Red Cross House

Description

Red Cross House serves as a combined lodging and service delivery center designed to provide a full continuum of services for special needs victims of disaster.  This two-story, 33,000 square-foot facility has five hotel-style emergency stay rooms and twenty private family transitional rooms, with the capacity to accommodate up to one hundred twenty individuals at a given time.  The facility includes a large dining and kitchen area, casework offices, counseling and training rooms, indoor and outdoor children’s play areas, laundry facilities, and storage space for clients to use. 

Red Cross House is intended to provide shelter to individuals or families temporarily or permanently displaced as a direct result of a disaster.  Red Cross House may provide shelter to families in anticipation of a disaster, during an evacuation, or after a disaster occurs.  Red Cross House is intended to be a safe haven from impending disaster and/or short-term emergency housing (1 to 3 days) and/or transitional housing (on average 21 days) until disaster victims can return to their homes or locate alternate housing after a disaster. 

Red Cross House features a multitude of comprehensive services designed to meet the specific needs of disaster victims, helping them from becoming dependent upon county  municipal services. It is anticipated that Red Cross House will serve some 200 to 300 families annually – roughly one-fifth of the families SEPA Chapter assists with disaster relief in an average year.

The Red Cross House (RCH) Supportive Services Program, the cornerstone of the SEPA Chapter recovery strategy, is divided into (3) distinct areas. 

Emergency Services

After a disaster families will stay one to three nights in a hotel-style emergency unit.  The next business day each family will meet with an assigned Family Services Caseworker who will serve as the family’s advocate, assisting them in assessing their needs and obtaining services and support from the American Red Cross and other sources.  The case management approach is designed to help each RCH Client develop an individualized long-term recovery plan.  The Red Cross is committed to working closely with other organizations, public and private alike, to assist our clients.  Other agencies may be better suited to serve some RCH Clients’ needs and appropriate referrals will be made.  Only families that meet certain criteria will be eligible for extended stay at Red Cross House.   

Transitional Housing

During this Extended Stay, clients work closely with their caseworkers and participate in the Red Cross House supportive programs while adhering closely to their individualized recovery plan.  The alternative for many of these victims is the City of Philadelphia’s shelter system that often forces family members to live separately and lacks the resources to offer the same opportunities for recovery.  The goal of Red Cross House is to move RCH Clients who would become chronically homeless without additional intensive casework into permanent housing in about 21 days.

Program Services

Red Cross House will offer RCH Clients additional services such as expanded mental health services, disaster-related medical care, vocational skills, life skills, safety training, housing search assistance, financial planning, limited legal assistance, disaster prevention education, spiritual care, and information and referral services. 

During their stay, individuals and families will focus on three primary goals:

  • Recovery from the trauma associated with the disaster

  • Developing and strengthening the skills necessary to regain and maintain independent living

  • Finding and moving back into permanent housing. 

Within a few weeks, most of the families who stay at Red Cross House are expected to be back on their feet and back in the community, living the independent lives they led before disaster struck.