Carson City's only men's shelter opened six of its 16 beds on Wednesday, with the remainder becoming available in a matter of days, said Jim Peckham, executive director of Friends in Service Helping.
In April, a small electrical fire closed the shelter, located on the Stewart Reservation. A $13,000 fire sprinkler installation was completed three months ago, Peckham said.
"We're almost there, part of it has to do with inspections," Peckham said. "Our expectation is by the end of this week we'll have our part down, it's a matter of when the state inspectors can look at it."
He added, "We just haven't had the water supply."
At the start of the project, Peckham said, the shelter was planning on using the state water supply to feed the sprinkler system.
"When we got to the point where it was installed they indicated that we were unable to use the state water supply at Stewart and had to use the city water supply," Peckham said. "Once that was determined we were able to talk with the city and the city very promptly provided the manpower and dug a trench to bring the water supply within 18 inches of the building."
Now, the last step is just connecting everything and getting it signed off by state officials.
About 500 homeless people are in the capital city, according to Carson City Health and Human Services.
FISH also runs a shelter for women and children in Carson City.
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