Iowa City shelter stays on track for scheduled opening

Standing between rows of bare beams and piles of sawdust, Crissy Canganelli looks around and sees a kitchen for culinary training, a classroom for financial seminars and an office where a nurse soon will provide medical care.

Out the back windows overlooking a nearby mobile home park, she sees a reminder of the years of legal battles that have stood between the Shelter House and its future.

Iowa City's new $4 million homeless shelter is taking shape at 429 Southgate Ave. and remains on track to make the move from downtown to the city's south side in late October.

Workers from Seydel Construction are transforming a once-empty lot into a nearly 15,000-square-foot facility that will more than triple the number of people the shelter can sleep. The dramatic space increase also will allow Shelter House to provide new programs not possible in its current cramped home at 331 N. Gilbert St.

"It really is exciting to know that we're moving forward," said Canganelli, the shelter's director. "To be able to actually see these spaces come to life, it's hard to put words to. It's been a long journey."

That journey has included all too many stops in courtrooms for Canganelli.

After the Iowa City Board of Adjustment granted a special exception in 2004 that allowed the shelter to expand to Southgate Avenue, about 20 property owners appealed the decision. A district court judge overturned the special exception, but in March 2008, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled in favor of Shelter House, allowing it to break ground on Southgate.

The legal wrangling isn't over, however.

Shelter House has been back in court in June with Hilltop Mobile Home Park to settle a dispute over the placement of the property line where the shelter is required to build a fence.

"I would prefer that our energy be focused on figuring out how to live together in this neighborhood," Canganelli said. "There is a two-story building here now. I'm much more interested in investing our energy in trying to see what it is we can do to be good neighbors, and educating the community as to the resources that are available here, and helping people better understand who it is we're working with here."

Dottie Persson, president of Shelter House's board of directors, said she's "overjoyed" to see the new facility coming to fruition. She said that even in the years where progress had stalled, she and others never gave up hope that the project would come to pass.

"It's going to be a major difference for us, a major improvement, and it's just going to be a better facility for the clients, staff and all the volunteers," Persson said. "It's a facility the whole community can be proud of and that the neighborhood can be pleased with."

The new facility will be a dramatic change from the current shelter, an old single-family home where at most 29 people can be crammed in using pullout bunks, couches and floor mats. After it makes the move, Shelter House will have room for 70, including 14 beds reserved for veterans.

The first floor will include a cafeteria and commercial-grade kitchen, where cooking programs are planned to train people for restaurant work. On the other side of the building will be a training room for workshops on topics such as hygiene, budgeting, employment and anger management.

Nearby will be the congregate area, a nurse's station and counseling and outreach offices. The men's, women's and veterans' dorms will be upstairs, along with several family rooms and study and play areas.

A drop-in center with showers and laundry facilities will be available for the general public from 1 to 4 p.m. daily.

With veterans making up about 15 percent of the clients currently served by Shelter House, the agency has received funding from the Department of Veterans Affairs to assist former servicemen. Veterans will be able to stay for up to two years, compared with the 90 days for other clients.

Canganelli said with the VA Medical Center in Iowa City, she expects the 14 beds to get plenty of use. She said too often in the past there has not been space for veterans.

"I've literally been at the facility when a veteran has been at the door, looked at the person next to them and said, 'You're going to need that bed more than I am,' and walked off," Canganelli said. "That's happened quite a number of times."

Public grants, including a $2.6 million injection from I-Jobs, account for 70 percent of the new shelter's funding. Individuals, faith groups, civic groups and local businesses make up 20 percent, and private grants and private foundations 10 percent, she said.

Canganelli said with the expanded space and services, she's expecting to add to her staffing, which now has the equivalent of 16.5 full-time positions. There also will be more volunteer opportunities, and she's hoping that many of the more than 400 people who have helped make the annual winter overflow efforts possible will transition into new support roles.