The family shelter on the third floor is a state-of-art design allowing families in crisis to remain together in a small, apartment-like setting to help resolve issues and get the family unit stabilized. There is also a homeless single mom’s unit which is based more on a dormitory model to allow the moms to help each other. Security for the facility is key – from the health clinic and HIPPA health records compliance to the security of the councilors, women, children and families in the shelter, a great deal of work was done to insure safety. Numerous electric strike doors and separate entrances are used to separate populations as much as possible in one building. Security cameras on DVRs continuously monitor all public spaces.
The second floor has storage space, will house the Children’s Cabinet, Nevada AIDS foundation and HAWC clinic. The ground floor has ReStart and the Good Shepherd Clothes Closet. Each tenant was interviewed for space planning needs and operational needs in order to determine the best location in the building and the proper size and plan. ReStart also has a significant data center on the second floor which has two tech offices, a back-up generator and redundant isolated cooling for six full racks of 42 U’s each.
The first floor has a public space for persons to receive their aid checks, have access to telephones and computers for job searches and mailboxes for transient persons looking for work. This space is isolated from the remainder of the facility for security but still has the feel of being incorporated into the rest of the building.
As this building houses a family shelter, a playground was essential but we had no land- the entire site is either public access or building. So we developed the roof as a playground complete with shade structure and restroom. This also had the advantage of being secure from an access perspective because the stairs and elevator are equipped with access controls.
