75 attend meeting on PB parolee plan

Mayor: Program to be no cost to city

PINE BLUFF -- About 75 people gathered Monday night at Pine Bluff City Hall to hear discussions about a proposed program that would put parolees to work tearing down derelict houses in the city.

Dubbed the Pine Bluff Housing and Community Re-invigoration Program, the pilot project falls under the umbrella of the Arkansas Department of Community Correction, which recently received $830,000 in grant funds from the Arkansas Department of Economic Development to develop it.

The City Council had been scheduled to vote on a resolution regarding the program at its Aug. 18 meeting, but aldermen decided to wait and study it further before taking action.

The three-year program is designed to provide up to 40 soon-to-be-paroled inmates a chance to learn job skills and help them be productive members of society, said Kevin Murphy, assistant director of re-entry and volunteer services at the Community Correction Department.

Inmates would be accepted into the program in groups of 10 for six months at a time, he said.

The laborers would work primarily on the demolition of houses in the city, not other kinds of buildings, Murphy said.

In addition, 10 former inmates who are already paroled and living in Pine Bluff and Jefferson County would be paid to work as part of the program.

Those living at the Southeast Arkansas Community Correction Center would not receive payment for their labor.

The inmates would all be from Jefferson County.

The program will not cost the city, and Pine Bluff will still bid out contracts to tear down homes on its demolition list, Mayor Debe Hollingsworth said.

The problem has been that the city only has about $80,000 a year to spend on structure demolition, and there are currently about 600 properties on the list waiting to be razed.

Aldermen and other city officials have commended the Community Correction Department's program as a way to help revitalize blighted neighborhoods.

Pine Bluff resident Donald Muhammad asked during the meeting if any of the houses could be refurbished, citing a concern for affordable housing. Hollingsworth said that most, if not all, of the houses on the list have already been deemed uninhabitable.

"We are talking about houses that are falling in or are burned out shells," the mayor said.

Joyce Brown, president of the Central Park Neighborhood Watch Program in Pine Bluff, said the program is a way "to put people to work. These are people who need jobs, whether you like it or not."

The City Council is scheduled to vote on whether they want the program in the city at their Sept. 2 meeting.

State Desk on 08/26/2014

Upcoming Events