Nov 20, 2002 By Christine Haines 3 min read

BROWNSVILLE – Mayor Norma Ryan has lost neither her home nor her senses, though she will be spending tonight out on the streets of Brownsville. Ryan is participating in Homeless and Hunger Awareness Week, drawing attention to the problem of homelessness in Fayette County. Ryan is working in conjunction with Fayette County Community Action. She will spend the night, along with several other community members, in front of the North Side Volunteer Fire Hall on Market Street.

“When they first asked me about it, I thought most homeless people are homeless by choice because of the number of the facilities available,” Ryan said.

She discovered though that the homeless are not just men who are out of work or other stereotyped images of the homeless, but include the elderly after a spouse dies or when they can no longer maintain their own home and divorced men and women in transition.

“There are programs out there to help,” Ryan said.

Ryan will have information about the various housing assistance programs in Fayette County available at the fire hall from 8 p.m. tonight until 8 a.m. Thursday.

“If people stop, we want to talk to them about it. We’ll have flyers and a sign,” Ryan said.

She is also encouraging people to stop in at the Brownsville Soup Kitchen’s lunch program in the basement of the borough building or at the breakfast program sponsored by the Maranatha Assembly of God Church on Brownsville Avenue to get a better understanding of the problem of hunger in the area. The soup kitchen feeds 60 to 70 people every day and will serve more than 250 meals on Thanksgiving Day.

Tammy Knouse, the director of customer service for Community Action, said rural homelessness isn’t usually as obvious to people as homelessness in urban areas.

“Rural homelessness requires a more flexible definition of homelessness. It’s not as visible. People may live with relatives, in cars or campers or in substandard housing,” Knouse said.

A survey conducted in Fayette County indicated that most county residents don’t think there is a problem with homelessness in the area, but that isn’t the case.

“Many times our shelters are full and we collaborate with other counties to provide shelter for people,” Knouse said.

Knouse said Fayette County Community Action serves 3,000 people annually through the various housing programs.

The programs include emergency shelter for short-term assistance, transitional shelter for up to a year of housing and rental assistance to prevent people from being thrown out of their homes.

Programs are also offered for first-time home buyers and there is a supportive housing program for up to six months that provides landlord advocacy programs and support services for people once they move into their own homes.

Knouse said donations of clothing, food, disposable diapers, toiletries and cleaning supplies will be accepted at the Brownsville site as well as at an awareness site being set up in front of Mount St. Macrina in Uniontown tonight.