Home Care In Mesa, AZ

A family emergency shelter in Mesa is closing its doors. The nonprofit that runs it, A New Leaf, says it is due to a lack of funding. At La Mesita, the 16 units that have made up the emergency shelter for nearly 30 years will now be transformed into long-term, affordable housing. We spoke with the Chief Philanthropy Officer about a lack of funding, which she says is due to federal funding cuts, and addressed concerns from an ABC 15 viewer about the CEO’s income. We also to a resident about the importance of these services.

MESA, AZ — A family emergency shelter in Mesa is closing its doors. The nonprofit that runs it, A New Leaf, says it is due to a lack of funding.

At La Mesita, the 16 units that have made up the emergency shelter for nearly 30 years will now be transformed into long-term, affordable housing.

Arik and Chastity enjoy playing tag around the playground at the place they call home. The young brother and sister say it means a lot to them. Just six years ago, the kids and their mom were homeless.

“You feel like a failure a lot of the times, but it's definitely a terrifying thing, not to know if you're going to have stable roof over their head,” Kira Filippelli, their mom, said.

Then the single mom connected with A New Leaf, first staying in La Mesita emergency family shelter, then moving into the nonprofit’s long-term housing.

“The resources that they provided me have helped me tremendously,” Filippelli said.

Now, A New Leaf is ending the emergency shelter service.

Last year, it served nearly 200 people, more than half of whom were kids, but the nonprofit says they can no longer sustain the shelter due to a lack of funding.

“So unfortunately, we've had to make a really tough decision to transition the shelter to affordable housing,” Laura Bode, A New Leaf Chief Philanthropy Officer, said.

As families transition out of the shelter within the next four months, the units will be turned into affordable housing units. The goal is to still address homelessness.

“Affordable housing is for families that are low-income families. They don't pay more rent than they're able to afford, and we have all the wrap around support services here on the campus to help them maintain stability and to be successful,” Bode said.

One ABC15 viewer reached out, concerned about the closure in light of the CEO’s income. He makes around $289,000, according to 2023 public tax documents. We asked A New Leaf if the budget could be reconsidered.

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“Nonprofits have to run like a business to be sustainable,” Bode said. “Our CEO has been with an agency for an incredible almost 50 years. He has been the backbone, along with our other the rest of our leadership team to sustaining this organization. We've seen so many other organizations fold because they didn't have the infrastructure to sustain the programming that they provided.”

A New Leaf’s governance board conducted a study to set the CEO’s salary. When ABC15 looked at tax records for similarly sized nonprofits in the Valley, we found his salary in line with others.

Bode says with a $40 million operating budget, the heart of the issue is federal funding cuts.

“Over the past few years, we've seen a significant decline in government funding for all of our shelter services, and we're spreading that funding across six different shelters that we operate,” Bode said.

This put another emergency shelter in Surprise at risk, she says, until the city just stepped in to save it.

"So, A New Leaf is strategizing in so many different ways, of different scenarios. 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?” Body explained.

A New Leaf gets 78% of its funding through 130 federal funding contracts. That money goes into 35 different programs across the Valley, serving 22,000 people in Arizona last year.

When La Mesita is turned into affordable housing, the nonprofit anticipates it will house approximately 64 people, including 37 children.

The money to run the emergency shelter will be funneled to other programs. Still, Bode says, it’s a loss for vulnerable families.

“Unfortunately, there's a wait list for shelter,” she said. “That can be really hard going into the summer months.”

Anyone interested in getting engaged with A New Leaf can visit their website to learn about donation and volunteering opportunities.

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MESA, AZ (AZFamily)—The 1950s ′s through the 1970s ′s were vibrant times in Mesa, with neon signs glowing bright. However, over time, the signs went dark.

”We had them in a salvage yard for many many years, just trying to figure out what we were going to do with all these signs,” said Chris Brady, the Mesa City Manager.

On Thursday night, the vintage signs were given a new light.

Five signs that once lit up Mesa decades ago were completely rebuilt by Mesa businesses to create the Neon Garden outside the city’s first post office, which was renovated and turned into an event center called The Post.

Brady said voters approved the more than a million-dollar renovation project for the post office.

At first, city officials weren’t sure how they would update the open space next to the post office. A few years back, they decided neon signs would be a good way to attract people to the area.

Signs from Watson’s Flowers, Ford, Bill Johnson’s, Dairy Queen and the Frontier Motel were lit up once again. More than 400 people witnessed the moment.

Brady said the signs use neon gas, not LED lights.

In the plaza is also a replica of the Diving Lady, a popular animated sign from the Starlite Motel.

”This is how we roll in Mesa, Arizona. Growing up here, this is something that I’ve always just treasured,” said the Mayor of Mesa, Mark Freeman.

It’s the same sentiment from other people who grew up in Mesa.

”They just bring back so many memories. My family has been here for 100 years, so we’ve really seen a lot of these signs throughout our generations,” said Loren Austin, a Democratic State Representative for District 9 in Mesa.

It’s also a special moment for Bill Johnson’s grandson, Rick.

”It means everything to me. I’ve spent 41 years of my life there,” he said.

Rick shared a black and white picture of the sign back in the day. He said the restaurant first opened in 1956, but it closed more than a decade ago.

For many, these signs reignite memories for older folks and turned on the light bulb for new generations.

Brady said they have a few more signs city officials hope to restore as well.

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MESA, AZ (AZFamily) — Waymo is looking to expand its fleet and will be investing in the East Valley to do it. The self-driving car service company announced on its blog on Monday that it’s teaming up with Magna, a Canadian auto parts supplier, to increase production at its new facility in Mesa.

Waymo said the recently built 239,000-square-foot facility is a “multi-million dollar investment” that has created hundreds of jobs to support its growth plans.

“I’m proud to see autonomous vehicles on our streets every day, helping get people where they need to be safely. The new manufacturing facility will enhance this presence, and the local jobs it’s creating will help Arizona’s tech economy continue to rise on the world stage,” Gov. Katie Hobbs said in a written statement.

Waymo plans to build thousands of fully autonomous Jaguar I-PACEs through the next year, and the Mesa plant will help them do that.

“The Waymo Driver integration plant in Mesa is the epicenter of our future growth plans,” said Ryan McNamara, vice president of operations at Waymo. “With our partners at Magna, we’ve opened a manufacturing site that enables the cost efficiency, flexibility, and capacity to scale our fleet to new heights.”

Waymo said the facility’s design allows the company to integrate its self-driving system, Waymo Driver (sixth generation), with its new vehicle, the Zeekr RT, which was revealed at CES 2025. The plant has an automated assembly line, and when operating at full capacity, the company says it can build tens of thousands of fully autonomous Waymo cars each year.

Waymo said it provides more than 250,000 trips each week across its four markets: Phoenix, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Austin, Texas. Next year, the company plans to expand to Atlanta, Miami and Washington, D.C.

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MESA, AZ (AZFamily) — Take a drive along Dobson Road between Main Street and Broadway Road, and you will see dozens of Asian businesses and restaurants, along with a couple of colorful red, green, and blue signs that say, “Mesa Asian District.”

This strip of road is the heart of the district in west Mesa. It includes many Asian cultures that visitors can learn about or even feel at home in.

The area became the Mesa Asian District during a redevelopment project with the City of Mesa Office of Economic Development, which began in 2018.

Angie Herrera, Marketing and Communications Specialist with the City of Mesa Office of Economic Development says their research showed a high population density within the Asian district, which had multiple Asian ethnicities. It also revealed that people from all around the state were coming to the Asian district at least once a month.

The department developed marketing strategies and signage that focused on the district’s three main parts: culture, community and commerce.

“It was really a point of pride for Mesa since we were really focusing on diversity and being open and not only for shoppers but for businesses as well,” said Herrera.

A logo was developed to tell the story of the diversity and unity within the Asian district. This logo is the tangram, a geometric puzzle piece historically known to represent all different ethnicities and cultures coming together.

The redevelopment was launched in 2020 during the pandemic and relaunched later that year with street signs, logos and utility wraps to spread awareness about the Asian district. The light rail stop was also renamed the “Asian District.”

Along with signage, the city also updated its website, created promotional items, and had social media coverage, bringing attention to the Asian district.

The Asian District now has over 100 businesses that serve food and products from different cultures, such as Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, Taiwanese, and more. Along with the restaurants, there are grocery stores like MeKong Plaza and H-Mart.

Herrera says the Asian district has been well-received by businesses and the community.

“We hear all the time that it reminds them of home, that that’s where they can go and they get the same smells, the same languages spoken or that same feeling that they get. That’s why they love the Asian district because they can go and have a piece of home and then go back and just really find it prideful within that area,” said Herrera.

She says larger cities like Detroit have contacted their department inquiring about the Asian District. Typically, cities have places that focus on one culture, like Chinatown; however, the spot in Mesa focuses on a variety of different Asian cultures all in one place.

The Mesa Asian District also holds events where Asian businesses can come together to share their products, and visitors can learn about the different cultures. These events include the Lunar New Year and Asian festivals that occur in the spring.

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Rare earth element (REE) and critical metal recycler Cyclic Materials, Toronto, says it plans to invest more than $20 million in its first commercial facility, located in Mesa, Arizona. The company says the new facility will use its proprietary MagCycle process and will be its first global REE recycling operation focused on the separation of permanent magnets from end-of-life products it claims previously were not recovered.

Cyclic says it is establishing a feedstock supply network that will serve the entire United States, adding that it already has secured partnerships in the Southwest—a region of the U.S. with an estimated 155,000 tons per year of end-of-life components from automotive and e-scrap metals—while actively expanding its reach nationwide to develop a more robust and scalable supply chain.

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“We are excited to begin commercial operations in the U.S. in early 2026,” Cyclic co-founder and CEO Ahmad Ghahreman says. “We have chosen the vibrant Southwest for our first U.S. and global site to be close to feedstock that will support our mission to address the global supply-demand imbalance for rare earth materials. By developing circular supply chains, we can reduce dependence on overseas sources and secure a more stable REE supply for the future.”

The company says recruitment for the first hires at the Mesa facility is expected to start in the second quarter of this year and expects to fill more than 30 jobs that will be required to operate it.

“We are proud Cyclic Materials will establish its first U.S. facility right here in Arizona,” Gov. Katie Hobbs says. “This facility will create family-sustaining jobs and support thriving industries, all while advancing Arizona’s clean energy economy.”

Sen. Mark Kelly echoed Hobbs’ comments, saying, “This facility means more good-paying jobs in Mesa and a stronger supply chain that will power everything from electric vehicles to artificial intelligence. Arizona is leading the way on clean energy and innovation, and this investment will make sure we build more of what we need right here.”

Cyclic, established in 2021, raised $57 million in its Series B equity round last year, backed by global firms such as Microsoft, Hitachi Ventures, BMW iVentures, and specialized funds such as ArcTern Ventures and Fifth Wall. The initial raise of $53 million was extended to include investments from InMotion Ventures and Amazon’s Climate Pledge Fund. Cyclic says that, together, these investments position it as a “key partner” for companies seeking sustainable and circular supply chain solutions, particularly in the automotive and data center industries.

Additionally, Cyclic says the move into the U.S. underscores its role in advancing sustainable supply chains as it expands its footprint across North America, with plans to establish operations in Europe.

“Investing in the circular economy is vital for Greater Phoenix to continue its development as a world-class region for companies and people,” says Greater Phoenix Economic Council President and CEO Chris Camacho. “Cyclic Materials complements the strong presence of data centers and EV manufacturers in the region, creating a more sustainable supply chain while strengthening the domestic availability of rare earth elements and other critical resources.”