Helena organizations are making strides to help solve problems around housing insecurity in the city by creating new permanent supportive places to live and establishing a new family shelter, according to nonprofit officials.
The United Way of Lewis and Clark Area announced earlier this month that the nonprofit is purchasing the Helena Inn, 2300 N. Oakes St., to renovate and build apartments available to those who hold vouchers through the Department of Housing and Urban Development and those seeking affordable housing.
The nonprofit has been working with the Helena Inn’s owners and its manager, Peter Sangwan, for the past several months to help temporarily house people through its partner agencies. With limited locations and infrastructure in the city, the hotel stepped forward to help, according to United Way’s director, Emily McVey.
“I think the Helena Inn actually chose us,” McVey told Montana Free Press. “[Sangwan] sees the need and is very understanding of the needs of the community and really came to us and said, ‘What do you think about converting this into something different?’”
The hotel, which sits on about 2.5 acres, will be just a fraction of the solution to the overall lack of Helena housing options, according to McVey and United Way’s community impact director, Jeff Buscher. The project is estimated to cost about $5 million, and grant applications and other fundraising are in the works, McVey said.
Renovations will be aimed at turning the rooms into single-living studio apartments with a few family-sized units. According to McVey, United Way currently sees about 40 people with federal housing vouchers each week but often can’t find them housing in Helena that qualifies for the program.
“Does it meet a need? Absolutely, but it is a very kind of specific slice of the pie if you will,” Buscher said. “It does meet a need that there just isn’t out there right now. It’s not quite move-in ready, but really close. This is not five years away. It’s months away.”
United Way is a part of the Montana Continuum of Care Coalition, which is made up of other Helena service providers that include local nonprofits, and mental health and addiction professionals working towards the same housing goals at four different levels.
Level one addresses the need for emergency shelters, and level two provides transition housing for those looking for long-term options. Level three is permanent supportive housing that is meant for low-cost independent living for individuals, couples and families and provides basic supportive services such as addiction recovery, mental health treatment, financial literacy and other costs such as moving expenses and utility deposits.
“It’s much more cost-effective to keep people stably housed than to have them become homeless and have to deal with the trauma and those kinds of effects on children.”
Renee Bauer, Family Promise
Level four is affordable independent living, which according to the coalition, is an area the community needs to focus its efforts on. The Helena Area Habitat for Humanity, the YWCA and the Rocky Mountain Development Council are currently working on a project to develop affordable housing on land by Our Redeemers Lutheran Church, according to nonprofit officials.
Some nonprofits already have projects in the works that meet those housing needs. God’s Love offers an emergency shelter, and Good Samaritan Ministries has been working to secure a location for an emergency women’s shelter. The United Way’s Helena Inn project is set to be a permanent supportive housing option.
Recently the nonprofit and coalition member, Family Promise of Greater Helena, shared its plans to expand services and build a family shelter, creating additional transitional housing.
Renee Bauer, the executive director of Family Promise, told MTFP that the nonprofit’s location at 2814 N. Cook St., will be renovated into a 14-room family shelter and that the nonprofit also purchased the First Christian Church, 311 Power St., for $1.
In 2023, Family Promise served 205 families and more than 500 children, and those numbers are growing. Bauer said that Family Promise also has about 28 families, some of whom live in their vehicles, on a waiting list.
Family Promise plans to use the church as an administrative office and as a space to hold classes focusing on financial literacy, parenting, and homelessness prevention and diversion programs that assist parents who need financial help on a day-to-day basis.
“That prevention and diversion program I love because it’s been proven that it’s much more cost-effective to keep people stably housed than to have them become homeless and have to deal with the trauma and those kinds of effects on children,” Bauer said.
Family Promise received about $250,000 from the city in federal American Rescue Plan Act funds, as well as grants to help pay for the $1.25 million project. Bauer said the project has required a collaborative effort from the community.
“It really is a matter of working with everybody in town to kind of collectively find the resources to take care of our people. It’s those collaborations that make it work,” Bauer said. “I think we all work well together. We have to. It’s the only thing that makes it all work.”
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