Homeless meal-site move from downtown Little Rock set

Sept. 11 is target if snags resolved

The citizens committee overseeing a 90-day trial period to move suppers for homeless people from downtown Little Rock to city-owned property miles away has set a targeted start date of Sept. 11, but it must first resolve newly uncovered problems.

The group met Thursday morning for the first time since city officials signed off on the plan as part of a deal to scrap a contentious proposed ordinance that would have restricted serving the meals in public parks.

Members began hashing out details of how to move the meals, which organizers said serve about 100 people four nights per week, how to gauge whether the trial is successful and how to broaden who will participate. The group will continue meeting during the lead-up to the trial period that, on the proposed schedule, would extend into mid-December.

The committee began confronting some unforeseen complications, such as how to provide bathrooms, seating, security and lighting at the location, a grassy lot behind the homeless day resource center Jericho Way on Springer Boulevard.

Talks, which began in May, have mostly focused on the Broadway Bridge Project, a coalition of about 20 volunteer groups that take turns serving supper four nights a week at the downtown church From His Throne Ministries on West Markham Street.

Those meals had been served under the old Broadway bridge until the area was closed for construction of a new bridge that is nearly completed. The area under the bridge is considered parkland, so meals would have been restricted there under the proposed law.

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Some of the Broadway Bridge Project volunteers have agreed to try serving the meals behind Jericho Way, which will be closed when supper is served, but others have declined.

The resource center serves breakfast and lunch indoors and offers an array of services on Monday through Friday but closes in the midafternoon.

Jericho Way is largely disconnected from the plan to relocate the meals to its property, other than sharing land. It would have to renegotiate its contract with Little Rock and increase staff members to stay open to accommodate people in the evenings, Mandy Davis, the center's director, has said.

While committee member and Arkansas Homeless Coalition̶c̶o̶-̶C̶h̶a̶i̶r̶m̶a̶n̶ member* David Deere will continue to meet with some of the Broadway Bridge Project volunteers in hopes of persuading them to try the move to the Jericho Way property, other members will begin recruiting other groups to participate.

"If there are some big holes [in the schedule], we [will] go try to fill them ourselves with other groups," said Jordan Johnson, the committee's chairman.

One of the metrics to gauge whether the trial is successful will be to count the number of meals served, Johnson said.

Davis urged the committee to meet with homeless people who currently eat at From His Throne Ministries to see if they're interested in leaving downtown for supper.

Before the test period can begin, some logistical challenges must be solved.

Little Rock has pledged to provide a tent at Jericho Way and expand its existing van service that shuttles homeless people to and from Jericho Way into the evening.

John Eckart, director of the city's Parks and Recreation Department, said a 600-square-foot tent rental could cost between $3,000 and $4,000 for the three-month trial period. Whether the tent can stay up for three months or needs to be taken down and stored after meals is an open question.

"That tent can be cut up and used as a lot of little tents," warned Chris Porter, the city's homeless services advocate.

City officials also will look into the cost of either temporary or permanent lighting at the site after one of the city's two part-time van drivers pointed out that fall brings earlier sunsets.

The sun will go down shortly after 5 p.m. when daylight saving time concludes on Nov. 5, which would be about two-thirds of the way through the trial on the current planned schedule. Dinner at From His Throne is served at 6 p.m.

A Section on 07/28/2017

*CORRECTION: David Deere is a member of the Arkansas Homeless Coalition. His affiliation with the group was incorrectly reported in a previous version of this story.

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