Housing Solutions of Northern Arizona has purchased the Travelodge motel along Route 66 on the west side of Flagstaff, Arizona, and will convert it into housing for the homeless by next year.
KAFF radio in Flagstaff reported that Housing Solutions, with funding help from the Arizona Department of Housing, purchased the property at 2918 E. Route 66 on Monday and will rehabilitate and convert the 44-unit motel into studio apartments, each with their own bathrooms and kitchens,
The station reported:
The property will be part of a new transitional housing program, aimed at helping homeless households to secure safe, decent and affordable housing while having access to wrap-around support services to transition to permanent stable housing. The money will come from the Community Development Block Grant, which was part of CARES Act funding passed by Congress.
Once the property is renovated and up to code, it will be open for residents in the late spring or early summer of 2022.
The Arizona Daily Sun reported the motel will be renamed JoJo’s Place, after a past resident of Housing Solutions’ Sharon Manor Transitional Housing Facility who escaped violence and found permanent housing for her family. A groundbreaking will be held on Oct. 5.
Lack of affordable housing in Flagstaff has become an acute problem in recent years. According to 2018 U.S. Census data, 49% of all households in the city are low-income and 45% of all households are housing cost-burdened, which means they are paying more than 30% of their gross monthly income towards housing.
According to the archives of the Arizona Daily Sun in Flagstaff, the motel dates to about 1959. A Sun article in 1958 announced the purchase of land on that site for a new Travelodge.
The Travelodge for several years was listed in the now-defunct Route 66 Dining and Lodging Guide published by the National Historic Route 66 Federation. We stayed there about 20 years ago during one of our mega-Route 66 trips.
(Image of the Travelodge motel in Flagstaff, Arizona, via its website)
This TraveLodge to be converted to homeless housing at 2918 E. Route 66 is not the original TraveLodge from the late 1950s. The original Flagstaff TraveLodge was built and operated at 801 West Highway 66. This original TraveLodge operated as a TraveLodge through the 1980s at least. Sometime in the 1990s new ownership renamed it the Travel Inn 66 as I recall. More recently it became a Howard Johnson motel which is what it operates as today.