(Photo courtesy of St. Vincent de Paul)

A $16 million campus expansion project at St. Vincent de Paul should be completed in 2018.

(Photo courtesy of St. Vincent de Paul)

A rendering of the two-story building which will include transitional housing for older adult.s

(Photo courtesy of St. Vincent de Paul)

St. Vincent de Paul will expand its dental operatory spaces from eight to 16.

More resources are on the way to help lift people out of poverty. On Friday, St. Vincent de Paul held a groundbreaking for its campus expansion, south of downtown Phoenix.

“People stood up and said, ‘Our community needs this. We want this to happen,’” said Steve Zabilski, executive director.

Thanks to donors construction will soon begin on a two-story building that will provide transitional housing for older adults, typically those who have recently become homeless.

“Something happened in their life, either a spouse died or they lost a job or something,” Zabilski explained. “And they don’t’ know how to navigate just the system, the network of human service organizations.”

Residents will work with case managers to find jobs, sign up for benefits like Social Security and secure permanent housing. The 40,000 square foot facility will also expand the size of the medical and dental clinic doubling the dental operatory spaces from eight to 16.

“We actually right now have a lottery for people to get into our adult dental clinic. There’s so much demand,” Zabilski said.”By increasing the space we’re going to be able to help more people because we actually have people that want to volunteer with us but we don’t have the space.” 

The $16 million project should be finished in about a year.

Since 1946, the St. Vincent de Paul has been serving the working poor and homeless through a variety of programs.