Flagstaff Shelter Services (FSS) has secured a $200,000 grant from the Arizona Housing Fund to help complete renovations on The Lantern, its second hotel-to-housing project for people experiencing homelessness in northern Arizona.

The new funding will help cover rising construction costs so the nonprofit can finish transforming a former Motel 6 on Lucky Lane into a mix of emergency shelter and longer-term supportive housing. Renovations are now expected to wrap up in October.

“It was a slow start because we had to work our way through a lot of challenges that were unforeseen when we bought the building,” said Ross Schaefer, FSS Executive Director. “We had to go slow so we could go fast now, but the project is really moving.”

When finished, The Lantern will offer 103 furnished units, including ADA-accessible spaces, each with its own kitchenette. New walkways, stairwells, and railings are already under construction while crews tackle the interior upgrades.

The Lantern will open first as a non-congregate emergency shelter for adults and then transition residents toward permanent supportive housing. The goal is to serve some of the community’s most vulnerable populations — including veterans, seniors, domestic violence survivors and people with medical needs.

“[We’re] really making sure that we’re responding to who’s going to need the room most and getting those people in first and foremost, because we want it to serve the most vulnerable," Schaefer said.

The Lantern is FSS’s second hotel conversion in Flagstaff. Its first, The Crown on Route 66, opened in 2022 and has already helped 483 people — families and children included — get off the streets.

“The difference between sleeping in the street and sleeping in your own space where you have a shower, you can lock your belongings up and have access to that, people just feel better," Schaefer said. “… We see that people can get on and out of homelessness when they can make use of these kinds of programs. I absolutely think it’s a model for who we’re serving.”

The new shelter will rely on the same “bridge housing” approach as The Crown, giving people safe, private space and connecting them to services that help them move into more permanent housing when available. Residents will have access to support for physical and mental health, help finding jobs, and basic essentials like clothing and hygiene supplies — resources Schaefer said can be the turning point in someone’s journey out of homelessness.

Both The Lantern and The Crown are staffed 24/7 for safety and support. Schaefer expects The Lantern to have 5–10 staff members on-site at all times.

She noted the COVID-19 pandemic gave FSS its first real experience operating hotel-based shelters — a model she says proved so effective that the nonprofit embraced it for the long term.

While the shelters are not intended as permanent housing, Schaefer said they provide a critical lifeline in a city where affordable units remain scarce and rents keep climbing.

“I think initially people thought that The Crown was going to be a blight on that side of town — in fact, I think it’s really added character and more of a community sense over there than has ever existed,” she said. “You’re seeing people who are going to work, getting access to jobs and healthcare … Thirty percent are self-resolving out of that program without us needing to place them somewhere else. Just by having their own space, they’re able to do those things.”

Looking ahead, Schaefer said FSS is open to more projects like The Lantern if the need exists. “We are not closed off from doing what the community needs us to do,” she said. “I think we have an incredibly astute board and leadership team that recognize we have an obligation to make sure we’re meeting the need programmatically and physically.”

Originally reported by Abigail Kessler in AZ Daily Sun.