The city will pay a Lincoln-based nonprofit up to $645,000 to manage and care for the residents of the first city-owned permanent supportive housing project for chronically homeless people, set to open south of downtown later this year.
CenterPointe, the nonprofit health care provider partnering with the city to operate the supportive housing project at 810 J St., will be paid up to $645,819 to run the unique facility for one year under a contract Lincoln’s City Council considered Monday.
The contract, which the council will vote on next week, would begin Oct. 15 and could be renewed for two additional one-year terms. The city would pay CenterPointe up to $701,456 in the contract’s second year and $764,906 in the third.
Dan Marvin, the city’s Urban Development director, told the council that the annual cost would initially be covered by a combination of federal grants and tenant housing voucher payments that the city will collect as the property owner.
Should the council approve the contract, the nonprofit that focuses on mental health care and substance use treatment will effectively operate as an on-site property manager and support provider for the project aimed at reducing chronic homelessness in Lincoln.
“We knew that in order to do this, we needed to have a good operator,” Marvin said. “And … we got not only just a good operator, we’ve got a great operator.”
The $5.2 million project combines affordable housing — 24 studio apartments — with wraparound supportive services to help residents build independent living skills and connect them with health care and treatment services and employment opportunities.
CenterPointe offers more than 40 programs that will be available to apartment residents, including mental health and substance use therapy, primary care services, psychiatric medication management and pharmacy services.
Tami Lewis-Ahrendt, CenterPointe’s CEO, told the council Monday that the project will change “the trajectory of (tenants’) lives.”
“When people have safe housing and supportive services, they get better, sooner, for longer,” she said.
The nonprofit will staff the building 24 hours a day with security personnel and case managers, who will prioritize connecting residents with income sources — including jobs as well as assistance programs — and housing vouchers, which will ultimately help fund the building’s operation.
The apartments, which the city broke ground on last year, are designed for people considered chronically homeless: those who have a disabling condition and have been homeless for 12 months continuously or four times in the past three years.
The number of homeless people on any given night in Lincoln has decreased dramatically since January 2012, when there were 981 homeless people in the city, compared to 429 on a single January night in 2023.
But the percentage of Lincoln’s homeless who are experiencing chronic homelessness jumped from 12.4% of the homeless population in 2017 and 24% in 2023, when there were more than 130 chronically homeless people, according to a report from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s Center on Children, Families and the Law.
“This population represents the hardest to serve and the costliest to serve,” Jeff Chambers, a senior project director at the UNL center, told the council Monday, citing the strains that population can place on police, hospitals, jails, detox centers and other community services.
But, he said, projects like the city’s apartment building at 810 J St. “consistently improve outcomes for individuals while reducing community costs.”
Tenants for the two-story building — which will include 24 single-bed studio apartments with shared laundry, secure-entry lobby and reception area, common spaces including a covered front porch, kitchen, yard and garden — will be drawn from Lincoln’s coordinated entry system.
The city expects the building to open to tenants in late November or early December.
Among other items before the council on Monday:
LAND SOLD: The council voted 7-0 to approve the sale of a small plot of land in west Lincoln to a local construction company for about $50,000 less than the land’s assessed value.
Marvin, the Urban Development director, told the council last week that Malcolm Construction LLC’s offer of $93,000 for the land near West O Street and Northwest Roundhouse Drive was the highest of three offers the city received for the parcel.
The Lancaster County Assessor valued the 30,200-square-foot parcel at $143,450 this year. But Marvin noted the area is in the floodplain, and any structure built on the land can’t have a basement and must have a flow-through built underneath in case of a flood.
He said the company plans to build a construction office on the site.
Reach the writer at 402-473-7223 or awegley@journalstar.com. On Twitter @andrewwegley
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