Las Vegas shelter to open 16-bed transitional housing program
The Shade Tree women’s shelter will restart a segment of its transitional housing program at a 16-apartment complex in Las Vegas.
Shelter leaders announced plans in August to close the 160-bed transitional housing program because of a funding shortfall, and launched a $2.3 million fundraising effort — the amount Executive Director Stacey Lockhart said was needed to reopen and operate the shelter’s transitional housing.
“We’re not quite where we need to be,” she said Friday. “We still need to raise more money.”
The Shade Tree is about halfway to its fundraising goal, Lockhart said.
A new partnership with Las Vegas Family Housing Villages, an affordable housing nonprofit recently created by Veterans Village founder Arnold Stalk, will allow some women to move from The Shade Tree 90-day emergency shelter into furnished apartments with stocked kitchens.
However, the 16 apartments still need work, and Lockhart said she didn’t have an estimate for when women would be able to move in.
Women will be able to live in the apartments for up to a year, with access to The Shade Tree case managers, financial assistance and other services, while they work to find permanent housing, Lockhart said.
The Shade Tree has continued to operate its emergency shelter, which houses women and their children for up to 90 days, despite the transitional housing program’s closure.
Stalk called developing more affordable and transitional housing “the only solution to the homeless problem in Southern Nevada.”
Stalk, Lockhart and Las Vegas city officials gathered for the Friday announcement at the Veterans Village #2 campus. The new Shade Tree apartments sit next to the building on the Veterans Village campus that houses female veterans.
Las Vegas ranks among the 10 U.S. cities with the largest homeless populations, according to an annual report by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
The city of Las Vegas is slated to expand one of its programs for the homeless next month, when the homeless services courtyard at Foremaster Lane and Las Vegas Boulevard is slated to move to a 24/7 operation. The courtyard is modeled after the Haven for Hope in San Antonio.
“We have a huge wave that got caught in bad challenges,” Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman said. “We want them to come into the Corridor of Hope, to find food, sanitation and safety, and to be able to make their lives better.”
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Contact Jamie Munks at jmunks@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0340. Follow @Journo_Jamie_ on Twitter.