Local First Arizona Grant | HomeSlice Stays

Recognized by Local First Arizona: A Milestone in the HomeSlice Story

I'm Ellie Paget, founder of HomeSlice Stays. Part of who we are today was shaped in the hardest stretch we've been through, and I think it's worth telling honestly, because it says something about how this company is built.

In 2020, during the height of the COVID-19 crisis, HomeSlice Stays was selected by Local First Arizona for a grant through its Small Business Relief Fund. It mattered far beyond the funding. Local First Arizona, founded by Kimber Lanning, exists to celebrate and sustain Arizona's homegrown businesses, and at that moment it was a genuine lifeline for small local companies trying to hold on. Over 2,700 businesses applied. Only a handful were selected, with priority given to owner-operators with children at home.

At the time, I was a single mother of two with a third child on the way, running a young company through the most uncertain period any of us had seen. What I said then still captures it honestly: the support gave me the working capital to meet our commitments, and the room to breathe knowing our bases were covered.

What We Did When It Counted

The grant helped, but what I'm actually proudest of is the choices we made with it. When travel shut down, we refunded the guests who could no longer come, including people who had booked for their weddings. That was not the industry norm. Many companies hid behind their cancellation policies and kept guests' money even when those guests had lost a wedding, a milestone, an entire plan. We didn't. It cost us in the moment, and it was unquestionably the right thing to do, and I'd make the same call again.

Then we pivoted instead of stalling. We shifted homes into mid-term rentals so our owners still had revenue coming in during a period when most short-term portfolios went dark, and so we could keep operating, and keep our people, with integrity rather than panic. Protecting guests and owners at the same time, when it would have been easier and more profitable to protect neither, is the clearest example I can give of how this company actually operates under pressure.

Alongside the grant, HomeSlice Stays was also welcomed into the Local First Arizona membership, formally part of a network committed to a sustainable, community-rooted Arizona economy.

Why I'm Telling You This Now

I share this not as current news, it's history now, but because it's a real part of how HomeSlice was built. We came through that period because of discipline, community, and an unwillingness to do the easy thing at someone else's expense. That's the same foundation we operate on today, and it's exactly what an owner is really trusting when they hand over a property: not a policy document, but how a company behaves when things go wrong.

That steadiness is the whole point of what we do, for the guests who stay with us and the owners who trust us with their homes. If you own a luxury property in Scottsdale or Paradise Valley and want it in the hands of a company with real roots and real integrity here, I'd genuinely like to talk with you. Contact me today.