Community Supported Shelters' new main office used to be Eugene's DMV.

The building at 2870 W. 10th Place was where Eugene residents got their licenses, registered their vehicles and replaced their license plates from 1985 to 2021. Eugene's DMV is now located at 499 Valley River Center. It moved in 2022.

Heather Quaas-Annsa, co-executive director of CSS, said when CSS started in 2013 it was "very small" with just two full-time staff, but the COVID-19 pandemic necessitated a "rapid expansion" in shelter for people experiencing homelessness and in that time CSS added nine sites, 100 shelter beds and a proportional increase in staff.

But the expansion was not coupled with an increase in office space. CSS' current office on Grant Street has six desks and three parking spaces for a staff of 38.

CSS' new location will house desks, meeting space, which will double as classroom space, and firewood storage. Quaas-Annsa said CSS is exploring offering telehealth and pantry work out of the location.

"We're just excited for the opportunity to not only keep doing what we do, but also invite additional community partners into this space to really wrap-around the people that need it the most in this community," Quaas-Annsa said.

Quaas-Annsa said "at least once a week" she gets people coming in looking for the DMV.

CSS' first step will be putting up walls in what was an open space to create two large offices: one for shelter support staff and one for shelter navigators serving CSS residents.

Many nonprofits laid off such navigators in response to state budget cuts to homeless shelters this year. Quaas-Annsa said CSS is pursuing a grant it aims to use to expand that service to fill some of the gap.

CSS is moving its warehouse and storage spaces into the office. Everything at CSS' Grant Street location will migrate to the new location, except for the front office and navigators serving non-CSS clients, which will move to the access center at 1845 W. 11th Ave.

Planned work after that includes expanding food storage space, office space for directors and HR, and a telehealth room.

"We have this shell of a building that we can create into something that is going to serve this organization and this community for decades into the future," Quaas-Annsa said.

CSS is running a capital campaign seeking donors to support its plans to transform both the former DMV office and its access center.

Quaas-Annsa said CSS employees will get to move into their new space in February or March, and they'll be out of their Grant Street location by May.

Quaas-Annsa said the building's prior use as a DMV has given many in Eugene negative associations with the building and she is "beyond stoked" to take it from its current clinical look and "transform it into something welcoming."

"This is going to be a place where so many lives are going to change. It's almost overwhelming, the possibilities that are here," she said.