Holding the Line: How “Centre Helps” Keep Centre County Families from Losing Their Footing.

In Centre County, where 58% of renters spend more than 30% of their income on housing and one in three families lives below the self-sufficiency standard, a financial crisis rarely happens in isolation. Time and again, these crises return. Each week, Centre Helps case managers answer calls from residents facing utility shut-offs, eviction notices, and other urgent financial challenges. These calls have become routine. One unexpected expense can push a family from stability into crisis.

The Basic Needs Case Management Program at Centre Helps exists to catch those families before they fall. The program connects residents to emergency financial aid and community resources, pairing immediate crisis relief with practical tools, including budget counseling, advocacy, and education, that help prevent the same emergencies from happening again. It is a small but critical intervention in a system where affordability gaps keep widening.

“We are often the last call before the power goes out, or the eviction notice takes effect,” said Denise Herr McCann, Executive Director at Centre Helps. “When people reach us, they’re usually out of options. What we can offer, beyond money, is a plan and a sense of control in a situation that feels completely unmanageable.”

A Centre Foundation Field-of-Interest grant allowed case managers to assist 12 families in one year, giving them the resources and counseling needed to stabilize their situations. Even a relatively modest grant can make a tangible difference when paired with targeted case management and community connections.

A Measurable Impact in Preventing Crisis

The results speak clearly. Over the course of a year:
– 97% of families avoided eviction.
– 98% avoided utility shut-off.
– 90% reported feeling that their situation had been resolved and that they felt hopeful about the future.

Each percentage point represents more than a statistic; it reflects a family that stayed in their home, kept their lights on, and maintained their employment.

The numbers underscore both the progress made and the challenges that remain. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, about 18% of Centre County residents live below the poverty line, compared to 13% nationwide. Nearly 28% of local students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. The math of survival does not favor these families. The Self-Sufficiency Standard for Pennsylvania shows that a third of Centre County households earn less than the income needed to meet basic expenses without public or private assistance.

Intervention by Design

Centre Helps’ approach is deliberately hands-on. Case managers don’t just process applications; they advocate. If a family needs $1,000 for a security deposit, staff might piece together funds from five different community sources, including churches, local government aid, and private donations.

When Ferguson Township allocated $20,000 for residents to avoid eviction or utility shut off, Centre Helps implemented the process. During the pandemic, when SEDA-COG redirected unused housing funds to vehicle repairs, Centre Helps managed nearly $100,000 in emergency car repair assistance to ensure people could keep getting to work.

“Our system is built to consider community needs,” McCann said. “Every case is different, and our staff are trained to look beyond the immediate situation to the structural issue, what gap in the system exists that caused this, and how do we stop it from happening again?”

That model, immediate triage paired with long-term planning, reflects a quiet but measurable strategy shift from emergency response to sustained stabilization.

Dignity in the Data

Clients describe the experience not in terms of charity but partnership. One participant, who asked to remain anonymous, said:

“The Centre Helps staff has gone above and beyond the last few weeks in helping me. Not only with resources, but empathy and understanding. As well as checking in on my situation. I can’t thank the Centre Helps team enough for all of their help. It’s embarrassing when you struggle and fall into hard times. The Centre Helps team helped me through, and I was treated with dignity, respect, and understanding.  I’m forever grateful.”

Centre Helps builds that respect into its process. All clients are invited to complete satisfaction surveys, and feedback directly informs program design. Several staff members and board members have experienced financial instability, adding a crucial perspective to how assistance is structured and delivered.

The Broader Cost of Inaction

Preventing eviction is more than keeping someone housed; it can prevent family separation, job loss, and the long-term mental health fallout that follows displacement. “If we intervene early, we’re not just preventing a crisis,” McCann said. “We’re preventing the next five crises that would have followed.”

For Centre Helps, the math is simple: the cost of keeping a family in stable housing is a fraction of the cost of trying to rebuild their lives after losing it. In a county where nearly half of residents live one emergency away from instability, that kind of efficiency and empathy may be the most critical resource of all.