With a new apartment building in the Vine Neighborhood, Open Doors now serves about 100 households

This story is part of Second Wave’s series on solutions to affordable housing and housing the unhoused. It is made possible by a coalition of funders including Kalamazoo County, the ENNA Foundation, and the Kalamazoo County Land Bank.

Open Doors had a grand opening for its new residence building in June. A little over a month later, it’s almost full.

The apartment building at 814 W. Walnut Street in the Vine Neighborhood has 18 units. As of the end of July, there are 14 already occupied, with applications being reviewed for the rest.

The Kalamazoo nonprofit has 114 units around town at the moment, and serves “roughly around 100 households,” Stacy Vest, Co-Executive Director, says. “That’s pretty full for us.”

Providing “quality, safe, affordable housing” is their goal, Vest says. 

Near Davis Street, with Heritage Hall looming up on the hill, 814 Walnut looks like one of those 1970s buildings that would’ve housed off-campus students in the Vine. Built with brick walls in 1965, it has three floors, the lowest a half-submerged basement. Many units have decks jutting out, providing patio space. The Internet tells us that it formerly was West Walnut Apartments, managed by a company based in Lansing. 

Vest hasn’t researched the building’s history, but when Open Doors looked inside, they found refurbished modern units, with very little extra work to be done on the building. 

Vest says they look for buildings that “are going to be a fairly simple turn for us.” They don’t want any further delays for “folks who urgently need safe affordable housing” 

Since 1970, Open Doors has worked to house vulnerable people in Kalamazoo.

From providing shelter to people who’re unhoused, to providing a pathway to homeownership, Open Doors works to patch the many cracks of the housing crisis.

Their residence communities — the now-114 units under Open Doors’ roofs — are for families with one employed member, people who have housing barriers (bad credit, an eviction history, etc.), and who can meet income requirements.

There are rules, such as no drugs or alcohol because many residents are in recovery. People must meet with a program manager to work toward becoming financially independent. After the optimum time — which is two years, Vest says, though exceptions are made — they should be able to move out to provide room for another family in need. 

Vest says affordability is the “biggest barrier” to housing, but “there are also folks who just have been part of unjust systems, folks who have been incarcerated, folks who have dealt with addiction, and for whatever reason they are being held back. They’re being denied safe housing, so this is a place where folks can come and work towards their goals of permanent housing, and have a safe place that they can afford in the meantime.”

Housing Jenga

Open Doors has also sold a building on Academy Street, so overall, even with the addition of the building on Walnut, the number of units they manage remains about the same. But the units on Academy were mostly studio. These are mostly two-bedroom apartments, so they’ll be able to house families.

“It fits into our model, it fits into what our need is, it fits into our desire to grow specifically in the Vine Neighborhood but also throughout Kalamazoo,” Vest says.

Vine is a perfect neighborhood for Open Doors, with local shopping, culture, and services nearby, she says. They have a number of properties in Vine now, and she hopes the community will continue to welcome their residents.

“When you pull back and look at the big picture, what we’re really building, what we all need, is community. That starts in our neighbors, in our neighborhoods. We need neighborhoods where folks feel safe and welcome, where folks feel that they belong beyond the walls of their apartments and their houses”

Open Doors’ 114 units overall sounds like a lot, but “when you think about the need for affordable housing throughout Kalamazoo, it’s not enough… It’s not even a scratch on the surface,” she says.

“It’s really a juggling game, housing Jenga, if you will, making sure that when we have folks who have a need, that we have a space for them. And if we don’t have a space for them, we want them to be able to keep moving and keep looking for housing so that we’re not keeping them on a list with false hopes.”

Vest continues, “It’s really frustrating.” The need to be housed “is such an urgent and vital need. For some reason we’re just not seeing the number change in the direction we’d wish…. What are we missing?”

The Open Doors team is making an effort “to really concentrate on the wins. We have to, otherwise it’s easy to get very cynical about this work.”

She points out David Harris as a win, a former client who’s now on Open Doors’ board and is a homeowner. (See related — From unhoused to homeowner: David Harris says connection makes the difference.)

Recent wins include a mother with two children who is now a homeowner, a disabled artist who is able to participate in her community thanks to housing from Open Doors, and others who’re working towards stability.

It’s a win simply going from having no place to sleep to knowing that “tonight, you have a place you can call home. You have a place that you can call home, and now you have support, and you have a community around you who’s going to help you take the next steps,” Vest says. “That already is a win for us.”