The city’s nearly one-year-old Navigation Center, which is aimed at helping those struggling with housing, sits at the end of a long driveway off North Main Street. Its exterior is lined with potted plants that offer a splash of color to the white building. Inside, chairs line the walls to seat those waiting to check in, and a common room offers those seeking daytime or overnight services a place to sit and socialize. In a separate part of the building, the sleeping area holds neat rows of beds, each with a storage locker, bedside table and a small closet.
“You can find every type of person from every type of background here,” said Nate Riddle, executive director of Open Doors, the nonprofit organization that runs the center.
The Navigation Center, which the city built using federal funds from the American Rescue Plan Act, opened last winter and offers a beds and comprehensive services for people of all genders for a fixed period of time — practices that are rooted, as Riddle put it, in “radical hospitality.”…