Building A New Community For The Rural Homeless

Most of the time when we talk about homelessness, big cities come to mind. But about seven percent of homeless people live in rural areas, where access to help is much harder to come by. Flagstaff, Ariz. is one of those places. While city officials work to find solutions, one woman has taken an old motel and turned it into transitional housing.

Route 66 runs through Flagstaff. And a lot of old rundown motels from its heyday still stand — empty shells from a more prosperous time. "The Mother Road," as it's known, has long been an American emblem of change. People who want to remake their lives: Depression-era Dust Bowl refugees to post-World War II travelers dreaming of leisure and adventure.

That same story of transformation is still being told in the old 66 Motel.

"The motel with a smile," is what Lori Barlow calls it. She's a former financial planner who's giving the old motel new life. Barlow gave up a six-figure salary and a home on the California coast to help people.

But she wasn't sure how to go about it, until one night inspiration struck.

"I think it was 3:36 actually," Barlow recalls. "I woke up and sat up in my bed and this clear message just came and said, 'You need to go take over distressed motels and turn them into transitional housing to help the poor.' I just thought, 'OK, what do I do with that?'"

Barlow made some calls and leased a motel, and suddenly realized she might be in over her head.

"Now I was coming in going, 'holy moly,'" Barlow says. "It was pretty bad, the ceiling was caving in and the insulation was hanging out of it. There was a lot of evidence of mice. I just looked at it and thought, 'OK, I'm not going to let my kids come up and see me where I'm living.'"

The floors slope. The walls are uneven. Even the fixtures are crooked in some units.

"The toilet seat is at an angle because it's too small," Barlow says. "You couldn't sit down and close the door."

One of the people helping to fix these problems is William Fulton, a former engineer. He lived in a van before he moved into the motel. Then he became the on-call fix-it man. Fulton says Barlow is letting him stay in the hotel in exchange for helping with remodeling.

"The plumbing's been the worst, so basically it's getting that fixed up and the flooring," Fulton says. "The old wood rotted, leaky plumbing smell, so we dried them out, redid some of the floors. It's like a new building after we get done with it."

One of the current residents, Julie Bowman, says there were a lot of shady characters when she moved in.

"One lady was selling drugs out her back window," Bowman says. "These people were literally using this for a drive-through. And they would walk by her window and she would hand it out. This was going on all night."

Back when she leased the motel, Barlow painted the phrase "ANEW Living Community" below the old neon sign. A lot of the residents are making a new go of it. She helps them with budgeting and provides a computer room and a list of community resources. Residents have two years to pull their lives together.

Click here to read next about how the residents are trying to make the near impossible leap from shelter to home.

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