Tuesday evening I stood outside City Hall together with residents of New Beginnings as we expressed our hope the city council would approve the use of funds from the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 for a supportive housing project addressing chronic homelessness. Unfortunately, against the passionate appeals of those who have recently experienced homelessness, the City Council declined to fund the project.
In the meantime, our city leadership has been implementing measures targeting unhoused encampments on private properties and on our bike trails. By this summer, if the city's strategy is implemented, there will no longer be any legal places for the unhoused to sleep.
Meanwhile, all emergency housing is full, affordable housing voucher systems have months long wait lists, and many people who qualify for housing support are nevertheless living in encampments on our trails, vouchers in hand but with no place to go.
You may remember that in 2022 Fayetteville was named the first gold-level Bicycle Friendly Community in Arkansas. In 2021 Fayetteville was the first city in the United States to be awarded the designation of "Bike City." But at the same time, our commitment to providing supportive housing has stagnated, perhaps even gone regressive.
What I'd like to point out is that Fayetteville (and Northwest Arkansas more generally) is capable of being world-class any time it puts its mind to it. We have one of the greatest retail distributors in the world. We also have one of the greatest protein distributors in the world.
There is so much wealth in this area, so many resources, amazing talent, creative minds, literally an embarrassment of riches. So why aren't we leading the entire world in supportive housing?
The reality is that addressing housing in our community will be much like addressing parks and trails. In Fayetteville, for example, you have different kinds of parks and trails. There's Centennial, and Lake Fayetteville, but also Gulley Park and Wilson Park and Lake Wilson.
So also, to address the varied needs in the supportive housing space, we will need infrastructure investment for permanent housing for the chronically homeless, but also voucher systems for those experiencing short-term homelessness, and also targeted supportive housing for especially vulnerable communities, like Peace at Home Women's Shelter.
To be world class, we won't need to adopt one housing strategy. We'll need to roll out many.
For those of us in the Christian spiritual tradition, we are called to this work by the teachings of Jesus, who frequently pointed his disciples in the direction of caring for those out on the edges and sheltering those who lacked it.
Those who have always been housed may wonder why we would invest so much in infrastructure for the unhoused, much the same way those who don't ride bikes might wonder why we invest so much in bike trails. But many of the answers are the same: Such projects benefit the community economically, socially, spiritually, in myriad indirect ways.
The Rev. Clint Schnekloth is lead pastor at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Fayetteville. He blogs at www.patheos.com/blogs/clintschnekloth or email him at [email protected].