A recent LebTown article about new ownership at the hotel building that once housed the Treadway Inn, later known as a Days Inn, a Rodeway Inn, and a Hammock Inn, generated social media comments questioning the type of residents staying there in recent years and who might be paying for their stays.
The hotel is now known as the Inn at Lebanon.
One commenter opined that “nobody is going to want to stay there as long as they keep taking payment from the city so that junkies and homeless can spend the night there routinely.”
LebTown reached out to the city to fact check that claim.
In response, Lebanon Mayor Sherry Capello told LebTown via email that “the City does not make any sort of payments for residents to reside there” and “has not made any payments to the Hotel or to residents so that they may stay at the Hotel since I have been Mayor (1/4/2010).”
Capello noted, however, that the Community Action Partnership (“CAP”), an arm of Lebanon County government, from time-to-time pays to house people at the hotel, and that the Central Pennsylvania chapter of the American Red Cross may do the same.
CAP administrator Christine Hartman told LebTown that her agency has used the hotel as an emergency “overflow shelter.” CAP uses three primary shelters for temporary housing: the Lebanon Rescue Mission for men, the Rescue Mission’s Agape shelter for women and children, and Lebanon County Christian Ministries’ Fresh Start shelter for families.
“Our shelters are very small. We have very limited resources when it comes to housing” Hartman said. “If the Rescue Mission, Fresh Start, or Agape are full, then we have to house people somewhere. So (the hotel’s owners) have been nice enough to accept our vouchers and put people up.”
CAP’s criteria for placing people in the hotel are the same as those used at the three permanent shelters. “We have a vetting process, because these are family shelters. Not every individual can fit,” Hartman said.
CAP shelters are available to “anybody meeting our vetting process who is un-sheltered, such as if they’ve been evicted or their residence has been condemned,” Hartman said.
Hartman said that calls for emergency housing come in at all hours of the day and night, and “after-hours calls for help are handled by Lebanon County Crisis Intervention, which will do the screening.”
Applicants who CAP determines might be dangerous to themselves or others are referred to other appropriate agencies.
Dip Patel, operator of the new Inn at Lebanon, told LebTown that he will continue to accept emergency shelter placements from CAP.
Hartman said that CAP placed 285 people in the hotel in 2023 and that there is a 10-day limit on emergency stays. Many stays, she said, were for a single night, often during cold weather.
Cristina Maisel, Regional Communications Manager for the American Red Cross Greater Pennsylvania Region told LebTown that “the Central Pennsylvania Chapter of the American Red Cross currently does not place individuals or families at any specific hotel in Lebanon County following a disaster.”
“Depending on the size of a disaster and the needs of the community,” Maisel said, “the Red Cross may open a shelter during an emergency to provide people with a safe place to stay.”
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