Bethlehem 'Lodge' Breaking New Ground in Valley

When a couple of former residents from the Allentown State Hospital move into The Lodge on E. Fourth Street in Bethlehem this spring, they’ll have to settle for smaller digs than their cavernous old institution. But Aaik Van Munster is betting that the coffee will be a heck of a lot better.

That’s because they’ll be making their own gourmet java to serve at a café open to the public in the building at 427 E. Fourth Street, said Van Munster, director for The Lodge, a division of the non-profit Resources for Human Development.

In addition to the coffee shop, The Lodge will have a conference room, offices and workshops on the lower floors, and apartments for four people on the upper ones.

It will be a community hub for 12 Northampton County residents with mental illness who need some support from mental health staff but not constant supervision, he said. The eight who don’t live on site will stay in apartments nearby and go to The Lodge for work and recreation.

“Our first focus is to help them create a meaningful life,” Van Munster said during a tour of building, which is undergoing renovation. “The members will be running the coffee shop.”

Other Lodge members might set up a workshop in the basement where they can make money fixing computers or running a small shredding business. In the evening residents and members can join activities, such as a drumming circle, Van Munster said.

The Lodge isn’t considered a group home but rather “supportive housing” which will help the residents progress toward more independence.

“My vision is it becomes as self-sustaining as possible,” said Van Munster, a native of the Netherlands who now lives in Bethlehem. 

The program is modeled after Fairweather Lodges, named for psychologist George Fairweather, who developed the first one in the early 1960s in California. Fairweather found that people with serious mental illness do better in the community and are less likely to need hospitalization when they live and work together rather than being on their own.

Northampton County is using $580,367 in state funds to buy and renovate the The Lodge and will pay $489,968 to operate it for the first year, according to county officials. Two of the members will be former Allentown State Hospital residents and the other 10 will be people referred by case managers or treatment teams, Van Munster said.

“The concept they are working on in Bethlehem is very unique” to this area, said Janet Bandics, director of the Lehigh Valley chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness. “That would give (residents) some income and they would get to interact with people from the community.”

“These are people who want to have a normal life just like everybody else,” said Kathleen Kelly, administrator for the county’s mental health program.

Homes for people with mental illness sometimes run into opposition from neighbors but The Lodge hasn’t heard any complaints, Van Munster said. It probably helps that its immediate neighbors are Southside Engine Co. 1 and the Tammany Democratic Association. “Here, there are no neighbors that got panicky and afraid,” he said.

Advances in psychiatric medications and treatment have made it possible for millions of people with mental illness to live in communities. But jobs and activities that give them “something to talk about at the end of the day” can be the best treatment, Van Munster said, adding, “It beats Paxil.”