WENATCHEE — A Wenatchee church has decided not to pursue building onsite housing for homeless college students.
Grace Lutheran Church, located on Washington Street, was considering spending $700,000 to build 12 self-contained cottages that would have served single students, especially former foster children, or single-parent students and their children.
However, about two-thirds of the congregation voted to rescind approval for the project during a meeting Sunday.
“It was rescinded because of concerns about needing more information to pursue this, so kind of getting more questions answered and so forth,” said John McQuaig, chair for the church’s Fox Trust committee. “The public pushback definitely had a role in it as well.”
The decision means the church is reevaluating how to spend the $700,000 that was approved for the cottages.
McQuaig said in addition to a remodel of the church’s existing building, one option would be to build the cottages in another location, such as on Wenatchee Valley College property.
“We’re grateful for the huge number of community members that have reached out to show their support and help,” McQuaig said. “We’ve had a number that want to help build, we have an electrician that wanted to help wire the units — there really was a kind of groundswell of support for the project.”
McQuaig said the church is also grateful to have raised awareness about homelessness among college students.
In a 2019 national assessment of college students, 20% of Wenatchee Valley College students participating in the survey reported experiencing homelessness in the previous year, 40% reported experiencing food insecurity in the prior 30 days and 47% reported experiencing housing insecurity in the previous year.
“The sad part is students are still living in their cars, and they’re showering at the gym so they can get a shower in and so forth. There are some that aren’t going to school at all because they don’t have housing,” McQuaig said. “So there’s a huge need out there.”
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