SPRINGDALE — Helping Northwest Arkansas’ newcomers participate and thrive no matter their backgrounds will bring a richer culture and stronger economy to the region, several business and civic leaders said Tuesday.
The nonprofit Northwest Arkansas Council, Tyson Foods and Walmart Foundation unveiled a plan for a council initiative called EngageNWA, which is meant to make sure everyone in the area’s increasingly diverse community can succeed at work and school, navigate local government and otherwise make a life.
About 100 specific goals in the plan include more diverse local boards and councils to better reflect their communities and creating of a clearinghouse for lower-cost housing options.
Nelson Peacock, CEO and president of the council, compared the undertaking to the region’s previous initiatives to build an airport and interstate highway, but focused instead on what he called social infrastructure. He said Northwest Arkansas was the first place in the country to create a regionwide, inclusion-focused plan of this kind.
“This work, we believe, is just as important as building highways,” he told a crowd of around 100 at The Jones Center. “Northwest Arkansas’s a special place, and this is an important step in our story.”
The plan is the latest in a multiplying set of regional blueprint studies on housing, transit, workforce development and open-space preservation, all in a bid to improve quality of life.
“We’re fortunate to live in an area that takes pride in collaboration,” said Margot Lemaster, executive director for EngageNWA.
INTO HIGHER GEAR
The region’s growth as one of the fastest rates of any metropolitan area in the country owes much to minorities and newcomers of all races.
The Fayetteville-Spring-dale-Rogers metro area grew by more than 100,000 people from 2006 to 2016, according to U.S. Census estimates; roughly half of that population growth came from Hispanic and other minority communities. Migration from other parts of the country and world, meanwhile, has outpaced local births since 2015.
Northwest Arkansas organizations have worked to welcome new arrivals in their particular arenas, such as immigrant parent education programs at Springdale Public Schools or Latino-focused events held by the Fayetteville Chamber of Commerce and Walmart Arkansas Music Pavilion. The EngageNWA plan takes those efforts to a new level with the partnership of cities, nonprofits and businesses.
One set of goals aims to increase knowledge and participation in local government. The plan would enlist the help of multiple cities and schools to host community forums for underrepresented people, encourage voter turnout and census participation and offer a civic engagement academy within the next four years.
Another set of goals centers around education, including creating scholarships to encourage minority teachers and exploring ways to validate professional degrees and credentials from other countries more often. Those efforts will involve such groups as Goodwill Industries, the University of Arkansas and Marshallese groups.
The Walmart Foundation provided a $450,000 grant to the council, which is a group of area business and education leaders, to put the plan together. The effort included interviews and meetings with 200 elected officials, nonprofit officials and community leaders.
Tyson is kicking in more than $260,000 to Engage NWA and other organizations to help meet some of the plan’s goals. Springdale’s City Council last week voted to accept $96,400 of that money to create the academy and create videos and documents in English, Spanish and Marshallese for city services, among other projects.
Another $38,000 is going to Canopy Northwest Arkansas, a nonprofit group helping almost 100 refugees settle in the area in the past two years or so. Executive Director Emily Linn said the group will start community orientation workshops in September on topics such as health care and parenting for Canopy clients, Tyson employees and anyone else interested.
The Teen Action Support Center, recipient of about $24,000, will use the money to offer interpreters and translation for its family counseling and other services, Executive Director Madi Hutson said. She said the help could be particularly useful for immigrant parents with second-generation children who have grown up in American culture.
“We see a lot of communication issues there,” Hutson said. “We believe this is the most important piece.”
The EngageNWA plan also touches on housing and transit, including an initiative to help people with limited English work toward getting driver’s licenses.
COMMON NEEDS
Much of the public discussion about the region’s newcomers has focused on those from the farthest away, physically or culturally. But the newest residents remain a relatively local crowd.
Census estimates for the five years ending in 2015, the most recent figures available, show about half of each year’s newcomers to Benton or Washington counties came from the rest of Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas or Oklahoma — essentially from within one state away. About 13,000 people moved to the two counties from that multistate area.
Arkansas provided the most people of any individual state, almost 8,000. Texas was a distant second at almost 3,000, just above the total who moved from other countries.
The mover numbers are greater than each year’s actual population change because they’re offset by those who move away.
Lemaster said EngageNWA is most concerned with the arrivals who need the most help to join the community, but many of its goals could help anyone who, say, needs to become more familiar with how their new city works. Interviews with recent arrivals shows another prominent need that unites movers from far-flung places or next door: housing.
Several people hailing from the Marshall Islands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean said they stayed with family members already here, at least at first, which often meant two or three families squeezed into space meant for one.
“They always tell us that it’s really cheap here and it’s easier to find a job,” said Jadieann McAvoy, who moved here about four years ago with her two children — a third arrived since. Her family and her cousin’s family of four essentially swapped the bedroom each day as the adults came in from a day or night shift.
McAvoy said her family has moved into their own place, but it’s cheap, with a messy carpet and cockroach problem. They’re trying to build up a credit score, which was nonexistent back home, high enough for better housing.
“Maybe next year we’ll find a house,” she said.
Closer to home, Trenton Cowling moved from Hot Springs to Rogers earlier this year. He has a $30,000-per-year job with the state and said it was easy to find apartments for people with twice his salary or half of it, less so for the middle. Eventually a duplex landlord dropped from $775 to $700 to squeeze into his budget.
“Obviously the area has the prices up where the corporate people can afford to live,” he said. “Everyone that I work with is either married or has a roommate.”
The Walton Family Foundation and Northwest Arkansas Regional Planning Commission are in the middle of a housing assessment with recommendations for the area that could come out before the end of the year.
EngageNWA’s plan includes goals to get more input from diverse groups for such studies, develop a list of affordable housing options for anyone who needs it, and ensure information about housing and public transportation comes in several languages. Lemaster on Tuesday said the plan is a living document that can be adjusted for any needs that pop up.
Richard Laraya, a community worker with the Arkansas Coalition of Marshallese, said minority communities such as his could use advocates to help navigate the leasing process and fair housing laws.
“The population is really big now, and more and more are still migrating,” he said.
WEB WATCH
Find the complete EngageNWA 2018-2022 strategic plan at engagenwa.org.
ENGAGENWA TYSON GRANTS
Tyson Foods provided more than $260,000 to several groups to help engage and include minority and newcomer populations in the area’s civic life and social services. The recipients and projects are:
CANOPY NORTHWEST ARKANSAS, A REFUGEE ASSISTANCE GROUP: $37,979 for community orientation workshops and mentorship for newcomers
SPRINGDALE: $96,400 for a civic academy about city services and leadership opportunities, material in multiple languages and other events
ENGAGENWA, A NORTHWEST ARKANSAS COUNCIL INITIATIVE: $63,681 to manage all the grants and coordinate diversity and inclusion efforts around the region
TEEN ACTION AND SUPPORT CENTER: $24,406 to help Spanish and Marshallese speakers access its family counseling and other services
WELCOMING AMERICA, A GEORGIA-BASED GROUP WORKING TO HELP CITIES AROUND THE COUNTRY WELCOME NEW ARRIVALS: $40,000 to work with Fayetteville and Springdale
Source: NWA Council
Dan Holtmeyer can be reached at [email protected] and on Twitter @NWADanH.