How Keys to Change United a Community to Address Homelessness

The creation of Keys to Change, formerly known as the Human Service Campus, envisioned a future in Phoenix where stakeholders, service providers, and municipalities work together to address homelessness through coordinated and collaborative efforts.

In November 2025, the organization will celebrate its 20th anniversary. Here, the missions of 15 partner organizations align to offer a range of services, including shelter, transportation, employment assistance, identification support, and other tools designed to help people transition out of homelessness.

Yet, before their formation, most of these organizations worked independently of each other, even as they pursued the same overall goals and funding sources. In the mid-1980s, Mo Stein, a young architect who served on Central Arizona Shelter Service’s (CASS) Board of Directors, realized this contradiction. The organization was doing incredible yet isolated work.

At the same time, Stein was also active in a local business leadership organization called Phoenix Community Alliance (PCA), which aimed to develop initiatives to revitalize a stagnant Greater Downtown core.

“We were always looking west,” said Stein, PCA’s Immediate Board Chair. “We started discussing the idea of a Capitol [Mall] District and the vast opportunity to develop this huge resource we weren't managing.”

When it was difficult to gather community feedback within the Downtown core, PCA, with the help of ASU, organized two charrettes throughout the early 1990s to develop ideas and visions for the Capitol Mall area

However, the most significant barrier to transforming the idea into reality was the multi-million-dollar price tag required to bring the vision to life. Nothing of this scale had been attempted before, and no comparable model existed.

“The idea was homegrown,” said Amy Schwabenlender, Keys to Change’s CEO. “It was an entire community of dozens of Downtown businesses, 501c3 organizations, and government agencies at the state, county, and local levels coming together to say there’s a better way to address homelessness in Phoenix.”

With a $25 million price tag, PCA Board Director Marty Shultz and Ron Bookbinder led the Member-driven effort to raise funds and build relationships among service providers to realize the vision. He persuaded Maricopa County to make a significant land donation and enlisted the assistance of Frank Fairbanks, the then-current city manager. Meanwhile, a land-use attorney, Larry Lazarus, donated his zoning expertise on a pro bono basis to the cause. Additionally, the newly formed Arizona Department of Housing (ADOH), led by Dr. Sheila Harris, contributed $1 million to the campus.

When the campus opened in 2005, the results were immediate and striking. On its first day, over 1,000 people experiencing homelessness arrived because there was now a single place to go for shelter and services.

“I don't believe anybody went hungry [because of service providers like St. Vincent de Paul],” said Harris, who co-chairs PCA’s Social & Housing Advancement Committee (SHA), and served as the campus’s Interim Executive Director from 2017 to 2018. “The challenge is that there continues to be no other place like the campus to get that one-stop service. As a result, everybody goes there.”

Stein notes that CASS gave their doorman a disposable camera to take photos of the police cars that dropped people off who had accepted services, and the results were illuminating. The vehicles traveled as far as Scottsdale, Mesa, and El Mirage to drop off the unhoused. It also emphasized the need for a coordinated statewide effort to reduce homelessness.

“It framed the debate as to why shelter was important in all parts of our city, and it was not a Downtown problem, and we needed a statewide response,” Stein said.

Looking at the broader trend, the number of unhoused people continues to grow over time, with a shortage of affordable housing not keeping up with population growth and rising rents causing record-high eviction rates.

The pandemic accelerated housing insecurities and highlighted the need for a coordinated response from municipalities and nonprofits. In response, the passage of the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (ARPA) enabled the implementation of numerous projects that prioritized community health, and these projects were no exception in the City of Phoenix.

“From 2023 to 2024, there was a concerted effort to get individuals experiencing homelessness off the street and into shelter spaces because there was funding available to do so,” said Schwabenlender. “As one-time ARPA funding winds down across the sector, the number of unsheltered individuals has increased due to 1,000 shelter spaces closing in the last year.”

The availability of ARPA funding also accelerated several city initiatives, including the establishment of the City of Phoenix’s Office of Homeless Solutions in 2022. This enabled the development of streamlined communication to create targeted solutions with employees whose sole focus is on assisting the homeless population.

The Office of Homeless Solutions is funded by $22 million in APRA support. As the funding ends at the close of the year, they are working to establish a permanent source of funding to keep the department operational.

In late 2023, the city opened a covered Safe Outdoor Space (SOS) campground outside the Downtown area to help the unhoused residents transition out of homelessness. Converted shipping containers, known as X-Wings, also serve as shelters on the site, offering residents further along in their transition a more private and separate place to stay.

Keys to Change manages the site, which only accepts referrals from other service providers. The 220-person capacity campground operates under a curfew and other guidelines to ensure the safety of its residents.

“We took it as an opportunity to create more choice for our clients and saw higher-than-expected rates of success with the SOS in helping move to indoor shelter or housing,” said Schwabenlender. “That didn’t exist before.”

In another effort, the city recently concluded a summer season of operating a 24/7 Heat Respite Center in a vacant building in the Warehouse District. This was one of four cooling centers offering a safe place during the hottest parts of the day. Over nearly six months of operation until its closure on September 30, these centers helped more than 5,000 people and connected over 700 individuals with housing and support services.

One place where all these Downtown initiatives are being highlighted is PCA’s monthly Social & Housing Advancement (SHA) Committee meeting, which started in 2019 as a resource to share information and create solutions.

SHA is currently led by Harris and Jim McPherson, a private professional PCA Member, who bring decades of housing and service expertise to monthly discussions. The Committee is gradually experiencing generational leadership shifts, with new vice chairs Leanna Taylor and Nathan Smith, the respective CEOs of Arizona Pet Project and CASS, stepping progressively into their roles.

The gaps connecting services are closing every day. Soon, a ground-level facility at Valley Metro’s Downtown Hub transfer station will open full-time as part of a coordinated network that quickly links the community to essential services, whether for people experiencing homelessness or lost commuters.

The DTPHX Community Resource Hub, a shared facility managed by Downtown Phoenix Inc. (DPI), in collaboration with the City of Phoenix’s Office of Homeless Solutions and Valley Metro, aims to provide information and services to the community. Two information desks next to the station platform allow Downtown Phoenix Inc. Ambassadors and Valley Metro to interact with the public and provide helpful information. In contrast, private office space behind a locked door provides partnered organizations a landing spot in the heart of the core.

Within less than 30 minutes, a dēhp Integrative Care Outreach Navigator, one of seven operators inside the space, can help provide quick solutions in the public realm.

Recently, a navigator quickly connected someone experiencing a mental health episode to the City of Phoenix’s Community Assistance Program (CAP), a Behavioral Health and Crisis Response unit, after being alerted by a passerby. In the past, these services might have taken more than an hour to mobilize, by which time the person in distress would have long been gone.

In the near future, PCA’s senior leadership is collaborating with nonprofits to develop a technology solution for a texting service that can notify case workers or individuals experiencing homelessness when shelter beds become available, as well as address other emerging needs.

There is no shortage of problems complicating service providers' ongoing work, but cooperation and collaboration are the most cautiously optimistic developments that support Keys to Change’s goals.

Just over a mile outside the core, the Key Campus continues providing emergency interventions and housing navigation to as many people as possible, regardless of the political or economic environment. In 2024, it served 18,000 individuals on the campus alone.

Expansion projects that were previously delayed due to the pandemic are gradually resuming, supported by a multi-phase project funded by Maricopa IDA, which facilitates easier access for clients and helps them stay engaged on the campus.

“While we’ve facilitated thousands of personal triumphs over the years, we need partners willing to engage in the big picture with us,” said Schwabenlender. “Large, consistent, and flexible investments on the front-end ensure the longevity of the Campus and its services and alleviate the long-term burden of a permanent emergency response state.”