Fayetteville service groups seek donations for homelessness fight

FAYETTEVILLE -- Service organizations responding to the homeless camp eviction in the south part of town are welcoming donations and volunteers.

The Salvation Army is providing evening meals for more people and sheltering twice as many people as usual each night, and 7 Hills Homeless Center this week plans to set up half a dozen spots for people sleeping in their cars to park for the night. Organizers say they need people's time, household supplies and food for the extra work.

The University of Arkansas campus police earlier this month gave campers on university land near 19th Street until Sept. 6 to clear out citing safety concerns for the people living there. Advocates have estimated they could number about 100. Multiple groups teamed up to help them find services and, potentially, housing.

The Salvation Army shelter nearby has shouldered much of the load, offering up to 100 cots for the next six months on top of the usual 46 overnight beds. About 40 people have taken them up on the offer each night, said Josh Robinett, Northwest Arkansas commander. One, a veteran, has already found housing through the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs office, he said.

"Hopefully, in six months, we will see a lot of these individuals housed," he said. "We're the on-ramp, and we are relying on the help from other service organizations to help with that housing piece. We are the stabilizer, so to speak."

The facility no longer requires overnight clients to be tested for blood-alcohol levels as long as they aren't disruptive, and it's working on providing kennel space for pets, Robinett said.

Despite any stereotype to the contrary, few people ever failed tests on alcohol levels, Robinett added, and things have gone smoothly since the rule was loosened. The changes are also part of a broader, monthslong attempt to change the Salvation Army's culture and reputation as strict and rule-bound, he said.

"We exist for others," Robinett said. "Some policies have been around for a long time and just are no longer necessary, and, in some ways, those policies can become barriers to helping folks."

The new rules could mean more people coming through the Salvation Army's doors, such as Melody Glover and Dakota Faux, a couple who recently moved from Oklahoma and are staying in Faux's mother's pickup in Elkins. Glover said she has a small support dog, so she can't stay overnight at the Salvation Army. But she might once a kennel is in place.

"If I can't find a place before then," Faux added.

About half the budget for Salvation Army shelters throughout the country comes from public donations, according to the national organization's website. The rest comes from sales, investment income and other sources, with less than one-tenth from government money.

Solomon Burchfield, director of operations at the 7 Hills day center, said the Salvation Army's steps are just one piece of a wider response to the camp eviction and the homelessness problem in general. The day center's overnight parking should start Aug. 27, but he's looking for volunteers to help set up the spots this week.

"We signed up to try to help people; we've got to ask ourselves what we can do better," Burchfield said Monday. "This kind of crisis really galvanizes people."

Genesis Church on Martin Luther King Boulevard, the Salvation Army, 7 Hills and other groups last week had a resource fair for the first time that functioned as a one-stop social services shop for the homeless. Faux got his birth certificate for free, and Glover said she got help with health insurance and spoke with a representative from the low-cost Community Clinic.

"It's been a lot of help, and I'm hoping they have more of these," Glover said.

Burchfield said 7 Hills might host a mini-resource fair closer to the Sept. 6 deadline as the urgency starts to set in among the camp holdouts.

"It will get very real in the next coming weeks," he said Thursday.

Several of the resource fair groups are part of the Northwest Arkansas Continuum of Care, a network of service providers whose goal is to get so efficient at helping people that those who lose their homes can find new housing almost immediately. The continuum renewed its efforts two years or so ago, starting an exhaustive list of those experiencing homelessness and recently hiring its first full-time director.

The continuum and its members have counted more than 1,000 children and adults living on the streets, in shelters or in transitional housing, officials have said. That doesn't count perhaps several times more who are temporarily doubled up with friends or family.

On the other hand, the list of people actively homeless has shrunk for a few weeks in a row, Continuum Director Steve Burt said, and member groups have found housing for 200 people since January. But that success just drives home the primary solution to the region's homelessness, said continuum board Chairwoman Angela Belford.

"The answer is not shelter; the answer is housing," she said.

NW News on 08/19/2018