SCRANTON, Pa. — Scranton's Weston Field field house along Providence Road is now serving as a 24-hour shelter providing the city's homeless with a place to stay during the stay-at-home order.
Keystone Mission is operating the shelter.
"We're now open until the mayor or the Governor or whoever tells us that this place no longer needs to be used as a shelter," said Justin Behrens, Keystone Mission's Executive Director.
There's room for 25 people inside the field house. Behrens said six have showed up since the shelter opened this weekend.
"When they get here, we do a screening; we make sure we do the typical screening that everybody talks about. You know, temperature, ask if they have any symptoms, anything like that. Then they're quarantined just to make sure everything's OK," Behrens added.
People are required to stay inside. If they leave, they won't be allowed back in the building.
Keystone Mission is providing meals, and Weston Field has cots and facilities for people to use.
Randy, a homeless man who spoke to Newswatch 16, said keeping clean has been the hardest part of navigating this crisis.
"There's really nowhere to go to sleep, you know, you've got to find a place. It's hard to get showers, clean clothes, and stuff like that. This crisis, it's hard to get clothes right now," he said.
Randy planned to head to Weston Field Monday night.
The shelter is staffed around the clock, and Keystone Missions officials said they're working with every person to try to find them permanent housing.
"Now they're coming in here we can actually start changing their lives, we can start trying to get them off the streets and back on track. A great example is, we have a gentleman here who we just worked with, he will be leaving shortly going to a place of his own now," Behrens added.
Scranton Mayor Paige Cognetti said Weston Field will remain a shelter until the city's state of emergency is lifted.