A $1 million donation for the Committee on Temporary Shelter will help build transitional housing for homeless families.

COTS and the New England Federal Credit Union have high hopes for the new building.

"We're here to announce that we're helping them with a presentation of a one-million-dollar check," said John Dwyer of NEFCU.

The seven-figure donation will help build a new housing complex on Main Street.

Rita Markley, the executive director of COTS, called the project a ray of sunshine in January.

"It's the best and biggest surprise you could possibly imagine, in a dreary time of year," Markley said.

The new building will be three stories high, have 15 individual housing units and will only be for families that COTS determines are already on the path to homeownership.

The transitional housing units will be located behind the existing family shelter on Main Street on what is now a parking lot.

"One of their goals is to add on to this family housing shelter. So, we are kicking off to start the actual addition of an additional building here on this property that will house additional families," Dwyer said.

"There's a real backlog in shelters because there aren't places for families to move to, and this will create that resource so that people can go beyond shelter much more quickly," Markley said.

Markley tells WCAX News this project should break ground quickly since COTS already owns the property, but we couldn't get a start date for the work. We asked about a total price tag but were told it's too early for that, too.