Elizabethtown Community Housing & Outreach Services (ECHOS) is a nonprofit social services agency that works with individuals experiencing homelessness, those at risk of becoming homeless or people in need of additional services that address homelessness.

What began as a winter shelter in Dec. 2015 eventually evolved into a full-fledged social services agency in July 2016. ECHOS was established in recognition of a need to address homelessness in the greater Elizabethtown area using a multifaceted approach.

Although the mission of the agency has remained the same, the agency itself has evolved since its establishment in 2016. The agency grew to an 11-person staff with student interns and expanded office spaces.

In mid-October, part of the ECHOS team moved to Community Place on Washington, the future site of a social services complex in Elizabethtown, while also maintaining their office on S. Market Street where social services are offered.

Community Place on Washington is “a collaborative effort among United Churches Elizabethtown Area and community members, organizations businesses and social service providers to establish a centralized location for community services,” according to their website.

Not only did ECHOS expand office spaces, they also transitioned to a new location for the winter shelter, also at Community Place. The shelter was previously at St. Paul’s United Methodist Church.

The ECHOS winter shelter opened its doors for the fourth year Monday, Dec. 3 and will remain open until Friday, April 5, 2019.

The winter shelter is a low barrier shelter that provides individuals with a warm, dry and safe place to stay if they are experiencing homelessness in the Elizabethtown area. The need has increased every year since the shelter’s opening in 2015.

Last year, 1,010 beds were filled with a total of 57 individuals served, a record number of individuals served to date. The shelter is run almost entirely by volunteers with the exception of a small number of ECHOS staff who provide case management services to shelter guests.

Volunteers work as a team to provide meals to shelter guests, staff the shelter at night to ensure smooth operations and collect various donations that enable the shelter to provide those in need a hand up.

Sixty-three volunteers are needed every week to run the shelter seven days a week. Volunteers are the backbone of nearly everything ECHOS does to confront homelessness.

If you would like to learn more about ECHOS or the winter shelter, email Seema Tailor, AmeriCorps VISTA with ECHOS, at vista@echoslancaster.org.

To learn more about the Community Place on Washington, visit https://communityplaceetown.org/.