A Las Cruces-based organization dedicated to securing housing for those in need of it, has announced plans to build a new complex.
For roughly a quarter of a century, the nonprofit Mesilla Valley Community of Hope has been providing transitional shelter for homeless individuals and families in metro Las Cruces.
The group launched its efforts in early 1998 with the construction of a $1.6 million center at 999 W. Amador Avenue designed to provide an array of services to the homeless.
It opened what is called Camp Hope in 2011, a designated tent community for up to 50 people or so on land owned by the MVCH, with a roughly $65,000 shower and bathroom facility built on the same site in 2016.
A reporter for the publication Searchlight New Mexico late last year noted that Camp Hope is made up of “orderly rows of tents, most of them protected from the elements by three-sided lean-tos.”
Members of the Las Cruces City Council earlier gave their approval to the nearly $4 million purchase of 4.8 acres of land that formerly belonged to the Brewer Oil Company to be used for MVCH’s purposes.
As planned, the project will see the construction of a three-story housing facility, along with an open-air courtyard. An existing health care facility run by MVCH will be expanded, while the group’s busy soup kitchen will be moved to another part of the site.
An exact schedule for when work will begin on the MVCH facility project has not yet been announced.
By Garry Boulard
