A subcommittee of the group working to help homeless people in the area wants to create a low-barrier shelter here that resembles the Second Avenue Commons shelter in Pittsburgh.

“It’s my dream,” said Christine Zernick, executive director of the Blair County Community Action Program, who visited the Pittsburgh shelter recently with Mayor Matt Pacifico and a Blair County human services official. “I would love to have (something like it in Altoona).”

A low-barrier shelter could accommodate homeless people who can’t meet admission standards designed to protect residents and staff at Altoona’s recently constructed family shelter, which conducts background checks and requires sobriety, medical stability, an ability to manage daily living tasks, willingness to live cooperatively with others, mental and emotional stability and willingness to comply with other rules, according to Zernick and the family shelter website.

‘Homelessness very complex’

A low-barrier shelter would be welcome in Altoona, said Devin Mapes, 21, who was at a local drop-in center recently with his fiancee, Christy, who is eight months pregnant.

The couple have been couch-hopping with friends and others in recent months, after someone cut a tent they had set up near the drop-in center, he said.

Mapes is ineligible for the family shelter because of a felony conviction that he said resulted from an effort to protect his infant daughter from a knife attack by someone on meth a year and a half ago.

He’s struggling to get a job, as he has lost full use of two fingers on his left hand, due to a compound fracture from a motorcycle accident in June.

He also has lupus, since the age of 6, which causes his feet to swell.

His fiancee can’t work due to epileptic seizures, he said.

He became homeless about a year ago, after he himself had a seizure that led him to break a hole in the wall of his apartment, Mapes said.

The landlord demanded $700 to fix the hole and also raised the rent, leading Mapes and his fiancee to move out because they couldn’t afford the higher costs.

Currently, the couple’s main source of income is Christy’s Supplemental Security Income, while he makes a few dollars a day playing video games on his cellphone, Mapes said.

Pam Townsend, executive director of the drop-in center, said a low-barrier shelter in Altoona would be “accessible to everyone. … It would open the door to people temporarily, until they can get (permanent housing).”

“Homelessness is very complex,” Townsend said. “It’s different for each individual.”

While some people who are homeless have created their own problems, the backgrounds of many include mental health issues, substance use disorder, family difficulties and lack of a support system, she said.

The drop-in center staff tries to encourage the people who use the center, to give them hope that things can change.

“But they need to make it happen,” Townsend said, adding that change is often scary and difficult.

Townsend said it’s wonderful when individuals can make the changes that are necessary, and then see how much better things can be.

“I’m a firm believer that every day is a new day,” she said. “We just walk with them through the messiness of life.”

Pittsburgh shelter would be model

The Pittsburgh shelter has 95 beds and 43 single room occupancy units, operates a drop-in day program Monday through Friday, a medical and behavioral health clinic and a professional kitchen with job training opportunities — while providing a home base for street outreach workers, according to the Second Avenue Commons website.

Second Avenue Commons operates year-round, accepts adults without children, along with residents’ possessions, pets and partners, according to the website.

“Within the facility, wrap-around services (are) provided to address the myriad and complex issues confronting people experiencing homelessness,” the website states.

Corporate, government and human service organizations proposed the Second Avenue project in 2019, opening the 43,000-square-foot facility in late 2022, according to the website.

The organization is supported by the city of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh Mercy, the Allegheny Conference on Community Development, Action Housing Inc., Allegheny Health Network, Allegheny County, Highmark Health, UPMC, PNC, the Urban Redevelopment Authority of Pittsburgh, DLA Architecture, PJ Dick, the Allegheny County Department of Human Services, Community Kitchen Pittsburgh and NDC Asset Management, according to the website.

“Everything is under one roof,” Pacifico said. “It’s pretty awesome.”

The air-conditioned first-floor cafeteria space there turns into a sleep center every night, according to the local officials.

There are sleeping mats and a pair of large rooms, one for men and one for women, Zernick said.

There are showers and a dog wash station, with low- or no-cost veterinary services, she said

“A lot of these people have animals,” Zernick said. “That is their love attachment — their reason to go on.”

There’s also a baking room that kills bed bugs and other pests from the belongings that residents bring with them and a storage room to keep those belongings safe, Pacifico and Zernick said.

Common prescription and over-the-counter medications are free, Zernick said.

The shelter is also designed and operated to minimize potential triggers of traumatic stress, including how it handles light, Zernick said.

Most homeless people have experienced significant trauma at some point, according to a September 2022 article in Psychiatric Times by Julie Williams.

Security is a major emphasis at the Pittsburgh center.

It’s critical, given the residents’ wide range of backgrounds and experiences, many of which are unknown to the staff, Zernick said.

The security is for the benefit not only of the paid and volunteer workers, but for the residents themselves, she said.

That security is especially needed to handle problems, including problems with drugs, at the beginning and middle of the month, because that is when people get government checks, Zernick said.

Local group brainstorming

The low-barrier shelter subcommittee includes Chairwoman Zernick, Pacifico, a county human services official, a city councilman and two officials of the city’s Community Development Department.

The group is brainstorming on potential locations and on funding, Zernick said.

It’s not clear what agency would be in charge.

“It’s in the infancy stages,” Zernick said. “(But) I’m telling you we’re going to get this done.”

As she envisions it, an Altoona shelter would be available year-round, providing meals and a safe place for adults to “rest and feel supported.”

The Altoona facility would include much of the same services as the Pittsburgh shelter.

It would allow residents to bring their dogs, provided the dogs don’t have a history of violence, and include a dog washing station and low to minimal cost veterinary services.

It would provide showers, laundry services, common medications — free or at minimal cost — and room to store residents’ belongings.

There would be a walk-in clinic, outpatient substance use disorder treatment, educational programs, parenting classes, communications classes, life skills instruction, budgeting workshops and tips on getting a job, among other programs, Zernick said.

No drug or alcohol use would be permitted within the shelter, she said, but the shelter would “accept people as they are,” so sobriety and recovery wouldn’t be required and criminal backgrounds wouldn’t be taken into account.

That acceptance is controversial, she admits, adding that a high level of security, both inside and outside the shelter, would be in place round the clock.

The facility would be “a welcoming and calming environment,” though with durable furniture, she said, and would be designed by an architect familiar with the low-barrier concept.

Organizers of the shelter would work with local businesses to try to ensure they felt comfortable and safe, she said.

While ideas for a low-barrier shelter are plentiful, how long it takes to get the project to get off the ground depends on funding, which would require both private and public money.

Some people are judgmental about homelessness and critical about what’s being done to help, said Townsend, who has lived through crisis times in her own family, and who credits her faith for helping her get through.

“But when you ask for solutions, they don’t have them,” said Townsend, the pastor of a church for the recovery community that is based at the drop-in center.

“I wish there was some magic we could come up with to make it easy,” she said. “But there is no magic.”

Mirror Staff Writer William Kibler is at 814-949-7038.