CRISIS HOUSE HAS NEW HOME IN SANTEE

Nonprofit buys site with El Cajon cash, donors’ generosity

After 26 years in El Cajon, Crisis House has moved back to its birthplace of Santee.

The nonprofit, which has been serving homeless individuals and victims of domestic violence for more than 50 years, opened its doors on Wednesday in a two-story building on Cuyamaca Street.

“I read in some of our history that Santee is where we were orig inally established so it’s kind of like coming home, and so we’re excited,” said Mary Case, CEO of the nonprofit.

The new digs are in a building shared with a tax ser vices company, a f inancial group and some other businesses.

The building, which the group bought for $1.1 million, includes several individual suites, including upstairs spots with sweeping views of mountains in all directions.

“We are still going to serve the same area, East County,” said Joe Villanueva, housing navigator for Crisis House. “It’s new scenery, but the same programs. This gives us a better oppor tunity to have more of a homeless services presence in Santee.”

Case said her biggest disappointment is that the new site won’t have a dropin resource center like Crisis House had in El Cajon.

There, homeless individuals were able to use the center ’s address to receive mail and phone calls. There was a secure storage area where people could leave their items while running errands. The El Cajon site also had a room set aside to accept donations of food, diapers, clothing and hygiene items, and gave them out to those in need.

The group’s work in helping victims of domestic violence will be able to expand and have its own space at the new site. They will have distinct and separate off ices from staff strictly focused on homelessness, said Bernadette Jordan, who is Homeless Outreach Coordinator for Crisis House.

Crisis House annually provides emergency transitional and permanent