue around homelessness is we don’t have enough housing that is affordable to all the people that live in our community,” she said. “You can’t solve the homelessness crisis without addressing the affordable housing crisis first.”
Obstacles to building stock
Hertz cited several challenges associated with building up the area’s affordable housing stock, including the building costs, financing and zoning, as well as public perception.
Case in point was vocal resistance from Upper Gwynedd Township residents opposed to the affordable housing Pennbrook Parkway proposal.
“I think that folks have a misunderstanding of the variety of housing that we’re talking about and the variety of households that we’re talking about when we talk about the need for more affordable housing,” Hertz said, adding “there’s both a stigma around what housing looks like that is affordable, that is permanently affordable, as well as the people who are living in that.”
The area’s homelessness crisis is another issue. The closure of CHOC, the Coordinated Homeless Outreach Center previously located on the grounds of the Norristown State Hospital, exacerbated the problem.
The facility, overseen by the Philadelphia-based Resources for Human Development, was a resource center and 50-bed homeless shelter for single adults and closed in 2022 after the land was conveyed from the state to the Municipality of Norristown for development.
A proposal for a new short-term housing space with supportive services was introduced last month in Lower Providence Township, but as of now, no new facility has been built.
“I think … that we struggle to both create a comprehensive strategy that works … [that is] high level and makes sense, but also that has to be tailored locally,” Hertz said. “And allows local players to say ‘this is what works here and here’s what we want to see for our community’ and I think we’ve struggled to implement that.”
Homeless numbers growing
Hundreds of people are experiencing homelessness throughout Montgomery County. While 2024 figures have not yet been made available, results from last year’s Point-in-Time Count, a federally mandated initiative that gives a snapshot of homelessness, netted 357 people experiencing homelessness on one night in January 2023.
County housing officials estimated the numbers are likely much higher, with nearly 3,000 people reported outdoors or staying in a shelter throughout the 2023 calendar year.
“I think on the homelessness side, we’re seeing that really the challenge at this point is that the homeless crisis response system itself has been underfunded for a really long time and now because of a combination of factors it’s just completely overwhelmed,” Hertz said. “It has no capacity to deal with who’s coming in … ideally a crisis response system works as a flow.
“I think it’s worse than we have seen before. I think that in part because 2023 was a challenging year for a lot of reasons. We saw lawsuits happening. We saw a lot of police involvement,” Hertz said, noting an “uptick” of “efforts to criminalize the experience of homelessness in a way that we have not seen before.”
Community dilemma
Hertz was referring to several instances, including encampments on PECO-owned property in Norristown and borough-owned property in Pottstown. She spoke of other issues that have arisen around people seen in parks during overnight hours, prompting local governments to issue more stringent guidelines for usage hours.
“… So not just in a sense of the numbers of people experiencing homelessness has grown, the number of people experiencing housing instability has grown, but also the reactions to that from a criminalization standpoint have also grown,” she said.
“And so from both of those standpoints we’re seeing that it’s really critical to take action in a way that is preserving the dignity of people, and also finding solutions that work for communities so that communities, municipalities, residents aren’t experiencing the issues that they’re experiencing as it relates to homelessness, and people experiencing homelessness are also having solutions.”
HealthSpark, formerly the North Penn Community Health Foundation, is just one of several players in this arena, with two dozen homeless services nonprofits, along with affordable housing developers, municipal representatives, and elected officials also involved.
“One thing I think Montgomery County does really well is the partnership piece,” she said. “We have a lot of success with different organizations in different sectors coming together around specific problems and being able to pilot new solutions.”
A need to invest in solutions
Montgomery County officials launched a 46-member task force last year in an effort to tackle homelessness in the state’s second wealthiest county. The six-month initiative netted participation from Lansdale, as well as Lower Merion, Upper Moreland, and West Norriton townships, brainstorming ideas for temporary and permanent shelter solutions.
Laying a new foundation, Hertz said she hoped for “more transformative policies. I think we need to see vocal support for this, and I think that folks need to hear people in positions of power saying how important this is.”
Finding those concrete, long-term solutions will require drive, political influence and funding, she noted.
“At every level we need more investments,” Hertz said. “We need the commissioners to invest money. We need municipal leaders to invest money. At the state level, we also need more investment. It’s philanthropy as well. There’s a lot of opportunities to put more funding into solutions that we know could work.”
While it’s unclear how much money would be required to make a tangible difference, Hertz estimated “a big price tag” in order to build up new affordable housing stock.
“The current homeless service budget is around $10 million … That’s not even a quarter of what’s needed probably,” she said.
HealthSpark Foundation dedicates resources to initiatives for a variety of safety net services, but affordable housing and food security are key pieces, Hertz said.
Hertz said she has noticed a shift in the county where the new administration has a vested interest. Newly elected Montgomery County Commissioners, Republican Tom DiBello and Democrats Neil Makhija and Jamila Winder, had these issues as part of their campaign platforms. They’ve each agreed, expressing their commitment since being sworn in.
“That is unheard of,” Hertz said. “I think that together those things indicate that we have an opportunity to use the community interest and awareness to put more investment into the issue that we have not had the political support to do in years prior.”
Hertz said there is an opportunity now to tackle these complex crises.
“I think that if our county commissioners can really take the lead this year and set forward with a new vision that brings everybody to the table, and they’re able to put adequate investment into this issue, I think that we could see change happen a lot faster,” Hertz said.
“I still think that we are decades away from making the substantial changes that are needed to reach a goal like functional zero,” a term referring to preventative measures that account for infrastructure and systems that support timely rehousing efforts.
However, she maintained that “we could make significant progress on reducing homelessness, especially unsheltered homelessness if we see real strong leadership over the next year or so.”
“I feel very excited and optimistic about the year ahead,” Hertz said. “I think that we have a groundswell of support for people who want to see change on this, and recognize how important it is, and so we think that we can accomplish a lot this year if we can all come together and really invest and make changes where we know they need to happen.”
Hertz said using “different investment opportunities” and the organization’s “convening power” are crucial tools for progress. She also stressed the importance of advocacy and hinted at taking trips to Harrisburg with a Montgomery County consortium of nonprofits and other groups.
“We see that policy change is really critical to moving the needle on this, and that happens at the state level,” she said.
