For a while now, the Verde Valley Homeless Coalition has been seeking a new and larger location for their drop-in center, to deal with the high traffic of homeless who come to their current location at 14 S. Main Street.
While their current location provides a room where the homeless can escape the summer heat, use computers and printers, watch movies, eat free snacks, and stock up on necessary supplies like water and clothing, the homeless coalition’s leaders have been seeking a place where they can fit more individuals and provide more services.
Last week, after a somewhat tumultuous search for a new location, the VVHC announced that they had settled on one, taking advantage of the mostly unused basement of the Living Water Church. The church had expressed enthusiastic interest in partnering with the homeless coalition, and were looking forward to the added monthly rent they would bring, and the opportunity for service from church members.
However, at the last minute, the plan to move the drop-in center to Living Water fell through.
“We went to code review on Tuesday, and it came out that it was zoned residential,” VVHC Executive Director Raena Avalon said. “There was no way to get a conditional use permit to be there, so the longest we could be there was months, which the temporary use permit gave us. The church needed to build a wall to give us the space, and they weren’t willing to build a wall for us if we were just going to be there three months.”
Avalon said that the homeless coalition is not planning to seek a zoning change or variance for the church land in order to deal with this problem, and is seeking a different location instead, though Living Water Pastor Rob Biggs expressed willingness to go forward with that.
“There’s a level of disappointment,” Biggs said of the partnership falling through. “As far as the church goes in support of them, that will continue. But our partnership in the building not happening is pretty disappointing.”
This is not the first time that a planned location for VVHC collapsed at the last minute. The homeless coalition had been working on plans to move to a larger location at 326 South 15th Street before the landlord pulled out. The landlord of their current location had asked them to be out by the end of the month, though he has given them the chance to stay in it until Friday, Sept. 6 to deal with the tumult.
“We don’t have anywhere to move to, so if nothing comes up before then, we’ll put the stuff in storage,” Avalon said. She remains hopeful that the homeless coalition will be able to find a new location, and said she is in discussion with several places around town but did not want to identify them until something was confirmed.
In the meantime, the likely gap between Sept. 6 and when the drop-in center can move into its new location will probably hurt the homeless population most.
“They’re going to be out in the heat. It’s very hot out, so the heat is a big factor right now,” Avalon said. “There is the library, but we have between 20 and 40 people a day who come in here, so that’s a lot of people out in the heat.”
