The Community Action Partnership of Northwest Montana has moved into its new digs in the former Elks Lodge in South Kalispell.  

“It wasn’t an easy year. It wasn’t an easy move,” Executive Director Tracy Diaz said at an open house on Thursday, Aug. 21 celebrating the nonprofit’s relocation.  

The search to depart downtown began around seven years ago “when we decided that being on Main Street was probably not the best place for a social service agency,” Diaz said.  

But the properties for sale were all too expensive, and Diaz eventually decided, “forget it, we’re not going to move,” she recalled.  

Eventually, the former Elks Lodge property popped up. After some bidding wars, the Community Action Partnership bought the property from Stockman Bank for $1.8 million. 

But transforming the building into a social service center was no easy feat, because the extent of the upkeep was not clear, Diaz said. She came to find that the entire plumbing system was shot along with the heating and cooling system.  

“We almost doubled what was going to be our construction cost,” she said. “As a nonprofit we were in panic mode.”  

Around $2 million had to be put into the building’s rehabilitation.  

But in the end the move was worth it, Diaz said. The new building allows the nonprofit to more efficiently provide services, which includes energy assistance, employment training, first-time homebuyers' education, and the Section 8 housing choice voucher program.   

Access to outdoor space also allowed the nonprofit to open up its first low-income child care facility. The Learning Tree Preschool opened in April and serves children from ages 2 to kindergarten.  

“We made sure that we priced our rates lower than other rates within the community,” Diaz said. “I’m just going to claim that the child care [facility] is the highlight of the building only because it’s so cute.”  

The brightly colored classroom is filled with bins of toys, books and artwork made by the enrolled children. The windows look out onto a luscious garden and purple and green playground built from parts of the former Burger King playhouse in Columbia Falls, provided by Stockman Bank. Chalked in wiggly roads line the pavement surrounding the playground.  

While the classroom can fit up to 24 children, only two are currently enrolled, preschool teacher Mya Roberts said. She expects enrollment to eventually fill up.  

“It’s been nice being able to just kind of have some one-on-one time with these kiddos and introduce them to being in a classroom and working with their peers,” Roberts said. 

A typical day lasts from 7:30 a.m. to 6 p.m., and entails breakfast, books, arts and crafts, writing, recess, snack and nap time, Roberts said.   

The nonprofit intended to bring 17 purchased studio units onto the property to serve the city’s homeless population and provide on-site case management, but Diaz said roadblocks with the city made the plan not financially feasible. The units are now up for sale.  

SINCE MARCH, the Community Action Partnership has been preparing for a 20%, or $600,000 a year, loss in funding due to potential cuts to three programs at the hands of President Donald Trump’s administration.  

The Low Income Energy Assistance Program, the Community Services Block Grant Program and the Weatherization Program are all on the chopping block, Diaz said.  

The Low Income Energy Assistance Program is the nonprofit’s most used service, helping about 5,000 Flathead County households a year pay their heating bill, Diaz said.

Launched by former President Lyndon Johnson in 1964, the Community Services Block Grant is used to fill gaps in any service the nonprofit provides.  

“It’s not our biggest funding, but it’s the funding that has the most flexibility,” Diaz said.  

The Weatherization Program, which helps reduce the high cost of energy for low-income households, comes from multiple funding sources but is at risk of losing its federal backing, Diaz said.  

To brace for the cuts, Diaz said the nonprofit has had to refrain from filling vacant administrative positions and did not doll out pay raises this year. 

Diaz called the potential funding loss a “wait and see game. And that’s the problem is it’s very hard to plan.”  

While a lobbyist for the National Community Action Foundation told Diaz that the energy assistance and block grant programs may have avoided cuts, “That can change on a dime,” she said. “I don’t trust anything right now.”   

Diaz hopes that filling enrollment at The Learning Tree will help supplement some of the funding loss.  

Despite the funding uncertainty, the new headquarters is home.  

“We did it, we’re here. I don’t think we are going to go anywhere,” Diaz said.  

Reporter Jack Underhill can be reached at 758-4407 or [email protected].

    Tracy Diaz, left, Executive Director of Community Action Partnership of Northwest Montana, presents donors Laura Reynolds and Walter Rowntree with an award during an open house at their new location in Kalispell on Thursday, Aug. 21. (Casey Kreider/Daily Inter Lake)
 Casey Kreider   

    One of two daycare rooms at Community Action Partnership Northwest Montana's new location in Kalispell on Thursday, Aug. 21. (Casey Kreider/Daily Inter Lake)
 Casey Kreider