MISSOULA — After years of little progress, a project intended to house homeless veterans in Missoula could be closer to construction, the city's mayor said on Monday night.
The Poverello Center purchased the old Clark Fork Inn on West Broadway in 2021, using $1 million provided by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
At the time, the project was expected to cost around $3.7 million.
“It's been a couple of years in the making. It has been boarded up for some time. We're all excited to see that under construction,” Mayo Andrea Davis said.
The Poverello has been working to secure the funding needed to redevelop portions of the facility into transitional housing for homeless veterans.
Missoula County in 2022 landed roughly $600,000 to help the project and, last week, the Missoula City Council directed another $247,000 to the project from state grants.
The city and county also contributed around $830,000 each to the project from the old American Rescue Plan Act.
“It takes a lot of different funding stacks to make projects like that work,” said Davis. “They are basically getting their design development underway.”
The Housing Montana's Heroes Program has been operating at the Poverello's existing shelter over the last decade.
It serves around 20 homeless veterans in semi-private rooms.
But the shelter remains a congregant setting and the VA is pushing to provide veterans with more privacy during their path toward independence and recovery.
The new facility will include roughly 17 private living units.
