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Transitional housing program expands into the East Valley thanks to $500K grant

The interior of an open-concept apartment's kitchen, countertop and front door can be seen in this image, featuring light wood floors and monochrome accents.
St. Joseph the Worker
Instead of paying the program around $200 in weekly rent, Workforce Village Program participants save most of their paychecks and attend on-site classes about budgeting and navigating the workplace.

A Valley-based nonprofit will use a half-million-dollar grant to expand its transitional housing program into the East Valley.

“We see people that move to Phoenix for an opportunity,” said St. Joseph the Worker COO Daren Strunk. “And if something doesn't work out or I'm in a relationship and somebody breaks up with somebody else, and it doesn't work out and they're not on the lease, do they have the money to move? Do they have the money to get into a new apartment? Most people don't have thousands of dollars saved up, and that's just to get in. That's not to actually have any sort of buffer.”

Pandemic-era funds from the CARES, or American Rescue Plan Acts, said Strunk, planted the seeds for the Workforce Villages program.

“What the vision for it was, was to be kind of mimicking what's the next step before you get your own apartment,” he said. “And so it really wasn't putting people into that environment. Some of the motels were not in the greatest area.”

Instead of paying the program around $200 in weekly rent, participants save the majority of their paychecks while taking on-site classes about budgeting and navigating the workplace.

Strunk said it’s because especially after the pandemic, the need for transitional housing has grown.

“People will resort to living in their cars,” said Strunk. “And if anyone's ever been to a shelter, it is not exactly a fun experience. There's a tremendous cost to the individual from a traumatic standpoint and to the taxpayer.”

With these new funds from the Bob & Renee Parsons Foundation, he said they’ll also be able to offer a 120-day version of the program added earlier this year, on top of the existing 90-day option.

Kirsten Dorman is a field correspondent at KJZZ. Born and raised in New Jersey, Dorman fell in love with audio storytelling as a freshman at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication in 2019.