Despite waning interest from government officials, housing interest groups are pushing to revive a state fund that launched three projects geared toward helping the elderly and the homeless in 2013.
The Arkansas Housing Trust Fund was established in 2009 as a flexible source of money to improve the stock of housing affordable to low-income people, including the homeless and nearly homeless. It received a one-time influx of $500,000 from the Legislature that went to projects in Little Rock, Fort Smith and Harrison.
The trust fund is overseen by the Arkansas Development Finance Authority, which receives federal funding for a variety of housing programs, but people pushing for state funding of the trust fund say those programs don't address some needs that state money could.
A study by the National Low Income Housing Coalition released earlier this year found that the United States lacks about 7.2 million rental homes that people with incomes at or below the federal poverty line can afford. The coalition is a nonprofit that works to "ensure decent, affordable housing for everyone," according to its website.
Arkansas has a deficit of 59,445 homes that are at or below affordability for households below the federal poverty level or at 30 percent of the area's median income, according to the study. A unit is considered affordable if renters are spending 30 percent or less of their incomes on housing.
Michael Anderson, the director of the housing trust fund project at the Center for Community Change, said the one-time funding Arkansas gave is rare. At least 46 states have housing trust funds, according to information from the center, a Washington, D.C.-based group that works on issues that low-income people face.
"A trust fund is only going to function if there's money flowing through it," Anderson said. "Once there is money flowing through it, it works."
Common sources of money in other states are document recording fees and real estate-related taxes, Anderson said.
Six other states have trust funds with no money in them, according to Housing Arkansas, an advocacy group that is pushing to get permanent funding in the state's trust fund.
Housing Arkansas, formed in 2008 to advocate for a state-level housing trust fund, has been trying to build support for the fund as the 2019 legislative session approaches. The group has been trying to determine a source of funding and to find a legislator who will sponsor the bill, Sara Oliver, the group's co-chairman, said in an email.
But the advocates hit a snag when former Sen. Jake Files was convicted of fraud and sentenced to an 18-month stint in prison in a public corruption scandal that is creeping through the Legislature, said Rich Roy, a former co-chairman of Housing Arkansas. Roy is also a member of the Arkansas Housing Trust Fund Advisory Committee.
Files, a Republican from Fort Smith, was a sponsor of 2017 legislation, House Bill 2047, that would have added 3 percent of the revenue from the state's deed taxes to the trust fund. The legislation was sent to interim study.
"That's the kiss of death," Roy said. "We're languishing in interim study without even having the chance to talk about it or negotiate to get the up or down vote. ... There were some realities of persons and politics and dynamics that occurred there."
A few legislators have signed on as supporters, including Sen. Joyce Elliott, D-Little Rock; Rep. Laurie Rushing, R-Hot Springs; and Rep. Clarke Tucker, D-Little Rock, according to a list on the Housing Arkansas website. Several representatives from housing authorities across the state and nonprofits that work on housing issues are also supporters.
Elliott was the lead sponsor on Act 661 to create the housing trust fund in 2009. When it was first funded, the goal was to start four projects -- one in each congressional district -- with $1 million per project, she said. While she is hopeful that the trust fund will be permanently funded, it's a topic many legislators tend to forget about, she said.
"I think so many people for whatever reason just do not grasp the gravity of the need we have for housing because every one of us who works at the Legislature, we go home at night and we have shelter," Elliott said. "It's nice shelter. It's not just shelter. I think sometimes we become a little insular."
In the years since the funding dried up, the role of the fund's advisory committee has been ill-defined, Roy said. Three positions on the 11-member board sit vacant, and the group has switched from meeting six times a year to meeting quarterly.
Board chairman Rhonda Kimble said filling the vacancies isn't the biggest issue. The group is focused on getting public support for a permanent funding source, and she struggles to keep the membership engaged when there is no fund to advise.
She keeps the board up-to-date on what Housing Arkansas is doing and any legislative response to its advocacy efforts. She's also trying to find people interested in the three vacant spots.
"The appointments are something we need to fill, but at the same time they need something to work on," she said. "We need to get the housing trust fund funded."
J.R. Davis, a spokesman for Gov. Asa Hutchinson, said the office is working to fill the vacancies, but because of qualification requirements, the field of potential candidates is limited.
Hutchinson, in a statement sent by Davis, said he would be open to reading any legislation concerning the fund but that Arkansas Development Finance Authority programs that draw money from the federal government are sufficient.
"Federal funding is more than adequate currently to meet the need which the state housing trust fund would meet," the statement reads. "The issue is not a lack of funding, but rather a shortage of appropriate projects which warrant funding. There are simply not enough groups out there that can assist in building low-income housing."
Officials from the Arkansas Development Finance Authority, which oversees the trust fund, agree. They say a state-level fund isn't necessary because of a buildup of nearly $20 million in federal funds.
That money is primarily from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's Home Investment Partnerships Program, said Andrew Branch, vice president of housing at the authority.
"We haven't had a real need to get an additional source of funding," Branch said. "We're not turning away a lot of projects."
Home Investment Partnership funds are designed to build, buy or rehabilitate housing for rent or home ownership to low-income people. It can also be used for rental assistance, according to the HUD website. About five years ago, the state's Home funds were cut in half, but much of the federal money Arkansas already has can be given out again because it is distributed in the form of loans, Branch said.
The authority also doles out money from the National Housing Trust Fund, a HUD-operated program that focuses on producing affordable housing for extremely low- and very low-income households. This year, Arkansas has $6 million from HUD to give out, and preference will be given to veterans and their families, according to a news release sent in July.
Branch said the primary reasons the authority denies funding for projects are either because they don't meet HUD standards or they can't provide matching dollars.
Oliver said via email that decreases and proposed cuts to HUD budgets mean that Arkansas might not always be able to rely on federal funding.
"Since Arkansas relies primarily on federal funding to finance affordable housing, it is imperative the state provides adequate, permanent funding of the Arkansas Housing Trust Fund to address the significant, unmet affordable housing needs of its citizens," Oliver said.
Anderson, who has spent years helping Housing Arkansas with research on best practices for housing trust funds, said a state-level trust fund is especially important for a state with a largely rural population because most federal programs to develop affordable housing work best in urban areas.
He added that because the state can make its own rules on its housing trust fund, the Arkansas Housing Trust Fund can serve people in a slightly higher income bracket than the National Housing Trust Fund -- for example, senior citizens who are on a fixed income.
"Federal programs alone do not cut it in Arkansas," Anderson said. "It needs to be something that is state-specific."
The Arkansas Coalition of Housing & Neighborhood Growth for Empowerment, or ACHANGE, is also pushing for the state's housing trust fund to get money, said Martie North, the group's president. The coalition "promotes quality, affordable housing and community economic development," in Arkansas, according to its website.
North, who started the coalition in 2003, said much of the housing that is affordable in Arkansas isn't good quality.
"Affordable housing is still a major issue here in this state that is not being properly addressed, based upon the need," North said. "There is this gap between need and availability, and it's huge. It's not getting better."
Directors of nonprofits that work in the Delta, Fort Smith and Little Rock say they have felt the effects of the housing shortage in their work.
Susan Forte, executive director of Houseaboutit Community and Economic Development Agency, said her group is just starting to delve into helping people build homes.
"There's a shortage in Arkansas on housing, and I hear that a lot in the Delta," Forte said. "But locally there's a shortage. There's a great need."
Houseaboutit has been focused on building community centers in the Delta, and the group is a member of Arkansas Coalition of Housing & Neighborhood Growth for Empowerment.
The trust fund was also discussed at an Arkansas Homeless Coalition's candidate forum in March. Sandra Wilson, president of the coalition, said the group will try to unify with other advocates for the homeless across the state before the 2019 legislative session to provide support for the fund.
Two of the three projects the Arkansas Housing Trust Fund was used to start in 2013 were aimed at aiding the homeless. The Little Rock project rehabilitated 13 households for senior citizens. In Harrison, the HOPE Revolving Loan Program provided rental assistance for 30 homeless families.
About $250,000 went to the Fort Smith project, called the Riverview Hope Campus. It provides shelter for more than 100 homeless people each night. The facility has showers, a hair salon and serves meals each day. It also has a room with desks positioned on each wall where entities around town that offer services for homeless people have set up camp.
There's no limit to how long people can stay, and the only rule is that those who stay "just have to behave," director Chris Joannides said. There are no drug tests, and no one is turned away for being drunk.
"If I take you in and it takes seven months, but you are not going to be homeless again, that's cool," Joannides said.
He walked into a empty, echoing room with dusty concrete floors attached to the shelter, and said the whole building used to look like that, before the campus got the money from the trust fund to renovate. He hopes to gather enough money to turn the unfinished part of the building into temporary apartments for homeless families.
Anderson likened the trust fund to a car that works only when it has fuel.
"The tragedy of the Arkansas Housing Trust Fund is that it's a really nice vehicle, but it's sitting in the driveway because it's never really had a consistent source of gas," Anderson said.
SundayMonday on 09/02/2018