Attendees at a summit Monday organized by Vincent Tolliver, who has said he will run for Little Rock mayor, questioned the practicality of his plan to build a downtown homeless shelter with wrap-around services.
Concerns focused on duplicating existing services, funding and the feasibility of building a shelter downtown, where businesses and residents may push back.
"The idea in mind for me was a facility in downtown Little Rock where most if not all of the needs of our homeless could be met," Tolliver said at the beginning of the meeting.
He said this will be the first of several meetings to explore issues surrounding homelessness and to refine details about the facility.
The most recent census of the homeless in central Arkansas showed that there were 990 homeless people in Lonoke, Prairie, Pulaski and Saline counties.
Tolliver added that he wants the shelter to be open 24 hours a day, seven days a week and to have social workers, mental health providers, food, clothing and shelter in the same facility. Some services may rotate on a set schedule.
After presenting his plan to attendees, he asked Estella Morris, program manager with the Veterans Day Treatment Center, to give feedback and an idea of where the city stands in regards to helping its homeless population. She recommended he contact members of the Central Arkansas Team Care for the Homeless, which conducts the homeless census.
Morris' facility for veterans moved to Main Street in 2013. It used to be at the intersection of Second and South Ringo streets, and when officials moved the center, nearby businesses and residents objected.
"The fight you are speaking of is a fight that has already been fought and has already been shot down," said Morris about building a shelter downtown. "I think it would be more prudent of us to look at what we can achieve."
Tolliver said he asked city officials whether Little Rock owned any vacant buildings downtown, and they did not. So he's seeking privately owned buildings that might work for the project.
Former Little Rock Mayor Jim Dailey attended the meeting, and when Tolliver asked him what it might cost to put together the shelter with wrap-around services, Dailey said there were too many unknown factors to determine.
Dailey added that Tolliver could look into using city money set aside for the Future Little Rock fund. It's meant to provide the community with programs that help families and children in the city, and Dailey said homelessness programs could fall under the category.
Little Rock and North Little Rock already fund Jericho Way Resource Center, a location open during the day for the homeless to access case management, food and showers for the homeless, among other services.
Several attendees suggested that Tolliver create a map of services already available through non-profits and faith-based groups so work isn't needlessly recreated, which he said he would work to avoid by talking to more people.
"What I would not want to see is to try to reinvent the wheel or to emulate what someone else is doing so much as to kind of be co-opting what is already being done," said Janis Kearney, president and founder of Celebrate! Maya Project of Arkansas. The project promotes the work of poet Maya Angelou.
Tolliver said he wanted stakeholders who represent different aspects of the city, including the arts, at the meeting. Another goal he has, he said, is to create a city commission on homelessness by 2019. A similar commission was established during Dailey's term as mayor.
"You've got several candidates who are coming up for mayor, so you'd have to see what their support levels would be," Dailey said of the shelter.
The shelter is in Tolliver's top 10 priorities if he becomes mayor, although if he doesn't win, he said he will continue the work.
"But to be very clear, come November, I plan to be mayor of Little Rock," he said.
State Rep. Warwick Sabin, who started an exploratory committee for the mayoral position last year, said he thinks a model used in Albuquerque, N.M., that helps the homeless get jobs and provides affordable housing would work for Little Rock.
His campaign website also includes proposals to increase mixed-income neighborhoods and support for more tenant-focused policy at the city level.
"I think the city can also do more to engage with people who are experiencing homelessness to help them either get access to shelter or to jobs or to health care services or mental health care services," Sabin said.
Frank Scott Jr., whose exploratory committee for mayor also kicked off in 2017, said his official platform, including his stances on the best ways to alleviate homelessness in the city, will be announced in July. But more needs to be done to help, he said, especially for homeless veterans.
Some of his first steps as mayor would be to determine the gap between shelter beds and the number of homeless to assess the need. He also wants to get more federal funding to invest in infrastructure in the city.
"We owe it to our homeless citizens to be far more thoughtful in our approach to solving homelessness in Little Rock than we've been in the past," he said.
Baker Kurrus, who announced his intention to run in May, said he was early in his campaign and had not yet developed a platform for addressing homelessness in the city. But, he said, he has spent a handful of Saturdays out on his bicycle and stopped to talk to some of them on a recent trip.
"I did what I normally do is go to where the problem is and talk to the people who have the problem," Kurrus said. "I don't have an easy solution right now, but I hope to learn as we go along."
Tolliver said he wants the next meetings to be in smaller, more focused groups that include more service providers.
"This meeting helped sort of put legs on all the work that is currently being done," he said.
Metro on 06/26/2018