From Church of the Red Rocks UCC:

Update on our project to address homelessness.

Vision – Provide temporary housing for homeless children and their families.

Name – Hope House of Sedona
Grant – CDBG through HUD for $300K; working on formal application to HUD, due at the end of May; will receive grant funds at end of year
Hope House of Sedona will eventually become a 501(c)(3), similar to Verde Valley Caregivers Coalition.

Thank you for your generosity. An anonymous donor gave $20K, with the idea of it being used as matching funds. Per HUD rules, all the money to be used property acquisition and construction must be committed by May 31st when the application is due. We are hoping to receive contributions for project startup within the next month. Once Hope House is up and running, we will need additional contributions to offset operating expenses. The Palm Sunday and Easter collections at The Church of the Red Rocks raised $9K and we received a Rotary grant for $1K. We currently have $380,000 for the project and are hoping for at least another $20,000 by the end of May. Checks can be made payable to “The Church of the Red Rocks” with “Hope House” in the memo. Note that all money for Hope House is being tracked separately.

Determining factors for property acquisition:

Cost of the project.
Available properties (or lack thereof).
Buy a house and fix up vs. buy land and build.
Residential restricted to single family and very few areas are zoned for multi-family.
Building codes. No RVs (incl. Park Model homes), must meet International Residential Code (IRC) standards
What can we afford? Grant money ($300,000) plus ~$80K from church

We have looked at homes and at properties. The choices are very limited in Sedona. We are currently focusing on vacant property on Shelby Dr., just behind the recycling center. The zoning there is Industrial which would allow multifamily, rather than the single family allowed in Residential zoning. We could bring in 3 manufactured homes with room to expand to 5 or 6 homes in future.

We want to correct some misinformation. The owner is not giving us the property. The original intention was for us to acquire the property at a low cost but that would have involved a long-term lease. Leasing is not covered by grant money. We are investigating purchasing the land on Shelby Dr.

The grant would pay for purchase of land and most of cost of homes. There are also a number of permits, fees, etc. that must be addressed. No church annual budget money is involved with this; only mission monies and extra gifts.

God is at work through us as we put our faith into action. Thank you.