Can We Help?
Please call us at 570-822-6817 if you would like to stay at the shelter. Ruth’s Place, a program of Volunteers of America of Pennsylvania, is dedicated to providing shelter and case management services for women experiencing homelessness while honoring the dignity of each guest. The staff at Ruth’s Place are pleased to provide onsite, individualized case management and employment development services. In addition, guests are encouraged to participate in a series of intensive group workshops. Using evidence-based practices, the program provides safe, temporary and short-term emergency shelter for women experiencing homelessness in Luzerne County, PA; coordinates and collaborates with other service providers and volunteers to assure the provision of services that address their basic physical, financial, health and spiritual needs; and assists sheltered guests to form and follow a permanent housing plan to quickly achieve stable, long term housing. Ruth’s Place is a faith-based program founded by the Methodist Urban Ministry in 2003. It operated as Ruth’s Place: House of Hope, Inc. from 2008 to 2013. In July of 2013 Ruth's Place merged with Volunteers of America of Pennsylvania.
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Area services and other shelters for persons experiencing homelessness:
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Housing First
Ruth's Place is run according to the "Housing First" approach model of homelessness. The housing first approach includes:
- The direct or nearly direct placement of targeted homeless people into permanent housing. Even though the initial housing placement may be transitional in nature, the program commits to ensuring that the person is housed permanently.
- While supportive services are offered and readily made available, the program does not require participation in these services to remain in housing.
- The use of assertive outreach to engage and offer housing to homeless people with mental illness who are reluctant to enter shelters or engage in services. Once in housing a low-demand approach is used to accommodate clients so relapse will not result in loss of housing.
- The continued effort to provide case management and to hold housing for clients, even if they leave the program for periods of time.