Hope of the Valley Rescue Mission has relocated from its head office space in Pacoima and entered into a lease-to-own agreement for a building in North Hills, with plans to expand services to fill the old space.The new headquarters at 16641 Roscoe Place is nearly 25,000 square feet and will house the nonprofit’s administrative and finance teams, development and communications departments, as well as programs and operations staff. The organization, which provides housing and social services for Valley residents experiencing homelessness, has expanded rapidly over the last year and outgrew its former space, prompting the move.“As we’ve continued to grow and provide greater services to people experiencing homelessness, it requires different levels of management,” Hope of the Valley President Ken Craft said. “At the end of 2020, we had nine shelters and 507 beds. At the end of this year, we will have 16 shelters and 1,552 beds. So with that increase, we have to manage it well.” The previous tenant of the building had invested significantly in improvements, including fixtures and furniture, before filing for bankruptcy. The current owner agreed to allow Hope of the Valley to move in, paying $1.15 per square foot with an option to buy the property by the end of the year.Craft said the organization plans to build a commercial kitchen on the new property, capable of producing more than 2,000 meals a day for those in need, to be distributed through the organization’s locations throughout the region. The nonprofit, which is currently on track to serve 1.5 million meals this year, has partnered with Global Restaurant Design to configure the addition.“This (move) is just something that we desperately needed. And one of the things I always tell our board and our staff is that I don’t want the shoe to tell the foot how big it should be. We want the foot to tell the shoe how big it needs to be,” Craft said. “And so we’re just trying to be responsive to, truly, the humanitarian crisis of homelessness. But we have to have a place to operate out of.”The Pacoima building, which contains Hope of the Valley’s emergency shelter and current kitchen on the ground floor, is 8,000 square feet, about a third the size of the new facility. The upper floor of the old headquarters is currently empty, but Craft said his organization plans to expand its programs to fill the space.In the last year, Hope of the Valley has opened four tiny home projects, including the new Tarzana community which opened this month. The organization is also developing a shelter in the former Skateland building in Northridge, to be called the Trebek Center.
