Flagstaff Shelter Services' put to bed years of work in November with the opening of the Lantern.
It’s the nonprofit’s latest project to convert a hotel into housing for more than 100 residents struggling with homelessness.
Dozens of public officials and residents gathered Tuesday morning to celebrate its grand opening.
Among them was 68-year-old Glenn Ezell, who once worked as a food scientist before he fell on hard times.
“I absolutely had no intention of being homeless nor staying at the shelter services,” Ezell says. “And 15 years ago, my wife passed from colon cancer. I lost purpose and struggled for many years.”
Two weeks ago, he was among the first to move into the Lantern.
“To walk into something that was familiar from a former life of mine: I traveled a lot; I stayed in hotel facilities. It gives me back dignity and reminds me that I have worth and that I matter,” Ezell says.
The state of Arizona’s Department of Housing partially funded the project with money from the American Rescue Plan.
“I've worked with homeless individuals my entire career as a social worker, so it's a huge priority for my administration” says Gov. Katie Hobbs who was on hand for the event. “It takes a lot of partnership to make something like this happen.”
Hobbs says addressing the rising costs of living is a priority and she hopes to see more out-of-the-box ideas like the Lantern.
“There's a lot of empty hotels like this all over the state, and this is the kind of model we should be following in terms of what works,” Hobbs says.
It’s the second hotel Shelter Services has converted.
In 2022, the group rechristened a former Howard Johnson motel on Route 66 as the Crown to provide housing to families in need.
Executive Director Ross Schaefer says she’s seen firsthand how having a private room can provide much-needed stability for her clients.
“At the Crown in the first year that folks moved over there, we saw 30% of our folks self-resolve out of homelessness simply by having access to their own room,” Schaefer says. “So we know this works. We know housing is healthcare.”
The Lantern isn’t designed to be permanent housing.
But Schaefer says it’ll primarily serve seniors and the most medically vulnerable, like those who are immunocompromised, to bring them out of the group shelter.
“We're really talking about the people that are most likely to die on the streets. And so we want to get them out of those situations and into their own unit as quickly as possible,” Schaefer says.
The additional shelter capacity could be a lifesaving measure in a city that sees an average of 100 inches of snow a year and months of freezing temperatures.
“We know that people just do better when they have their own roof and their own room to go home to. It makes real sense.”
