Executive Director Dwight Ford says the current building, on 19th Street between 4th and 5th avenues, does not have an elevator, and enough space.
“We can’t grow any further, I can’t welcome in the additional staff that we just received a large grant to bring in. So we are, for lack of a better term, land-locked and mission locked.”
With financial help from the city, he would like to move Project Now about 2 1/2 blocks north on 19th Street, to the Star Cres building at 2nd Avenue. It's accessible and would have enough space.
Ford has been looking for a new building for a long time, and decided it's important for Project Now to stay in downtown Rock Island.
“The largest concentration of minoritized poverty. It also has in those three tracts a poverty rate of 36 per cent. Where I am currently, in our census tract where our headquarter building is currently located, we have a medium income just around 12,000 dollars.”
He hopes to be able to move in to the Star Cres by October, just in time to prepare for one of Project Now's most popular programs - LIHEAP - the low income home energy assistance program.