An old, 25-room motel in Kingman has been bought by a local charity and is being turned into an affordable housing complex for city residents who are experiencing homelessness.
Housing for Hope has been awarded a $4.5 million grant from President Joe Biden’s American Rescue Plan Fiscal Recovery Funds to develop affordable housing in Kingman. The charity will also receive at least $500,000 from the Arizona Department of Housing, as long as it is first used as a transitional housing shelter.
The 10,000 square-foot Route 66 Motel, located at located at 2939 E. Andy Devine Avenue, will soon be known as the Joshua Tree Apartments, which will have a total of 20 units: 11 studios and nine one-bedroom apartments.
That’s huge for Kingman, the city with the highest rate of homelessness in all of Mohave County. At any given time, 91 Kingman residents are unhoused, which means this new complex has the capacity to house at least one-fifth of all homeless residents in the city.
The building will also have space for property management and maintenance staff, as well as wrap-around services for residents. Wraparound services are becoming more common in facilities like these, and what that means is there will be services on-site to help residents get their entire life in a stable position—because usually, even if someone has housing, they still need a job, or help with case management, or medical services.
This old motel-turned-new affordable housing complex is scheduled to open next spring. Housing for Hope is also partnering with WestCare Behavioral Health, Kingman Regional Medical Center, and several of the county’s public service departments to help residents expedite everything from court hearings to getting an ID.
But it won’t be affordable housing to start: for the first five years, Joshua Tree Apartments will operate as a transitional housing program, and then turn it into permanent supportive housing units after that.
Residents will also be required to pay rent to help cover operational costs. The rent will be set at 30% of their income.
Camaron Stevenson Camaron is the Founding Editor and Chief Political Correspondent for The Copper Courier, and has worked as a journalist in Phoenix for over a decade. He also teaches multimedia journalism at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University.
