A Story of Hope and Change
ABC15 recently covered a meaningful milestone for A New Leaf: the last family to exit La Mesita Family Shelter in Mesa. After months of uncertainty and hardship, the family moved into a home of their own. Their story represented the resilience of hundreds of families who found safety at La Mesita over the years and the impact that a shelter could make for those in crisis.
Ahkeyla Clower, her husband, and their four children had been living at La Mesita before moving into an apartment of their own. After weeks of homelessness and sleeping in their car, the family was connected to A New Leaf through Arizona’s 211 hotline. It changed their lives forever.
“It feels really good,” Clower told ABC15. “It feels good to call, you know, somewhere home again.”
Clower described La Mesita as “a blessing” and said she was heartbroken to learn of its closure. “They really helped out a lot of people, including my family,” she said. “When I heard they’re closing, I’m like, ‘What are other people gonna do?’”
A New Leaf’s La Mesita Family Shelter had served as one of the East Valley’s only family shelters for more than a decade. In its final year of operation, the shelter provided housing for 197 people, including 112 children and 85 adults across 49 families. Families stayed an average of 74 days while working toward stability and permanent housing.
From Shelter to Affordable Housing
In May of 2025, A New Leaf began closure of the 16-unit shelter at La Mesita and started converting the apartments into affordable housing. New residents began moving in soon after, shifting the program to meet a different but equally urgent need in the community. Now fully converted, the apartments will serve approximately 16 families per year on a long-term basis, or roughly 64 people.
The transition followed years of operating at a growing deficit. 78 percent of A New Leaf’s funding for the crucial family shelter came from federal contracts, and support had sharply declined after the expiration of COVID-relief programs. This made the program unsustainable and impossible to continue in it’s current form.
“So, A New Leaf had to strategize in so many different ways,” said Laura Bode, Chief Philanthropy Officer. “If funding is cut here, where do we pool our resources to keep the most critically needed community services sustained? How can the community help support those?” Converting the shelter into affordable housing maintained the facility and ensured the community had access to a crucial resource: affordable housing.
While La Mesita’s closure marked the end of one chapter, A New Leaf continues to operate other shelters, including the West Valley Housing Assistance Center, East Valley Men’s Center, and three domestic violence shelters across the Valley. Families in crisis can still call 211 to be connected with open beds across the Valley.
Clower said she hopes the shelter could someday reopen, knowing the difference it made for her family. “Sometimes it feels like you’re on your own and you have no help,” she said. “But I would say, just keep the faith, keep praying and just keep being you, the person you know you are.”