“When we talk about health, and we talk about housing, you cannot divorce one from the other, they must come together,” said Norman Bristol Colon, a speaker at the event. “Not only in the Lehigh Valley, but all across this state and all across this nation, housing is becoming a human rights issue.”
The fifth annual Health Equity Summit this week reported the housing crisis in the Pennsylvania community has not been dealt with adequately. About 34 percent of households are cost-burdened.
New Bethany Ministries is expanding its Housing Advocacy Program in the Bethlehem Area School District to help keep students from switching schools due to housing insecurity.
New Bethany Ministries extending pandemic housing program to aid homeless
Updated Dec 20, 2020;
Those seeking help in paying rent, preventing eviction and needing other housing assistance can continue to turn to New Bethany Ministries for help.
The nonprofit organization’s Housing Assistance Program, designed to help prevent homelessness in the Lehigh Valley during the coronavirus pandemic, will become permanent, representatives said.
The program initially began when Gov. Tom Wolf ordered a shutdown of all non-essential businesses and issued a stay-at-home order in March to help thwart the spread of the coronavirus pandemic. At the time, residents of Bethlehem and other Lehigh Valley areas either newly unemployed or experiencing a pay reduction began contacting New Bethany Ministries for housing assistance.