Organizations receive HealthSpark grant funds for housing, community needs

Furthering the aims of area nonprofits working in housing and social services remains a priority for HealthSpark Foundation CEO and President Emma Hertz.

Hertz expressed hope that the release of some $400,000 to more than a dozen local organizations will go further with designations from the 2025 community and housing programs.

“…They invest broadly in building advocacy capacity across the nonprofit sector, and then also target around housing justice efforts more specifically,” Hertz said in a recent interview.

The six-figure sum designation granted earlier this year was directed to 17 local nonprofits. Around $260,000 was distributed to nine different organizations in the 2025 grantees class of the housing justice centered Building Community Solutions Fund.

Those nonprofits include Access Services, of Fort Washington; Family Promise Montco PA, of Ambler; Habitat for Humanity Montgomery and Delaware counties, of King of Prussia; Pottstown Beacon of Hope, of Pottstown; The Housing Alliance of Pennsylvania, of Jenkintown; The Open Link, of Pennsburg; TLC for the People, of Plymouth Meeting; Valley Youth House’s Montgomery County branch, of Plymouth Meeting, and the Willow Grove Community Development Corporation in Willow Grove.

The 2025 grantees from the HealthSpark Foundation’s Building Community Power Fund were also awarded $140,000 through the latest program cycle. Recipients included Cultura, Arte, Trabajo y Educación, of Norristown; ElderNet, of Bryn Mawr; Generations of Indian Valley, of Souderton; Peaceful Living, of Harleysville; Planned Parenthood Southeastern PA, of Philadelphia; The Arc Alliance, of Trooper; VMSC Emergency Medical Services, and Woori Center, both of Lansdale, and the YWCA Tri-County Area, of Pottstown.

Hertz emphasized that “social services that provide basic human needs” remain of paramount importance and the cash infusion provided is vital for continued efforts surrounding food, health care and housing.

“Right now, our federal government is not stepping up and providing those social services that they have for decades, and at the same time, we’re seeing challenges at the state level where investment into key programs is not necessarily a guarantee, or at least timely payment is not necessarily a guarantee,” Hertz said.

“So for us at HealthSpark, now is the time to be giving more, to be connecting more, and to be looking at the voices of people that are facing those challenges in our community to let our policymakers understand the level of change that’s needed,” Hertz said.

Hertz said those “challenges” were exacerbated late last year by the 135-day-long budget impasse in Harrisburg and the 43-day-long federal government shutdown in Washington, D.C.

“Hopefully it provides a level of stability and investment into their programs that helps to counter some of the impact that the state budget impact and the federal shutdown has had on communities, as well as the ongoing threat to reductions in housing funding at the federal level,” Hertz said of the grant funding.

Revisions to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s notice of funding opportunity to the Continuum of Care Program Competition could stymie opportunities to address the county’s joint housing and homelessness crises in a meaningful way, Hertz noted, as Montgomery County could stand to lose nearly $3.47 million in grant dollars, a shortfall with the potential to impact hundreds of vulnerable residents.

“It’s devastating,” Hertz told MediaNews Group in December. “This is the single largest program to support housing and homeless services across the country, and to have it shifted in this way, especially the cap on permanent supportive housing, would cut out funding that is completely irreplaceable.”

Also, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, known as SNAP,  were paused last fall amid the federal government shutdown.  Nearly 42 million people across the nation rely on SNAP benefits, including some 63,000 individuals in Montgomery County. Roughly 85,000 people reportedly experience food insecurity in Montgomery County, according to 2023 figures from Feeding America.

Montgomery County Commissioners authorized around $500,000 in emergency food assistance in October 2025. Hertz’s organization designated additional monies to aid area food pantries. Several organizations included in the grant program “received fast-tracked funds during this past cycle in support of their efforts to address the SNAP pause,” according to HealthSpark officials. Those agencies included ElderNet, Family Promise MontcoPA, Generations of Indian Valley, The Open Link, and the YWCA Tri-County Area.

“We’ve heard feedback that releasing those funds just allowed for organizations to breathe a little easier and know that they could stock food on the shelves,” Hertz said. “So fast tracking that funding was a very tangible way for us to demonstrate our support for our community partners and ensure that they have the flexibility and funding available to meet the community’s needs when the federal government clearly was not.”

While both the federal and state governmental shutdowns and budget impasses were resolved, Hertz acknowledged funding continues to struggle to keep up with need,  impacting social services organizations tasked with helping area residents.

With grant allocations like this, Hertz and other advocates shine a light on housing and other vital community needs in Montgomery County.

“Hopefully it provides a level of stability and investment into their programs that helps to counter some of the impact that the state budget impact and the federal shutdown has had on communities, as well as the ongoing threat to reductions in housing funding at the federal level,” Hertz said.

“We know that our housing partners and our food security partners in particular are feeling the brunt of these challenges, and that’s one of the reasons why we chose to support housing as a focus area to ensure that those organizations that are providing critical housing support have funding available to them right now,” she said.

HealthSpark is a private, independent foundation created in 2002 from the sale of the North Penn Hospital in Lansdale. Originally known as the North Penn Community Health Foundation, it became HealthSpark Foundation in 2016 when services expanded to serve all of Montgomery County. Their website states: “Our mission is to achieve healthy, equitable, and hopeful communities throughout Montgomery County. Since our founding, we’ve made 1,044 grants totaling $18.4 million to 226 organizations.”