City nonprofit looks to expand facility

LARS says it cannot offer more services in small space

LARS Executive Director Nancy Graham said the group’s building has many of the original fixtures, like the furnaces and most of the electrical wiring. But the main issue, Graham said, is the lack of space in the current facility, which prevents program expansion. Last year, LARS serviced 1,117 individuals and families, 13 percent more than in 2006.

One possible expansion is partnering with a school of medicine to offer public health programs.

‘‘We can’t pursue any more new services because we don’t have the space to house the employees, and partnerships are linked to the success of organizations like this,” she said.

LARS will have eight full-time employees by the end of the summer, including the addition of a Spanish-speaking advocate and a case manager to run the program’s permanent housing program. Currently, employees share offices, some the size of small closets.

LARS could get the expansion from Home Builders Care, a Silver Spring-based nonprofit which has renovated and constructed facilities for shelters and programs that serve the homeless in the metropolitan area.

In Prince George’s County, it has renovated decaying bathrooms at a women’s homeless shelter.

Patti Kane, Home Builders Care program manager, said the LARS project would be under review over the summer by the organization’s Program Selection Committee, who could decide by summer’s end whether an expansion is feasible.

Kane said the building was in need of improvements. She noted employees working downstairs have to walk outside to use a staircase to get to the top floor.

A number of details have yet to be worked out, like whether it’s more cost effective to renovate and add to the current facility or to tear it down and build a new one. Kane expects the project to cost less than $1 million. Graham said the facility would not move from Laurel Avenue.

LARS is also seeking $200,000 through the county with the federal Community Development Block Grant program.

The project is not conditioned on the receipt of that grant, Kane said, but having extra funds is sometimes helpful to a project’s success to pay for items like building materials.

‘‘I expect that they will receive some CBDG funding this year,” County Councilman Thomas E. Dernoga (Dist. 1) of Laurel said in an e-mail. ‘‘We have applications for about $24 million of projects⁄services and $6.5 million allocated from the federal government.”

He said the council will make a decision in the coming weeks. LARS received $30,000 in CDBG funding for services last year but has never applied for the grant to pay for construction, Graham said.