A recent press release from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) lauded massive gains Chester County has made in the battle against homelessness. And while the region deserves credit for lowering the number of people living on the street and in shelters – according to Chester County officials who count and serve those people – little else about the federal agency’s recent comments are true.
Firstly, Chester County has a remarkable network of interconnected agencies working – not only preventing homelessness – but rapidly rehousing people once they lose their home. Bridge of Hope Chief Engagement Officer, Nicole Jones, explained, “I would have to say that any type of Housing First models definitely contributes to [lowering the incidence of homelessness]. Our calls have gone down, but it’s still more than we can handle.” As for the hidden homeless which she knows is rampant? “We’ve seen a 39 percent increase in family homelessness and families are really hard to count.”
Still, when you look at the county’s Point in Time (PIT) numbers – those are the numbers HUD would have used to make their wildly false claims – Chester County’s homelessness numbers have fallen since 2019 – just not to the degree HUD claims they have.
In 2019 – the year before the pandemic’s national shutdown triggered anti-poverty and rental security measures – Chester county’s official tally of homelessness outpaced neighboring counties. Across the nation, the COVID-era measures lowered homelessness helping nearly every region in the country to lower their count.
Then, as recently reported by the Bucks County Beacon – the sunset clauses built into those programs caused a national whipsaw effect, ballooning the number of people experiencing homelessness in 2024, by 19 percent nationwide.
A close look at Chester’s numbers shows that in 2019, PIT count volunteers identified 517 individuals experiencing homelessness. Over the subsequent years, in order to reduce the risk of pandemic exposure, the county skipped the count entirely in 2021. When the count resumed in 2022, the numbers had fallen to 402. Then, in 2023 the numbers ticked back up to 436.
This ebb and flow happened everywhere. But what catapulted Chester County to the front page of HUD’s laudatory press release was their 2024 count. This past year’s PIT count identified only 213 persons experiencing homelessness – a drop of 52 percent from 2023, or as HUD prefers to compare it – 59 percent lower than Chester County’s all-time high in 2019.
Scratching below the surface of the numbers were a number of caveats listed last summer on the county’s website which explained the anomaly. These contributing factors include milder weather resulting in fewer identifiably unhoused from the Code Blue cold weather shelter count.
And, as far as hard numbers go, Delores Colligan Director of Chester County Department of Community Development (CCCD) explained, “Two per diem transitional programs closed March 31, 2023. Because the VA (Veterans Affairs) did not renew contracts many were relocated to other VA [funded] establishments. Some out of state, and to Philly.”
When subtracting the 141 homelessness beds that another federal agency relocated out of the county, HUD’s 2024 to 2023 gap closes considerably. Had those beds been moved a year earlier, 2023’s PIT count would have been 295 instead of 436. Obviously, all the homelessness numbers – without the additional veteran program numbers – for all the years going back to 2019 and before, would have been considerably lower – as 2024 is now.
Still, 2024’s street homelessness census did fall – not by 52 percent, but by a still remarkable 27.8 percent – which leads to the other misrepresentation in the HUD press release. HUD claimed that among other proactive measures painstakingly executed by agencies and local government officials – Chester County lowered the number of street homeless with “prevention efforts specifically for migrant workers.”
An email response from HUD’s Press Office to Bucks County Beacon’s request for an explanation implies that blaming migrants for Chester County’s large numbers came from County Officials themselves. “When communities submit data to HUD, they also provide notes regarding any significant changes or developments that affected their data. HUD analyzed those responses, and in some cases followed up with the communities for clarification.”
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The CCCD’s Colligan explained that extrapolating information about migrant workers simply isn’t possible. Chester County does not list migration status on the PIT count, nor did any of the area agencies interviewed by Bucks County Beacon.
Chester County demographics don’t support the implication that migrant workers are to blame for increased homelessness numbers. The wealthiest county in the commonwealth has fewer foreign-born workers – per capita – than does Pennsylvania in particular or the nation in general.
Colligan says the county has never kept track of migrant status and to her knowledge it’s never been a problem. The 2024 PIT count supports that contention. In Chester County’s primary agricultural community, Kennett Square – a town of 6,000 that produces 60 percent of the nation’s mushrooms – volunteers identified only two unhoused individuals.
Meanwhile, agencies across the county want to reassure individuals and families experiencing homelessness that they should come forward for assistance regardless of immigration status. Kecia Crowl of Kennett Area Community Service – located in Pennsylvania’s “Mushroom Capital” – emphatically stated that they do not ask for citizenship and don’t track migrant status.
Colligan says the county’s success is more a result of their renewed commitment to increase availability of affordable housing, as well as the Emergency Rental Assistance Program (ERAP). Funding for ERAP is slated to run out this year unless congress renews the legislation that provided it. Over the past few years – in Chester County alone – ERAP money has helped 4,500 households with an average of $9,500 each.
The rhetoric Colligan would like to hear from the federal, state and local government is about affordable housing. “We need to debunk NIMBYism.” NIMBY is an acronym for “not in my back yard.” Colligan continued, “We need a new way to refer to affordable housing. Housing our grandparents. Housing our kids. And we need funding for developers,” who will build that housing.
Meanwhile, other agencies in the Chester County continuum of care fill as many of those funding gaps as they can. Bridge of Hope – a faith-based agency that receives no government funding – employs a housing first model not unlike ERAP to assist their clients. With twenty locations around the country – including a Bucks/Montgomery county site located in Sounderton – Bridge of Hope is able to help families experiencing homelessness that fall outside the regular HUD guidelines.
One of those families is headed by Shadell Quinones. A single mom who has a bachelor’s in social work but no family support system, Quinones and her daughter became homeless when cutbacks at work cost her her job. “I thought homelessness didn’t visit people like me. I learned very quickly that homelessness does not discriminate.”
Desperate and alone, Quinones and her daughter went to a women’s shelter. When the shelter administration learned of her skills, they employed her by day while the two stayed there at night. Eventually, Quinones became connected to the Bridge of Hope program which partners people experiencing homelessness with a network of mentors.
“We call them neighboring volunteers. Eleven women that treated me with dignity. I didn’t want pity. I didn’t want sorrow.”
Quinones says she got neither, but she did get help. “They valued me, valued my daughter. They allowed me to be autonomous and make my own decisions.” And through it all, they stayed in touch and by her side, driving her to work when she didn’t have a car and teaching her to budget. “‘We will walk with you’ went the theory of the program. They were my village.”
Quinones and her daughter found an apartment, and though employed she couldn’t afford a security deposit. Bridge of Hope paid that security deposit and – for the first few months – 100% of her rent. “They help you until you can carry your rent on your own.” Month by month the financial support decreased. “They gave me the opportunity to save. To build a nest egg.”
As Quinones’ stability improved, she and her daughter were better able to chart their own path forward. Back on her feet, the prior homeless mom went to grad school at the Bryn Mawr School of Social Work – receiving two master’s degrees, one in Social Services and one in Law and Social Policy.
Now, Quinones gives back to Bridge of Hope all she can. She’s served on their local and national boards, and mentors others who are walking the path that she once walked. No longer a renter, she owns her own home and has worked for decades for Chester County.
Quinones is a woman with lived experience employed by one of the only counties in the nation that reduced the number of people identified as homeless in 2024.
