Tiffany Kostecki and her two daughters have a place to call home thanks to the Gateway Food Pantry.
Kostecki and her family moved into a home off Miller Road in Imperial at the start of the month thanks to Gateway’s new housing initiative. Before, Kostecki and her daughters – Natalie, 20, and Victoria Monroe, 15, who has special needs – lived in an apartment off Sierra Parkway in Arnold.
“It is the best gift of all,” Kostecki, 37, said of the lease for the three-bedroom, two-bath home in Imperial. “There is so much space. There is room to relax, room to breathe and room to grow. We feel like we have a future here and will thrive.”
Gateway Executive Director Patrick McKelvey said providing clients an opportunity to thrive was one of the motivating factors for the pantry, which was previously called the Arnold Food Pantry, to develop a housing program.
The pantry, 2024 Key West Drive, purchased two homes in Imperial, and it is renting the houses to two clients at a reduced rate. He said Kostecki and Matt Marchio, a military veteran who moved into the other home, are paying about $1,000 combined a month.
McKelvey said the rent also covers utilities at the home, and Gateway is delivering food and other household items, such as laundry detergent, to Kostecki and Marchio.
“The goal is to make sure we can get people out of a cycle of poverty, completely debt free and get them set up for a successful life,” McKelvey said. “When you look at what a food pantry does, we do so many incredible things, but if you don’t have housing, we can’t really solve everything. At best, we are treating poverty. This program is a way for our clients to get out of a cycle of poverty and build a life.”
The need
McKelvey said the pantry surveyed its more than 400 clients during the last three years. McKelvey said most results fluctuated for each survey, such as the size of a family seeking food assistance, if a military veteran is part of a household and where clients were living. However, the need for affordable housing was consistent for each survey.
“The one thing we saw that was consistent across three surveys was 30 to 40 percent of our clients dealt with housing,” McKelvey said. “You have this variable that at least a third of your clients are dealing with, and it is staying fairly consistent. It was not something that was getting better or changing.”
McKelvey said Gateway employees and Board of Directors spent about six months figuring out how the pantry may be able to help clients find affordable housing. He said most housing programs focus on assisting addiction recovery and people who are victims of domestic violence, and many of the pantry’s clients would not qualify for those programs.
“We said this is something we should look at tackling ourselves,” McKelvey said.
He said Gateway purchased the homes for approximately $600,000 total. He said the pantry used its reserve funds to buy the houses.
“You can imagine we had very healthy reserves,” he said. “The question was should we let this money grow in a CD or money market account, or should we invest it in our clients? The board thought it was best to invest the money in our clients.”
Gateway’s 2025 tax filing shows the pantry received just more than $2.6 million from donations, grants and other revenue sources, and it spent just more than $2.5 million. The filing also shows the pantry finished the year with more than $1.7 million in net assets or fund balances.
After buying the homes, Gateway still has enough money in reserves to cover operating expenses for about six months, McKelvey said. The pantry’s annual operating expenses are approximately $350,000, he said.
“We were able to cover the first two houses as a proof of concept,” he said. “From here, it is going to take the community, grants and support from federal and state officials.”
McKelvey also said the pantry is receiving more money from its Treasure Shoppe, which sells donated items.
“Last year, the Treasure Shoppe did $198,000 of receipts,” he said. “This year, they are over $200,000. It is crazy.”
Circumstances
McKelvey said the pantry continues to work on the process for people to live in its homes.
He said for the first two homes, Kostecki and Marchio were selected because of their relationships with Gateway and their different circumstances.
Kostecki has received food assistance from Gateway since 2016. She had to retire from her job as a medical assistant to care for Victoria, who has developmental disabilities.
Kostecki said the family receives less than $1,000 a month from the supplemental security income program, and being able to rent a home at a low cost now allows her to think about the future.
“It is stability and comfort,” she said. “I never thought ahead. I now feel more at ease. I didn’t think it was possible that I could live in a home to raise my children.”
McKelvey said Kostecki and her daughters will remain at the home for at least five years, which should allow Victoria time to graduate from Seckman High School plus an additional year.
Natalie, who is attending Jefferson College and plans to become a nurse, said the home provides comfort and safety.
“There were safety concerns where we were at before,” she said. “With our housing need met, we can focus on other needs.”
Marchio, 35, served in the Army for 11 years. He served one tour in Iraq with the 1st Cavalry, before being medically discharged.
He was renting a home in a subdivision off Tenbrook Road in Arnold, and the rent continued to be increased. He had his military benefits cut, and he said he was told his benefits would be restored to the previous level after six months.
Marchio said he got a high-interest loan to cover his costs while waiting for his benefits to be restored. But after three years, his benefits have not been restored to previous levels, and he has not received money for the benefits he lost during that time.
Between paying higher rent and making payments on the loan, he fell into debt and was leaving lights off at his home to save money.
Marchio walked about 3 miles from his Arnold home to Gateway in January to get food for the first time. McKelvey said he was the only person at the pantry the first time Marchio showed up, and he drove Marchio home, learned about his circumstances and started having food delivered to Marchio’s house.
“It went from ‘I will get some canned food, throw it in my backpack and carry it back’ to ‘we will drive you home and we will drive the food to you,’ now I have a house from there,” Marchio said of Gateway. “It is incredible.”
McKelvey said Marchio may only need to stay in the home provided by the pantry for two to three years. He said the goal is to get Marchio out of debt, restore his military benefits to previous levels and allow Marchio to decide where he wants to move.
“We really wanted one person who was five plus and one under five years,” McKelvey said of the first two clients to rent homes from the pantry. “It is hard because so many of our clients deserve this, they were just two people who kept coming up in conversations with the board, volunteers and employees.”
McKelvey said homes will only be available for the pantry’s clients. Gateway provides food assistance to people who live in Arnold, Imperial, the Jefferson County portion of Fenton and part of St. Louis County.
Future
McKelvey said Gateway plans to buy a third home by the end of this year and two more in 2027.
“The third house in December may be the last house if the investment is not there,” he said.
McKelvey also said the pantry purchased homes that he and board members believe may be resold at the same price or higher if the pantry cannot sustain the housing program.
“It is a huge risk,” he said. “One way to mitigate that risk is to purchase homes that someone else would want if we have to move on. The goal is not to move on. The goal is to buy more houses.”
Marchio said having a home that cost him half as much in rent as he was paying before will help him piece his life back together.
“It is a fresh start and a relief,” he said.
Kostecki said she hopes her family and Marchio can prove that Gateway’s housing initiative can work, and that the pantry will receive enough money from donations and grants to expand the program.
“I hope people get on board with the program so more families can benefit and have their dreams come true,” she said. “The people at the food pantry are like a family to me. They feed us. Without them, we wouldn’t survive. It is a lifeline.”