Converted Page hotel to serve as transitional apartments; more affordable housing on the way

PAGE — Less than a year after breaking ground on a hotel-to-housing conversion in Page, the Pinyon Pointe Apartments will welcome its first tenants by the end of the month.

Housing for Hope, an affiliate of Catholic Charities Community Services, has transformed the former 39-room hotel into 20 apartments, a mix of studios, one-bedroom and two-bedroom units. After five years, the building will turn into permanent housing units for the Page community.

Tenants in the transitional housing program can stay up to two years while paying below-market rent and working with case managers to eventually get set up with permanent housing.

"It's very important for us that we try to build in more bedrooms because we're not just serving individuals, we're trying to serve families," said Steve Capobres, Catholic Charities Vice President of Business Development and Executive Director of Housing for Hope.

The bulk of the funding for the Pinyon Pointe project comes from the Arizona Department of Housing, which provided $6.3 million for the purchase of the hotel, along with the Arizona Housing Fund, a private philanthropic effort to fund more housing for the homeless in Arizona.

Unlike other affordable housing initiatives like tiny home villages and converted shipping containers, these projects benefit from utilizing an existing building footprint and some of its infrastructure.

Construction for these hotel-to-housing conversions typically run anywhere between six to eight months, Capobres said. Because these projects primarily involve knocking down interior walls and adding extra plumbing, they can typically be built quicker and cheaper than a brand-new construction project, he said.

"I personally like hotel conversions more to than starting with a raw piece of dirt and having to figure out the on-site improvements and all the infrastructure stuff that goes into these things," Capobres said. "It's just an added cost that we didn't have to undertake."

Places like Pinyon Pointe serve as a bridge between an emergency shelter and long-term housing.

"Many times, when you're coming off the street you're not ready to just go into a permanent housing situation," Capobres said. "It helps to have a transitional environment where you can stay longer, develop a case plan, figure out what the goals are to try to improve their situation and that takes a little time."

Residents will be connected with local resources for assistance with medical treatment, mental health, and substance abuse counseling; partnerships with local and statewide food banks to provide supplemental food opportunities; and additional support necessary for stability, such as navigating justice requirements, according to Housing for Hope.

It often doesn't take the whole two years, Capobres said, with many people able to get help and move toward permanent housing within just eight or nine months.

"In emergency shelters, you don't have that luxury of having that time to really get to know someone, earn their trust, have a case plan and help them achieve their goals and some level of success," Capobres said. "So when they do move on their own, they have the confidence of being able to be stable and independent and not fall back in the system."

To pay for the extra operating costs that come with running a transitional housing project — namely the extensive support staff who work regularly with residents — the organization relies heavily on outside financial support from local governments and other philanthropic organizations like the United Way of Arizona and the Arizona Community Foundation.

"We come alongside people and we walk with them," Capobres said of the services they provide. "That's really what people need. They need someone to walk with them, that they trust, that they can talk to."

Capobres said the organization is looking for future housing projects across northern Arizona where they already have existing staff to work closely with tenants.

Housing for Hope currently has two active projects underway in northern Arizona. Pending a building permit that Capobres said was "imminent," the aging Route 66 Motel in Kingman will soon be transformed into 20 units of transitional housing known as the Joshua Tree Apartments.

They are also partnered with the Foundation for Senior Living on a 65-unit affordable housing project in an old Catholic school in downtown Flagstaff.

The organization has also been in talks with landowners in Sedona and Prescott Valley for future housing pending outside funding, Capobres said.

Down in the Valley, Catholic Charities is opening their largest apartment project yet — a 297-unit called Mesquite Terrace — in Phoenix on May 16.

Reach the reporter at LLatch@gannett.com.

The Republic’s coverage of northern Arizona is funded, in part, with a grant from Report for America. To support regional Arizona news coverage like this, make a tax-deductible donation at supportjournalism.azcentral.com.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Catholic Charities opens 20-unit transitional housing project in Page