Community-Wide Strategic Plan to Address Homelessness

BCEH, as the CoC Lead Agency for Berks County and Reading, engaged Framework Strategies to complete a 5-year strategic community plan to address homelessness in Berks County.

This plan will focus on concrete strategies that can be implemented or initiated over the next several years. This plan will also highlight bigger-picture challenges that impact homelessness in Berks County that will need to be addressed at the county and municipal level.

Read the Plan

Support for this project was provided by the Hawley and Myrtle Quier Fund of Berks County Community Foundation and the City of Reading.

Download the Executive Summary
Download the Full Plan

Main Themes

6 key themes emerged related to the needs and gaps within the Berks County homeless response system:

  1. CoC Structure and Collaboration
  2. Prevention/Diversion
  3. Emergency Shelter and Crisis Resources
  4. Supportive Services, Navigation, and Case Management
  5. Permanent Housing, including:
    • ­Homeless-Dedicated Housing Resources
    • ­Affordable and Attainable Housing
  6. Community Leadership

Each theme includes an overview of key challenges and recommended action steps.

Planning Process

To facilitate the strategic planning process, Framework Strategies gathered information about current needs and gaps related to the Berks County homeless response system via the following:

  • Kick-Off Meeting with full CoC Membership
  • Strategic Plan Input Survey (63 responses)
  • Focus group with people with current or recent lived experience of homelessness (19 participants)
  • Focus groups with homeless service providers and street outreach/unsheltered service providers (12 participants)
  • Key informant interviews with community partners, including representatives from city and county leadership, housing authorities, education, workforce development, health and mental health systems, aging services, children and youth services, community and economic development sector, law enforcement, public works, affordable housing partners, and philanthropy partners (17 interviews)
  • Interviews with CoC leadership, including BCEH staff and CoC Board members
  • Review of Berks CoC data and background materials:
    • CoC Data
    • CoC Policies
    • Existing community plans related to affordable housing, homelessness, and/or economic development

In addition, Framework Strategies engaged two individuals with lived experience of homelessness in Berks County as paid consultants throughout the development of this plan. Their input and expertise were critical to the process of identifying system gaps and developing a community-driven plan.

Scroll to Top