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Two organizations working to ease the area's homelessness problem are looking for donations of items needed by clients.
The HOPE Drop-in Center and Blair County Community Action, part of the Hope for the Homeless group, are seeking outdoor gear, clothing, toiletries, kitchen items, food and cleaning supplies for homeless people, including several men and women recently relocated to hotels from a red-tagged apartment building in Altoona.
The drop-in center needs tents, sleeping bags and blankets, while Community Action is looking for clothing and shoes for both males and females.
They're both looking for hygiene items.
The drop-in center is seeking individually packed meals, frozen or dried and microwaveable; while Community Action is looking for microwave dinners, canned soup and canned pasta, along with bottled water, soda, granola bars, peanut butter and jelly -- plus food for dogs and cats.
Community Action wants paper products.
The drop-in center is seeking detergent pods and dryer sheets -- as well as bikes and bike lights.
The pods are the easiest way to handle detergent, said Pam Townsend, executive director of the drop-in center.
Inexpensive flashlights that are available at a local discount tool stores can be affixed to bike handlebars as a substitute for formal bike lights, said Hope for the Homeless attendee Josh Krider.
Amtran bus passes would also be helpful, Townsend said.
The drop-in center has a freezer in which it can keep the frozen food donations, Townsend said.
The drop-in center's phone number is 814-515-1175.
Community Action is at 814-946-3651. Ask for Christine at extension 101.
Supplies can be dropped off at the Community Action office, 2301 Beale Ave., Altoona.
Representatives of churches who participate in Hope for the Homeless should ask for donations from their congregations, suggested Hope for the Homeless leader Brian Durbin.
Two or three of the people relocated from the red-tagged apartment building have governmental assistance income, which should enable them to be housed soon in apartments, according Christine Zernick, executive director of Community Action.
Her agency is helping those people develop skills that will assist them in living in those new places, Zernick said.
A subcommittee of the larger group plans to pursue landlords who are keeping their tenants in substandard conditions, Durbin told the group recently.
"We are going after (them)," he said.
Mirror Staff Writer William Kibler is at 814-949-7038.