Tempe, Maricopa County break ground on East Valley shelter and services center

Tempe Community Action Agency and Maricopa County broke ground on the East Valley Housing, Health and Human Services Center, organizers said. The project will combine expanded food distribution, a commercial kitchen for senior meals and Meals on Wheels, and shelter and housing units aimed at people experiencing homelessness.

Speakers at the event said the center will include a market-style food pantry and a commercial-grade kitchen for Meals on Wheels and other senior meals. "This new facility will hold our expanded food pantry, which will become a market style pantry, a commercial kitchen for Meals on Wheels and all of the senior meals that we do, as well as a permanent shelter," Speaker 3, a staff member, said. "So we'll have 68 beds in a permanent shelter with 12 transitional housing unit beds."

Organizers said Maricopa County provided $6,000,000 toward construction. Speaker 2, a speaker at the event, said the center will provide case management and human services intended to help people create plans to exit homelessness. "Along with providing shelter, the new center will offer case management and human services to help people create a plan to exit homelessness," Speaker 2 said.

Speakers described the center as a change from the rotating shelter model that served some people until now. "Currently, our I help shelter moves from faith community to faith community. So we're relying on our faith community partners to host in their buildings overnight, but participants can't arrive until 4, 4 30, and they have to be out of the building by 06:30AM. It's not conducive to some of our seniors," Speaker 3 said, describing the limits of the previous approach.

Officials at the event pointed to demographic shifts among people experiencing homelessness. "So what we have seen in Maricopa County and all of our communities is that 1 of our growing populations of those individuals that are experiencing homelessness are those individuals that are age 65 and above," Speaker 1 said. "And that's why we're so very, happy to be partnering with amazing organizations like Tempe Community Action Agency." Speaker 2 added that the center's transitional housing will be located along the light rail to help residents access transportation.

Event speakers also noted employment among shelter residents. "Anywhere from 50 to 75% of our shelter population is employed," Speaker 3 said. Organizers emphasized the combined services are intended to reconnect people to services and support exits from homelessness; at the event one speaker argued the approach could serve as a model elsewhere in Arizona. "So the fact of the matter is if we have ways of doing things like this that are helping folks, getting them back on their feet, providing shelter, reconnecting them to services, this is exactly what we should be doing and frankly what all cities and towns across the state of Arizona should do," Speaker 4 said.

No construction timeline, operational start date, or additional funding sources were specified during the remarks.