Burns’ strategy continues paying Women’s Help Center dividends
$31,431 state grant replaces dangerous heating, broken cooling systems
Rep. Frank Burns June 25, 2025 | 12:24 PM
EBENSBURG, June 25 – State Rep. Frank Burns’ ability to bring a special assistant to the House majority leader to his district to assess needs opened a channel of communication for the Johnstown Women’s Help Center that continues paying big dividends.
“As a result of Frank coming here with Matt McCarry, we got funding for rental assistance, and some funds for shelter operations,” said Roxann Tyger, Help Center executive director, of $450,000 and $225,000 grants. “We’ve been able to maintain the connection with Matt, and Frank’s involvement has helped us through two funding cycles.
“Frank’s been wonderful.”
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“Frank’s involvement has helped us through two funding cycles. Frank’s been wonderful.” – Roxann Tyger, executive director, Johnstown Women’s Help Center.
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The funding successes to flow through the pipeline opened by Burns, D-Cambria, include a $31,431 grant to replace the Help Center’s two broken building air conditioners and a gas-fired boiler that had deteriorated to the point of being extremely unreliable.
“The boiler was so old that when we had an energy audit two years ago, and they couldn’t even say how old it was,” Tyger said. “It was becoming dangerous. We had to keep restarting it. The shelter could be in a position where it didn’t have any heat, until someone who knew how to restart it could actually get here.”
Tyger said the Help Center, which houses between 28 and 35 women and children at any given time – and once had 19 children under its roof – won’t have undue building heating and cooling concerns because of fixes enabled by the state grant.
“Those are very expensive items to replace. Getting that funding was incredibly crucial,” Tyger said. “Really it has been pretty monumental to us, to get that level of (state) attention to the housing issues here in Cambria County.”
Tyger said the state grant may also assist the Help Center with upgrading one of its three bathrooms – all of which have only bathtubs – to include a walk-in shower for improved accessibility.
Burns said the Women’s Help Center experience is working out exactly as he envisioned when he convinced McCarry, a senior staffer for House Majority Leader Matt Bradford, D-Montgomery, to come to Cambria County for a tour and firsthand assessment of needs.
“This gave Roxann and other staff members the opportunity to express why they needed funding,” Burns said. “They did their part, I keep doing mine, and the continued results are self-evident.”