Gas Boom Increases Housing Prices, Homelessness in Northern Pa.

A rural Pennsylvania county has opened its first-ever homeless shelter as influx of workers into the state’s burgeoning natural-gas industry is driving up the price of rental housing in the region, NPR reports.

A group of churches in northern Tioga County began providing shelter services in response to a rise in homelessness as the arrival of gas drillers with money to spend prices locals out of their homes.

“People who can’t find really nice housing move into OK housing. People in OK housing move into rundown housing, and people who are living in rundown housing, they fall off the ladder,” said Bonita Kolb, a Lycoming College professor who is researching the impact of the gas boom on the residential market.