She said she hopes Project Haven serves as a model to create more shelters across metro Phoenix. Glow said CASS hopes to open the facility by next summer. It will be a closed facility, meaning only residents who have been cleared to stay at Project Haven will be allowed, and there will be full-time security. Otherwise, all participants will have their own rooms and bathrooms. The new Project Haven will have 130 rooms and could serve up to 170 people ages 55 or older at one time if there are people who want to share a room. Phoenix and the Arizona Department of Housing provided additional pandemic relief funds to help CASS purchase the Phoenix Inn and make Project Haven permanent. Get (seniors) out of the mass shelters and get them into more dignified spaces," Glow said. Participants stayed an average of 60-120 nights before leaving for permanent housing. The temporary senior shelter, called "Project Haven," saw higher rates of successful exits to permanent housing than CASS's main downtown shelter, Glow said. The organization later expanded the program with 20 additional rooms. Phoenix provided CASS with CARES Act funding, allowing the organization to rent 65 rooms in a north Phoenix hotel, where it placed the most vulnerable older adults in private rooms with their own bathrooms. Prior to the pandemic, people 55 and older took up almost 40% of the 500 shelter beds at the downtown CASS shelter.įor subscribers: 'Silver tsunami' of homeless seniors spurs proposal for West Valley shelterĬASS CEO Lisa Glow has been advocating for a separate senior shelter for the past several years.ĭuring the pandemic, she got to test out the idea through a partnership with Phoenix. Nationally, the epidemic is dubbed the "silver tsunami." Older adults are the fastest-growing homeless population in the Phoenix area and across the country as housing prices climb and those on fixed incomes can't keep up. "Today's decision is really historic for getting support from neighborhoods to accept shelters in their neighborhoods," said neighborhood leader Jeff Spellman. Several neighborhood leaders even testified in support of the project at the zoning hearing, saying it would improve the area. Neighborhood opposition has killed dozens of homeless shelter projects in metro Phoenix and across the country.ĬASS cleared that hurdle, too, after spending almost a year with the surrounding neighborhoods building trust and comfort with the project. The Arizona Department of Housing will provide $7.5 million toward the purchase of the hotel, and the Phoenix City Council approved an additional $4 million that CASS will use to rehab the property and beautify the grounds.īut funding often is not the largest hurdle for homeless shelters. In late September, Phoenix granted Central Arizona Shelter Services a use permit to operate a 130-room shelter out of the old Phoenix Inn near Northern Avenue and Interstate 17. View Gallery: Central Arizona Center turning Phoenix Inn into a senior shelterĪ new shelter for homeless older adults will open in Phoenix next year after winning support from surrounding neighborhood groups. To support regional Arizona news coverage like this, make a tax deductible donation at. The Republic’s coverage of northern Arizona is funded, in part, with grants from Vitalyst Health Foundation and Report from America. The Flagstaff hospital is currently the only Level 1 trauma facility north of Phoenix and serves more than 50,000 square miles across northern Arizona. The city's Planning and Zoning Commission was split when discussing the proposal earlier this month, ultimately recommending that city councilmembers deny the application for the project. The second phase of the project will include housing, a hotel and healthcare-centered retail and restaurants to complete the health and wellness village. If approved, construction is expected to cost $800 million and be completed in 2027. The first phase of the proposed plan includes a new 700,000-square-foot hospital to replace the aging location north of downtown Flagstaff. Northern Arizona Healthcare proposed a new hospital and health and wellness village to be built on more than 170 acres north of Fort Tuthill County Park and west of Interstate 17.ĭozens of community members spoke during the hours-long public comment section of the meeting, a majority of whom were in favor of the plan, while others called for more research to be done before a decision is made. After a nearly eight-hour-long city council meeting Tuesday night, Flagstaff councilmembers voted to postpone a vote on the city's proposed new hospital campus.įlagstaff City Council is scheduled to vote on whether to approve phase one of the project and whether to rezone the land on May 16.
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