The building that formerly housed the old Dayton Urban League west of downtown now includes several organizations that want to address issues concerning minorities.

Miami Valley Housing Opportunities hosted an open house last week for the new Opportunity Center, which opened at 907 West Fifth Street in August. The MVHO, a non-profit organization that focuses on the housing needs of vulnerable people, purchased the four-story building from the Dayton Urban League in July for $305,000, according to the Montgomery County Auditor’s office.

“We see this building as a resource for the community where we can provide people with all different types of opportunities,” said Debbie Watts Robinson, CEO of MVHO.

The Urban League maintains a presence at the Opportunity Center with the new Miami Valley Urban League being a tenant.

“We are going to be working with a community advisory board to look at what we should do and how we should be in this market,” said Rea Waldon, chief operating officer of the Urban League of Greater Cincinnati and interim MVUL director.

Besides the Urban League, there are four other tenants in the center, which is nearing capacity, Robinson said.

The main tenant is MVHO, which moved from its old location at the VA Medical Center on West Third Street.

MVHO provides housing for approximately 1,000 people - mostly homeless - every month. Half of those people are housed in MVHO’s 45 multi-family buildings that are located throughout the region. The other half are in residences owned by private landlords.

“We administer the financial assistance to maintain their housings,” Robinson said.

For Parity, Inc. officials, the opportunity to move back into the West Fifth Street address was like returning home, according to Richard Wright, Parity’s executive director. The non-profit, which focuses on issues that are critical to minority organizations, was housed in the building but left after the Dayton Urban League shut its doors in December 2010.

The agency, which also has a mentoring program partnership with Dayton Public Schools, moved its headquarters from The Job Center on Edwin C. Moses Boulevard to the Opportunity Center on Nov. 1.

Wright said one of Parity’s goals “is to work collaboratively with other organizations that are addressing issues within the black community.”

The City of Dayton’s Minority Business Assistance Centers and the city’s Procurement Technical Assistance Center are also at the center.

“The Minority Business Assistance Centers are set up to provide assistance to business of all sorts. We provide them information about contracting opportunities, financing opportunities and we give them an awareness of procurement activities across the board,” said David Lyttle, MBAC’s construction specialist.

“We basically try to solve any problem they have, as far as getting ready for business, getting in the business and staying in business.”

The building, which has security, also includes some meeting rooms that can be rented to the public for evening and weekend events, Robinson said.