Northwest Arkansas groups working to end homelessness are cooperating and sharing information in new ways, which several advocates said should reduce the problem.
The Northwest Arkansas Continuum of Care, an umbrella organization that includes Fayetteville's 7 Hills Homeless Center and The Salvation Army among other members, is overseeing the changes. Chairwoman Angela Belford said the group has achieved two goals it set for itself from May to August.
Web watch
To see the Hark program from the Center of Collaborative Care, which advocates hope will help reduce homelessness, go to harknwa.com.
First, the group has created a list of locals in or near homelessness, a first among organizations that typically keep separate lists. Second, the continuum has put in place a system that can assess clients' needs consistently and connect them via an online program to services that can help them reset their lives.
The system is being tweaked and gradually rolled out to all of the groups, but the changes will eventually help push homelessness down to so-called functional zero, where people are rehoused almost as soon as they lose their homes, Belford said.
"It's super exciting and it's very slow going," Belford said with a laugh. She recalled the past few months of training and meeting with members and a national consultant called Community Solutions and corrected herself: "We've come so far in such a short amount of time."
Turning the page
About 3,000 people are on the streets, in shelters or doubling up with family or friends on a given day in Benton and Washington counties, based on the latest homelessness survey in January from the University of Arkansas' Community and Family Institute.
The figure more than tripled since the first count in 2007. Half were children. The adults surveyed had lacked stable homes for an average of six months, double the time a decade before.
The continuum's goal is to solve these issues by connecting people to groups that provide food, career training and shelter from domestic violence, depending on their circumstances.
Observers and members have said the organization was relatively listless for years, with many of its members frustrated and distracted by the need to raise money and work for their individual organizations instead of as a whole. Belford in June said bluntly, "It has been dysfunctional."
Kevin Fitzpatrick, a sociology professor at the university who organizes the homeless survey, said in January he has often felt his in-depth findings fall on deaf ears and the continuum could be more engaged with the survey, which it helps pay for. He didn't return cellphone messages last week asking for comment.
The continuum's turnaround has included some of Fitzpatrick's suggestions, including choosing a leader who isn't tied to any particular member organization. Belford is CEO of the Belford Group, a regional marketing company, and experienced homelessness as a child in Oklahoma and Arkansas.
Fitzpatrick and advocates with 7 Hills and other continuum members agreed they must find a better computer system to compile and share information about their clients while protecting those clients' privacy. The old system predecessor is "impossible to use," Fitzpatrick said last year.
That shortfall should be corrected soon, Belford said. The group partnered with Community Solutions, which provides a plan that's meant to begin reducing homelessness within a year using a step-by-step series of goals. The shared assessment and list of people in need were in the first set of those goals.
The continuum board adopted an assessment called a vulnerability index, essentially a survey for each client that scores their needs and the urgency of those needs. Secondly, the group plans to use Hark, an online program developed by the Center for Collaborative Care in Springdale. The site can hold the continuum's list and connect the people on it with the churches, pantries or aid groups that can help them.
"That is the ultimate goal of this, that someone would not have to tell their story over and over again," Belford said. The program still needs final approval from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, but she said she's confident it'll get the green light in the coming months.
Nick Ogle, who directs the year-old collaborative center as well as Mercy Northwest Arkansas' mental and behavioral health program, said Hark is meant to be work much like a social media site among nonprofit groups, law enforcement, schools and the people they serve or encounter. Anyone can make a profile and specify certain needs or goals they need to meet.
Early Thursday morning the site had been accessed almost 200 times that day, and hundreds of providers are part of its network, he said.
"We're moving fast," Ogle said, adding the continuum has turned a page. "They're getting the support that they need."
'New energy'
All of these developments give the Continuum of Care new momentum, Belford said. It has more than a dozen board members instead of four or five in years past. The federal housing department is allowing the group to apply for thousands of dollars more in grants in the coming weeks compared to last year, and more continuum members are applying.
Community Solutions, the consultant group, has provided training, connections with federal officials and contacts of similar organizations in other parts of the country, Belford added.
The next phase in Community Solution's program will be to put the list to work and begin reducing homelessness.
"Now that you know who's on the list, let's get everybody off the list," Belford said. Community Solutions' program "gave everybody the fire that we needed."
Amy Cash, supervisor of the subsidized housing program at the Veterans Health Care System of the Ozarks, said she was thrilled at the new level of cooperation. She has started using the continuum's assessment for some cases and attends the group's meetings regularly.
Cash credited new leadership and membership for the change.
"It's brought some new ideas to the table, some new energy," Cash said. "It's very exciting to see everyone bring their strengths to the table, to really get the different agencies to break down our silos and work together."
Some tensions remain. Continuum members this year have discussed taking on more control of the homeless survey instead of Fitzpatrick. Belford, carefully choosing her words, said last week the group wants to make sure the survey counts virtually all homeless people instead of being more of a sample.
Cash said the broader community must also become more involved. She always needs more landlords and property managers who are willing to accept veterans who have been homeless for some time or have had brushes with the law as tenants, for example.
There's also the continuous call for more affordable apartments and homes throughout Northwest Arkansas, which Fitzpatrick and others have said is the only real way to pull out homelessness by its roots.
Median rent in the Fayetteville-Springdale-Rogers metropolitan statistical area reached about $750 per month in 2015, according to census estimates, outpacing the growth in median income. Homeless individuals at 7 Hills or at church lunches during the past several years have said having enough money for rent is their biggest barrier to getting housed.
Belford said she believes homelessness can be effectively ended in the region.
"The progress we have made and the ability to bring people together has been incredible," she said. "I'm not going to quit. I don't even know how to live without hope."
NW News on 09/03/2017