Montco commissioners voted to establish a $1.3M year-round homeless shelter in Lansdale

For the first time since 2022, Montgomery County is poised to regain a year-round homeless shelter next year after county commissioners voted to approve funding and a contract Thursday to set the plan in motion.

County commissioners voted Thursday morning to approve a $244 million 2025 capital improvement budget, which includes funding for a homeless shelter, and to approve a lease for the shelter site in Lansdale.

The county board also approved a $610 million general fund budget, which includes a 9% increase for residents on their county shares of property taxes, following steeper increases in Delaware and Chester Counties earlier this month.

The shelter will be the first year-round shelter in the county since the Coordinated Homeless Outreach Center in Norristown closed in 2022. The county currently funds several Code Blue shelters, which offer overnight housing when temperatures or wind chills drop below freezing.

Ahead of the unanimous 3-0 vote, Commissioners Chair Jamila Winder called the project a “monumental step forward” toward fighting homelessness in the county, and said the project could reduce the number of unhoused people on the streets in Lansdale by up to 75%.

“It’s truly lifesaving work that we’re talking about,” said Winder, a Democrat.

The project is a partnership between the county and Lansdale Borough and is part of a broader effort in Montgomery County to dramatically expand shelter resources over the next five years.

The county’s capital improvement budget for 2025 allocates $2 million for shelters for unhoused people and lays out a plan to spend $10 million total over the next five years on the project.

Earlier this year, officials counted 435 people living on the street in Montgomery County, the most in a decade aside from 2022, when the Norristown shelter closed. But efforts to increase services and affordable housing options in the affluent county in recent years, including a proposed affordable housing complex in Upper Gwynedd, have met with steep community pushback.

The proposed Lansdale project is estimated to cost $1.3 million, with the funds coming from the $2 million allocation for shelters in the county’s capital improvement budget.

The Lansdale center is expected to house 20 to 25 individuals, and county officials say they hope to open it in the first half of 2025. Whereas existing Code Blue shelters offer only short-term overnight services, the Lansdale shelter would provide longer-term transitional housing for those experiencing homelessness in the borough, Winder said.

BJ Breish, a Lansdale council member who spoke in support of the project, said the center’s approval marked a “pivotal moment” for the county’s homelessness struggles, where “what once seemed impossible is now within grasp.”

Commissioner Tom DiBello, a Republican, voted with his Democratic colleagues to approve the project; however, he urged a member of Resources for Human Development — the group that will oversee the facility — to confirm that the housing would be transitional and not be used for permanent residency.

Winder said in an interview Wednesday she hoped the project would encourage other local governments to work with the county on similar shelters.

“That will be a model for other municipalities to follow, that you can stand up a homeless shelter in your municipality to help the most vulnerable among us while still having a thriving and safe community,” she said.

Winder said that the lack of year-round transitional housing options in Montgomery County has led to a rise in encampments across the community. The county, she said, has struggled to start full-time shelters in part due to an unwillingness within municipalities to allow for shelters within their borders.

“Anyone that’s been following the complexities of standing up homeless shelters in any area knows that it’s matched with NIMBYism,” she said.

Meanwhile, the commissioners broke 2-1 in voting on the general fund budget, which included the tax increase. Winder and fellow Democrat Neil Makhija supported the package, while DiBello dissented.

» READ MORE: Chester County commissioners vote to increase property taxes 13% over resident objections

All three commissioners voted unanimously to support the capital fund budget.

Tax increases are sure to ruffle feathers in any community, and some concerned residents voiced their protest of the package ahead of Thursday’s vote.

“It’s just really tough on the taxpayers,” Montgomery County resident Barbara Furman said during public comment. “Where are the places we can save money? Maybe there can be things taken out of the budget.”

Makhija described the budget as a mixture between “critical investments … and a lot of savings, too.” He said the budget would reduce at least $3 million in operational costs, including equipment, utilities, and travel expenses, as well as refinancing prior bond issues.

The new tax rate will be 5.642 mills per $1,000 of assessed property value.

“This was hard, but we have promises to deliver on, commitments we have made to the community,” Winder said before the vote.

“I know I personally wanted to try and go the other way in terms of tax increases, but we end up kicking the can down the road in terms of some of the future challenges we have.”