City of Boise approves $2M to keep hotel shelter open

BOISE - In a 5-1 vote on Tuesday, Boise City Council approved $2.2 million in American Rescue Plan Act money to keep Interfaith Sanctuary’s hotel shelter open.

The shelter, which opened in 2020, serves homeless families and the medically fragile. While council members gave their OK, they were not very happy.

“The funds were available,” Councilmember Jimmy Hallyburton said. “It’s not how I think anybody would have loved to have used them. I think people would like to have had some more permanent solutions. But with the crisis that we’re experiencing in Boise and a rising issue with housing affordability and homelessness, there just weren’t a lot of options.”

Interfaith Sanctuary Executive Director Jodi Peterson-Stigers agreed the shelter is not a sustainable long-term solution.

“It’s not ideal conditions for us,” she said. “But that being said, it is far better than to have this very vulnerable population out on the street. And so, we figure out how to make it work as we create forward solutions that will hopefully create more permanent housing and also create more shelter beds.”

Mary Selet, who moved into the shelter with her husband and son about two months ago, said she is “excited and thankful” councilmembers approved the money.

The family heard about Interfaith after moving to Boise from Iowa. She said they became homeless after not being able to find housing within their budget.

Selet said she and her husband both work and are saving the money they earn.

“It means so much,” she said. “It gives us shelter. We’re not on the street, nor the car, nor the expensive hotels.”

Peterson-Stigers said Interfaith still needs $1 million before construction starts on a new homeless shelter. Currently, the nonprofit can help about 165 people at its downtown shelter on River Street near Americana Boulevard.

The new location, in the former Salvation Army building on State Street, will serve 205 people. Once that opens, she said some people from the hotel can move there.

Several families will likely also be able to move into affordable housing units the city is working on, Hallyburton said.

“What we hope for as a council and the mayor’s office is … let’s get these projects funded,” he said. “Let’s get these folks out of the hotel so we don’t have to continue to invest funds into a situation that again, isn’t ideal for the people that are living there.”

Originally published March 14 on KTVB.COM.People living at the Red Lion Hotel will have a roof over their heads for another year.