Friends in Service Helping’s student housing complex has rented 27 units as of the end of March, according to Executive Director Jim Peckham.
Photo by Jessica Garcia.
Friends in Service Helping’s student housing complex is not full but is well on its way, according to Executive Director Jim Peckham.
The project of two apartment buildings and a commercial building at 138 Long St., offers 36 units for adults who are working toward their high school equivalency or training as skilled laborers. The nonprofit is partnering with Western Nevada College to help families access resources for professional development.
Peckham said FISH continues evaluating individuals to fill the rooms. The organization envisioned the student housing program as a means of helping motivated hires in training to find sufficient housing.
“We currently have 27 units rented, with six people being evaluated as a part of our background check and verification of student enrollment,” Peckham said.
The complex was built at the former site of the Whistlestop Inn, which was bulldozed in May 2023. Its groundbreaking was in January 2024.
“In the year prior, despite the COVID crisis, we used 10 remodeled Whistlestop rooms and two of FISH’s transitional houses to create a test group/beta test of 12 students,” Peckham said. “Coincidentally, four of those applicants were single moms, four single dads and four were single individuals.”
The program has a total of 73 students, including waitlisted students. Twenty are not receiving assistance or vouchers from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Fields of study include health care, social work, business, skilled trades, sciences, arts and general studies.
FISH determined quickly individuals who had not yet settled on a career path as well as those who took on too many classes faltered, he said.
Some individuals were “stacking” certificates, or earning multiple credentials, as they pursued higher-paying jobs, Peckham said.
“We also learned that when mom and/or dad sat at the kitchen table doing homework, the kids did homework, too,” he said. “With their parents as role models, elementary and junior high students on average improved their report cards from C’s to A’s and from D’s to B’s.”
Carson City certified the apartments for occupancy in March 2024 in the midst of the college’s spring term when most students are not seeking housing, Peckham said. Summer produced more applications but from senior citizens or homeless – people who did not intend to pursue education. Peckham said FISH had to refine its marketing.
“Instead, we were looking at adults who could gain technical knowledge that could, fairly quickly, result in a regional job paying $25 or more an hour, eventually adjusted to $27 per hour,” he said.
Still, by the end of July, the buildings were not full. FISH surveyed students to find out specific apartment rental websites they were using and began receiving qualified applications, Peckham said.
“Unfortunately, the majority of students had already secured housing for the school year,” he said. “As renters moved in, word of mouth began to spread so students understood that what they heard was a homeless shelter was actually luxury apartments with affordable rent.”
