Andy Leh introduced this morning’s speaker Robert Rapp. Bob is the Pastor and Director of the Bethlehem Homeless Shelter at Christ Church UCC in Bethlehem and his topic this morning is helping the homeless. For a number of years before Christ Church became a shelter many churches in the Bethlehem area shared this responsibility. Two years ago sheltering the homeless was moved to Christ Church as a permanent location. Bob indicated that the reasons for many becoming homeless are many but one major cause is the loss of family in that they don’t have the support of family to help them through the other factors they are dealing with. There are a number of shelters throughout the Lehigh Valley but none for the complete family. At Christ Church, they have a capacity for 17 per night, both men and women. Each night 10 to 15 volunteers come to the church to cook a meal for the guests and spend some time talking to them about their issues if they chose to do so. Two of those volunteers, a man, and woman, stay at the shelter all night. In 2018, Bob indicated that 1800 people volunteered for this service. Currently, they have approximately 1500 sq.ft of space and are now looking for a building with at least 18,000 sq. ft. so they can take in more guests and hopefully family units.
Bob indicated that right now there is a large homeless population of student-aged children. It is not the case that they are all on the street or in the shelters but more likely living in the homes of family or friends. In this case, mom and dad are living in a shelter, in their car or in a motel room because they can’t afford to live in an apartment or home. Because there are no shelters for families this breaks up the family support unit and thus it is difficult to work their way out of homelessness.
Homelessness is just not a problem for the big cities but also for places throughout the county like the Lehigh Valley and we have to be grateful that there are people like Bob Rapp and his group of volunteers and professionals who are there to help them.