LebTown exclusive: WellSpan grant helps launch Lebanon County housing collab

A $750,000 grant from WellSpan Health has helped finance the recently formed Lebanon County Housing Collaborative, with one-third of that funding designated for Lebanon Rescue Mission’s new $8 million housing project.

The collaborative has earmarked $250,000 of the grant funding for LRM’s Agape Safe Haven housing project, set to open in the spring of 2027. 

That project was announced earlier this year and is expected to open in two years with 39 private rooms containing 103 beds, according to Susan Blouch, LRM’s executive director. The rooms will be open to women with children, veterans and senior citizens who need temporary housing, she added.

“Our piece of the whole collaborative, the whole grant request is addressing short-term transitional housing and programming to then link people to long-term housing,” said Blouch. “But, of course, there has to be long-term housing available, there has to be community housing available, so that’s why the two subjects are very closely intertwined.”

And a reason the housing collaborative has been created.

The balance of the collaborative’s initial funding will be used to hire a housing development director who will focus on building partnerships with like-minded organizations and addressing housing and other societal needs, including among them food insecurity. 

The initial collaborative partnership is with Lebanon County Christian Ministries (LCCM) and the Community Health Council of Lebanon County (CHC).

LebTown learned through an exclusive interview that the collaborative is taking a multi-pronged holistic approach to housing and other societal needs, according to LCCM executive director Bryan Smith.

“The Lebanon Rescue Mission will receive some investment capital into their GAPA expansion project. And then Lebanon County Christian Ministries, our portion of it is our Social Drivers of Health Utility Assistance Program, which is kind of an eviction prevention program,” said Smith, who noted that LCCM is the organization that is the recipient of WellSpan’s grant. “So that’s where we’re providing people with assistance to utilities. And then we kind of put the health council as an umbrella of creating this housing collaborative to bring vested partners and housing together for Lebanon County.”

A statement concerning the group’s mission reads: “We propose a multi-tiered approach in partnership with WellSpan Health. Our strategy tackles both immediate needs and systemic vulnerabilities, presenting a unique opportunity to transform the housing landscape while fostering economic growth, social equity, and community resilience. By integrating immediate relief with long-term strategy, this initiative will create a sustainable path forward, ensuring that Lebanon County residents have access to safe, affordable, and stable housing.”

CHC executive director Nicole Maurer Gray said the group’s goal is to address all housing needs across Lebanon County, including homelessness.

“There are so many, I feel like, negative connotations around the discussion of affordable housing that I wouldn’t want to give this project a scarlet letter by only talking about affordable housing,” said Gray. “I think we can all, those in the know, we can all agree that affordable housing is a top priority for this project, but it’s definitely not the only objective, right? A balanced housing market is the objective.”

Smith agreed with Gray’s assessment.

“I think one of the things that Nikki and I have talked a lot about is, you know, this is not an affordable housing project. This is a building opportunity in Lebanon County, globally. Does it include affordable housing? 100 percent. Does it include housing discussion? 100 percent. Does it also include the unmet need of housing in our community? Absolutely.”

Gray added the focus is not on constructing X number of units, but an all-encompassing approach to housing needs.

“When you think of a housing project, I think a lot of people immediately think of a developer building a certain volume of units, and that’s gonna solve our problem. This project doesn’t really identify that, that’s not the measure at which we’re considering success,” she said. “Our project is a little bit more well-rounded in that we’re looking at supporting emergency housing, supporting keeping people in their homes, right?”

That and additional housing goals.

“Also supporting the county in its quest to provide more types of housing across all income levels. So yeah, of course we want more affordable housing. Of course we need more workforce housing. But if you look at the housing study, we actually need housing across the entire spectrum. And so what will be a measure of success, in my opinion, is how well we can bring more programming, more funding, more developers, more (housing) interest into Lebanon County,” added Gray.

Blouch said LRM working with the other two organizations – especially given the timing of their Agape project – was a great opportunity for all three entities that currently exist as the collaboration.

“The grant that Nikki and Bryan were working on, the housing collaborative, one of the components it had was addressing homelessness, kind of the front-end of housing issues,” said Blouch. “So Nikki reached out to us because she knew that we had just announced our expansion project. And so the timing was good. It was a good fit.”

Blouch said the shelter will be in the former Goodman Vending building and will encompass just over 10,000 square feet on both the first and second floors, the latter being constructed during renovations. 

A purpose for building the Agape property, which is located across the street from LRM’s headquarters, is to help people in their time of need.

“Part of the reason I’ve been connected to the collaborative is the obvious connection to those in crisis. We bring them out of crisis, get them stable, get them through programming and advocacy, get their life stable,” Blouch said. “But then for them to go back into the community and go on with their lives, there has to be housing.”

Sound finances, healthy lives

Smith said LCCM’s work within the program is to provide assistance to individuals having problems paying their utility bills. 

“We don’t just turn over cash, we meet with individuals. We identify their total needs and we begin to be a warm referral entity to connect them with resources,” he said. “It’s really taking a person who’s in crisis and can’t think past the next couple hours of their day and being able to look at the big picture for them and partnering with them in all resources that might be available.”

Smith said that 54 percent of individuals needing bill-paying assistance have never been to a food pantry. “So one of our simple referrals is we refer them just to those food assistants,” he added.

Smith noted health problems arise when individuals are financially strapped.

“Social drivers are things that would increase the risk of somebody not seeking preventative care or having an increase in hospital admissions or hospital visits. So people who find themselves not able to pay their electric bill, their water bill, their oil bill, tend to go into crisis,” he said. “And then they don’t get preventative care, then they don’t have a primary care doctor, then they use the ER.”

This leads to physical health problems in individuals, he added. 

“So one of the statistics, it was pretty powerful as we were preparing for this, currently in the United States, 33 percent of emergency department visits come from individuals who would identify as being housing insecure,” Smith said.

Help wanted

Concerning the new housing director, Gray and Smith said the ideal candidate will know important Lebanon County “movers and shakers” and have broad institutional knowledge about housing needs, issues and opportunities.

Another important component for the new hire will be somebody who is able to unite like-minded parties working separately on housing and societal issues to come together to share how groups can collaborate on those issues for an even better Lebanon County.

“I think one thing that we did not have here and do not have here yet is one person or group of people who are working towards a solution and trying to learn from others. I don’t want to say we don’t have people working on the solution because that’s not actually very fair but we have some silos that are doing great work in their space,” said Gray. “We need somebody that can bring those spaces together to the table to talk about what each other are doing. We don’t want to do or duplicate any of that work. We just need to map and understand what it is so that we can collaborate.”

Local expertise will help drive solutions for all concerned parties working together for a common goal.

“What we’re trying to bring together is subject matter expertise and around a neutral table that hopefully we can learn from each other but also really get some opportunities opened up to Lebanon County,” Gray added.