At least 20 percent of Arkansas counties reported to the federal government that they have no rapid rehousing programs, which place homeless people in houses as quickly as possible.
"The longer people are homeless, the worse it is for them. It's debilitating," said Nan Roman, president of the National Alliance to End Homelessness. The alliance is a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit that conducts research and pushes for policies to end homelessness.
Also, the state got no money for new projects in the most recent round of federal funding.
Service providers across the state say they are working to change that, but it's difficult to implement these programs in a state where much of the available housing stock doesn't rise to federal standards.
Arkansas homeless assistance programs received nearly $4.3 million from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in 2017, the most recent round of funding. One percent of that was for renewing existing rapid rehousing projects.
Rapid rehousing was wrapped into the 2009 American Reinvestment and Recovery Act that aimed to move the economy out of recession. The rehousing effort has since been touted by HUD as highly successful and cost-effective. Participants in the program are placed in apartments or houses, and given support for a set amount of time.
The state has 343 total rapid rehousing beds available year-round, which make up just over 9 percent of the 3,566 total beds available for homeless people in Arkansas, according to HUD data. Most of those are concentrated in Little Rock and central Arkansas, while Fort Smith and southeast Arkansas reported none.
Arkansas had 2,467 homeless people in 2017, according to the HUD count.
Homeless services are provided through a "continuum of care," a group of counties that work together to end homelessness and apply for federal money together. There are six such groups in Arkansas.
Chris Joannides -- a member of the Fort Smith continuum of care and the executive director of Riverview Hope Campus, a homeless shelter in Fort Smith -- said he plans to apply for a rapid rehousing grant next year, especially after seeing the HUD Housing Inventory Count. The count showed that the Fort Smith area had no rapid rehousing beds.
"Holy moly, we need help," Joannides said while reading the report.
The Fort Smith continuum, which contains six counties, did not get any money from the federal housing agency for homelessness programs in the latest grant period.
The Hope Campus, which has services such as a hair salon, dining area, showers and a sleeping room, has an empty storage room with tall ceilings and concrete floors where Joannides wants to add apartments.
His plan for now is to add about 50 apartments -- half for transitional housing and half for rapid rehousing. Transitional housing is another program designed to help people get out of homelessness by providing supportive services and shifting residents into independent living.
Officials who work with the homeless across the state said transitional housing and rapid rehousing can effectively exist side-by-side because they best serve different populations.
Rapid rehousing works best for people who don't need intensive support, while transitional housing is often good for people who have drug or alcohol addictions or are chronically homeless, they said.
Much of the focus in Northwest Arkansas, which includes Washington, Benton, Madison and Carroll counties, is on ending chronic homelessness, said Steve Burt, the executive director of the Northwest Arkansas continuum of care.
People are chronically homeless if they have been homeless for at least a year -- or at least four times in three years -- and have disabilities.
The Northwest Arkansas group has a goal of bringing the number of chronically homeless down to "functional zero" by 2020, meaning they are aware of who is chronically homeless and have the capacity to get them into housing quickly.
Northwest Arkansas received no money for new rapid rehousing programs from HUD but did receive $43,319 to renew a project.
Harley Thompson was a leader of the Boone, Baxter, Marion, Newton counties continuum of care before it merged in May with the Arkansas Balance of State continuum, which covered 24 counties before the merger. He said he hopes this will improve outcomes for the homeless in his region.
Arkansas Balance of State is the largest continuum and encompasses counties in the southwest and the northeast corners of the state as well as areas west of Little Rock and east of Fort Smith. The most recent HUD funding data show that the continuum received $114,347 to continue a joint rapid rehousing and transitional housing project.
Thompson said he's hopeful the merger will bring in more money for rapid rehousing in the next funding year because HUD's grant system is based primarily on what loans groups got the year before. State grant money is also available through the Arkansas Department of Human Services.
Ed Nilles, the president of Central Arkansas Team Care for the Homeless, said the rapid rehousing programs in his region are funded by the state, but generally the goal of those grants is to not duplicate services, so usually the same agency gets the rapid rehousing every year.
The state grants also encompass other services such as emergency shelter, street outreach and homelessness prevention.
Nilles said HUD has offered more funding opportunities in the past few years, but it denied the one application submitted from central Arkansas.
"What it boils down to is each continuum of care has a specific amount of money that it's eligible to apply for, and you can't exceed those amounts," he said. "That's what complicates things a little bit is that unless money is shifted around within a continuum of care, it's very difficult to apply for a new grant."
Burt said rapid rehousing programs in the area are improving, but right now he's more focused on developing relationships with landlords to help the homeless get into quality housing.
"We've got to be cognizant that they've got to have an affordable place to live," he said. "People are having a hard time."
Thompson said that because federal standards are higher than Arkansas standards for housing, finding places for people who would be eligible to participate in a rapid rehousing program is a challenge.
"While the units may be there, there is a process," Thompson said. "Rapid is a bit of a misnomer."
Arkansas is the only state in the country without a warranty of habitability law, which would set minimum standards for rental units that require them to be safe and healthy.
Roy Thomas, who operates House of Hope, a homeless shelter in Harrison, said he's trying to work around that issue by allying himself with the local housing authority. The housing authority is also required to live up to federal standards.
House of Hope is in the first stages of its first rapid rehousing program, and the staff has identified two eligible clients. The goal is for the clients to be entirely independent within 90 days, with intensive case management.
"We just want to make sure that the ones that we do put in are successful and don't fall back," Thomas said. "What we want to do is get people in that's going to actually be a success."
Roman, with the National Alliance to End Homelessness, said one of the root causes of homelessness is the lack of affordable housing in every state, and that people in lower income brackets are paying a high percentage of their incomes to rent.
She referred to rapid rehousing as "an emergency room strategy."
"Rapid rehousing is not totally changing that equation, but generally speaking, people who get housing exit homelessness and don't come back," Roman said. "It doesn't end their poverty, but it gives them a chance to get back on their feet."
SundayMonday on 10/22/2018