In November, the Verde Valley Homeless Coalition moved to its current location at 654 N. Main St. in Cottonwood.
As a former warehouse, the building is much larger than its previous location but is not quite ideal to be used as a shelter. It lacks the necessary fire suppression infrastructure to be used regularly as a dwelling.
Although the city of Cottonwood has waived the need for an improved sprinkler system to allow the building to house up to 20 people overnight on nights when the temperature drops below 35 degrees F, it is for the most part relegated to its usual status as a daily drop-in center, not a regular shelter.
The VVHC is seeking grant money from the state of Arizona through the federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, which would open up funding for Cottonwood as an under-serviced area.
However, to get the money, the VVHC would have to turn into a permanent homeless shelter. For this reason, VVHC applied for a more expansive waiver from the city, allowing the shelter to be open every night. The coalition argued that they would deal with the lack of sprinklers by ensuring that at least two staff members would be awake at all times, in order to aid in evacuation in the case of emergency.
At a meeting on Tuesday, Sept. 15, the VVHC made its case before the Cottonwood City Council, which then voted 5-2 against extending the waiver. Mayor Tim Elinski, who is a member of the VVHC board, and Councilwoman Jackie Nairn, who was VVHC board president until 2019, were the two dissenting votes.
City staff were split in their recommendation, recognizing the urgent need for more homeless services in the area, but saying that the fire safety risks were too large to ignore.
“We, as the fire department, certainly understand the plight of the homeless,“ Cottonwood Fire Chief Mike Kuykendall said at the meeting. “The codes that we have that have been adopted by this council, including our sprinkler ordinances in those, were put in place to save lives and property both. The sprinkler ordinance … is like having 24-hour firemen on in the building, and it provides that. We certainly understand the desire of the homeless coalition to do this, but we have to oppose this, because our first concern is for life and safety.”
“We recently received a pretty substantial amount of money from the state of Arizona, and one of the reasons we received those funds was because the city of Cottonwood was recognized as a place where the homeless were underserved,” Laura Cox, a VVHC board member said at the meeting. “We’re excited that we can reverse that trend …. We’ve hired six people, pending your decision tonight, so that we can operate our over- night shelter on a regular basis.”
Council members who voted against the request cited fears of safety and did not want the city to be responsible for a disaster that could have been avoided.
“It’s commendable what you’re trying to do, [but] I’m going to go with my conscience and I’m going to vote with our public safety professionals,” Vice Mayor Michael Mathews said. “If something were to happen, I don’t want that on my conscience.”
Without the ability to open a permanent shelter, the VVHC is likely not going to be able to get the grant funding they are seeking. Installing sprinklers in the building will be difficult for the VVHC, both due to the costs of the improvements and due to the VVHC not currently owning its building, though they are trying to raise funds to purchase it from the Chenoweth family, who have given the VVHC permission to use the building.
“The cost of it is just very, very expensive,” Board President Carol Quasula said of installing a sprinkler system. Quasula did not say what the VVHC’s next steps would be, but she said that the impact on the group’s funding for the services they want to offer to the community could be large.
“We’re going to be talking to the funders, but pretty much that’s the situation,” Quasula said. “Because Cottonwood is so underserved in terms of shelter, [the state] really did offer the funds to us because they wanted a shelter, but they wanted a full-time shelter.”
