Breaking News
Local News

Reasons for becoming homeless vary

By William Kibler 8 min read

Nearly 100 guests were welcomed this past winter to Overflow Church, where a warming center was set up to help homeless people find comfort in the colder winter months.

It's a new initiative aimed to not only give a temporary respite from the streets, but to help those who are homeless find a more permanent solution.

There are many reasons why people may find themselves homeless, including mental health and substance use issues and the lack of affordable housing, officials found.

Nathanael Fry, 39, was homeless off and on for about 10 years before coming to the warming center, after finding out about it from the Blair County Community Action Program.

He spent a month at the Family Shelter before going to the warming center.

Thanks to the efforts of those running the center, Fry was able to move into an apartment on the 1500 block of 13th Street. Community Action found the apartment for him and is paying the first six months of rent, he said.

Fry said workers at the warming center asked him questions about how long he has been homeless, whether he was having mental health problems or other issues and whether he needed gloves, hats and other clothing.

A native of the state of Indiana, Fry came with his family to the Altoona area to live as a child. His mother went to Penn State Altoona, he said, but his parents have since divorced. His father was a preacher and now lives in Maryland.

Fry, who admits he doesn't read well and doesn't feel he has many marketable skills, feels under pressure to get a job so he can continue to pay rent.

He's worked as a dishwasher and he's participated in ministry programs that provided meals and even living space, including the Salvation Army Adult Rehabilitation Program in Altoona, he said.

He also worked at a bakery for a while, but quit because the third shift hours weren't suitable for him, he said. He's also visited CareerLink to check out available custodial jobs and applied to a local lumber yard.

He doesn't feel comfortable with the idea of going to school, but if he did, it might be to study forestry.

He can imagine enjoying workdays spent in the woods, caring about the environment, he said.

Fry said he spent some time in the Blair County Prison and is on probation for terroristic threats, based on having said "all kinds of mean things" to a friend of his mother.

His stay at the warming center was peaceful and quiet, he said, noting he would eat a few snacks and then go to bed between

9 and 10 p.m., when the lights went out.

Guests had a cot and were given a blanket and pillow. It was not so luxurious that guests find it difficult to live on the street again, he said.

The staff woke everyone about 6 a.m. and everyone was gone within a half an hour.

If they wanted breakfast, they'd walk to the Catholic Charities offices, where they were served potatoes, scrambled eggs, cheese, sausage and biscuits made by Greenbean Coffee House, Fry said.

"It was delicious," he said.

His experience at the warming center was much better than being out on the street, where he waited until dark to go to sleep on benches, using a coat for warmth.

The cold would wake him frequently, he said, but noted that the hot weather he experienced as a homeless person in Virginia was worse, because it wasn't as easy as the cold to counteract.

He knew he couldn't stay in one spot too long, as he had seen others rousted from their resting place, he said.

It was depressing, but he knew that people would help him eventually, he said.

Starting a new life

Dylan Redd, 21, the youngest guest at the warming center, came to Altoona in September to start a new life after growing up in a bad area of Richmond, Va.

He moved into an apartment with a friend, but in February, mail addressed to him came to the apartment and tipped off the landlord. He had to leave because he wasn't on the lease, even though he was helping out with the rent, he said.

Redd said a friend told him about the warming center, saying it was a nice, quiet place, so he began going there at night.

The staff and other guests at the center were helping to get him "on a good path," he said, admitting the first week after leaving the apartment was stressful.

An older guest has been encouraging him to "do good things in life, to be a better person and help others," he said.

He has a job as a dishwasher at a restaurant where he tries to get as many hours as he can, and was working about 20 per week earning $11 an hour.

He said he enjoys the job and is trying to save a little.

He walks downtown to catch a bus that takes him to the restaurant and on his days off, he rides the bus or walks around town, exploring, seeing new areas, meeting new people and sometimes hanging out at a convenience store for a few hours.

He's been trying to eat more healthfully, looking for a place to stay -- even if it's with a friend -- and has been in touch with human service agencies about housing possibilities.

But there's nothing firm yet, he said, adding he never imagined he would be homeless. He wants to succeed in life, he added.

Living as a free agent

William Lyster, 57, came to the center after a stint in a local rehabilitation facility.

He was born in Lancaster, grew up in Chester County, left home at 13 because he wasn't happy with himself and knew there was more to life. He proceeded to indulge a wanderlust for 27 years, never spending more than a few months in any one place.

Lyster has lived life on his own terms, as a free agent moving about the world, craving freedom and is determined not to worry about "anybody telling me to do anything," he said.

He's worked on cotton gins, in lumber mills, for carnivals and in construction; in offices and for telemarketing firms; and he's managed recovery houses.

He has permanent brain damage from a car crash that left him flatlined for a time and in a coma for 11 days; he's been awake for two weeks on meth and strung out from heat exhaustion, dehydration and fatigue; and he experienced Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome from an unspecified experience as a child, he said, in a narrative that just "gently scraped the iceberg."

He's been in jails for "dumb stuff," including a few thefts, and for hurting "one person physically"; he's been named on arrest warrants and he knows how to "go off the grid and not be found," he said.

People would give him rides, and they'd give him money, he said. The only things he owned were on his back and his feet.

He had girlfriends in different places, including one in Florida, he said, and if he went out her back door, he might go and get drunk. If he went out her front door, he might show up three or four months later.

"No responsibilities, no obligations," he stated. "It was fun."

I learned "everything from pure experience," he said, adding that he doesn't regret any of it.

Seven years ago, though, he promised a nephew in Chester County that he was done with roaming.

The warming center was pleasant at times and sometimes not, he said, like the weather.

He knows he's too old to be on the streets anymore and is trying to find an apartment.

But a little bit of that wanderlust still tugs at him.

He still wants to examine the site of his last construction job in Bordentown, N.J., where the crew had trouble stabilizing some dirt for the foundation, and he wants to see Savanna, Ga., one more time, he said.

By the numbers

– At the warming center at Overflow Church during the recent winter, there were 91 individual guests who stayed a combined 1,088 nights, according to Arlene Kuntz, administrative assistant at the Altoona Fire Department.

– The guests included 71 from Pennsylvania -- 49 from Blair County, with 37 of those from the city of Altoona.

– All guests were over 18.

– Four were older than 64.

– The center operated seven days a week, from Jan. 8 to March 14.

Starting at /week.