By Nathan Treece for Little Rock Public Radio.
Broadcast version by Freda Ross for Arkansas News Service reporting for the Little Rock Public Radio-Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation-Public News Service Collaboration.
Pulaski County officials broke ground mid-May on a new project that aims to provide permanent housing for people experiencing chronic homelessness.
Providence Park is inspired by the Community First Village of Austin, Texas, and when complete, will include 400 tiny homes with full support services to improve both resident health and quality of life.
Errin Stanger, founder and CEO of Providence Park, has been working with the unhoused community of central Arkansas for several years. She says she was inspired to search for more permanent solutions to the problem.
"That led me to look at the nation and also do an international study, and so I spent a few years trying to find something that I thought might be wonderful to bring to Arkansas, and that's when I found Community First in Texas," said Stanger. "I wanted to do a better job taking care of our chronically homeless individuals, so I just started the research, and here we are today."
The community will have full wrap-around services, starting with a medical, mental, and dental health facility.
"We'll also have a huge community garden. We will have a fabrication lab-type building so all of our neighbors can make and create inside. They are kind of modeled after the [Arkansas Regional] Innovation Hub, which is my previous place of employment. I used to be the director there." Stanger added, "It's important to bring arts into their lives as well, so really, full wrap-around services to get them back on their feet and feeling good again"
Providence Park will be located behind the Iron Horse Church on Chicot Road in southwest Little Rock. Stanger says they are partnering with Rock Region Metro to plan a dedicated bus stop for the village.
One in every three households in Arkansas can be considered ALICE, defined by nonprofit alliance United Way as asset limited, income constrained, and employed.
Stanger says she hopes to open the doors in the first quarter of 2025.
Nathan Treece wrote this article for Little Rock Public Radio.
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Data is scarce, but Minnesota housing advocates say in a tough rental environment, applicants sometimes fork over screening fees for a unit they stand little chance of getting. That's prompting calls for changes.
Analysts say it's getting harder for people to afford monthly housing costs, including the fees. Assistance groups say over time, people can spend hundreds of dollars on screening fees as they scrounge for housing they might not even get.
Margaret Kaplan, president of The Housing Justice Center, said its survey reveals in some cases, a landlord encourages a person - who stated they don't meet the requirements - to still apply, in case the other applicants don't work out.
"It just makes a system that is incredibly challenging for potential renters even more challenging," Kaplan said.
The 2021 report her group co-authored found that 90% of those surveyed were ultimately rejected in these situations.
Minnesota recently bolstered tenants' rights laws. Kaplan still would like to see more regulations concerning these fees and for Minnesota to follow Rhode Island in heavily restricting them. A group representing landlords did not respond to a request for comment.
The example provided isn't considered a violation.
Mike Vraa, managing attorney for the legal assistance group HOME Line, said it's not surprising similar scenarios are largely anecdotal, because widespread exploitation would draw attention under current law. Vraa agrees Minnesota has been more aggressive in adding renter protections, but still needs to catch up in a few areas.
Another complicating factor is that if an applicant has a complaint about screening fees, it's not likely to draw a huge response.
"This is a low-level crime on its face because the victim is paying [roughly] $50 per time, so it's almost certainly not a felony," Vraa said.
In addition to aid groups, he recommends reaching out to the state Attorney General's Office, because if that staff detects a pattern of clear violations, a robust investigation could follow. Meanwhile, Kaplan said the cumulative effect of application fee barriers can be harmful to low-income applicants.
"People reach a point where a number of things can happen. The first is that people don't have the extra money to be paying all of these application fees. And so, they're going to stay in whatever housing situation that they can find, even if it is really suboptimal," Kaplan explained.
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Advocates for affordable housing are still grappling with a U.S. Supreme Court decision they say could criminalize homelessness. Justices voted 6-3 in favor of Grants Pass, Ore., which passed an ordinance allowing fines for people sleeping in public, even if they have nowhere else to go.
Rachael Myers, executive director of the Washington Low-Income Housing Alliance, said the decision comes as many people in Washington state struggle to stay housed.
"The affordable housing crisis that we're experiencing right now is part of what makes this decision so painful. We're saying that it's okay to punish people for not having a place to live, when at the same time, the cost of housing is so astronomical," she said.
Critics of the decision say it opens the doors to cities implementing their own policies to punish people for sleeping outdoors. Supporters of Grants Pass say cities have had few options for responding to homelessness.
In ruling the anti-camping ban did not violate the Eighth Amendment against cruel and unusual punishment, Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote the high court should not "dictate this nation's homelessness policy."
Myers noted Washingtonians needed to make more than $36 per hour at a full time job in 2023 to afford to rent the average two-bedroom apartment.
"It's especially a slap in the face when housing costs are so out of control, and when we know what to do about it. We know that providing people with housing and services is what is going to actually reduce homelessness and addressing the individuals' homelessness. Fines and tickets and arrests won't do that," she explained.
Myers added enforcing bans on sleeping outdoors could also divert resources.
"It costs a lot of money to incarcerate people, and we could be devoting any resources that go into arresting people or fining and ticketing people - we could be putting those resources into housing, into services, into shelter," she continued.
Myers said Washington state lawmakers could look at this issue and potentially take anti-camping bans off the table during their next legislative session.
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Connecticut advocates are distressed about the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Grants Pass v. Gloria Johnson.
The ruling said public camping bans are not "cruel and unusual punishment" as defined by the Eighth Amendment. It means municipalities can fine homeless people for making encampments in public parks.
Sarah Fox, CEO of the Connecticut Coalition to End Homelessness, said criminalizing homelessness never works.
"People who are arrested are then returned to our community without resources," Fox pointed out. "So those that are engaged in the criminal justice system rarely come back to the community with the resources they need to thrive."
She added expenses such as court fees can stall a person's efforts to get housing. States such as California, Texas and Utah have bans similar to Grants Pass. Other states are either considering bans or saw legislation fail when it was introduced. The ruling comes as the last two annual point-in-time snapshots showed homelessness in Connecticut is rising after an 8-year decline.
Nationwide, homelessness has only grown since 2017. A 2022 U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development point-in-time snapshot shows more than 582,000 people were homeless on a single 2022 night.
Fox argued a multipronged approach can reduce homelessness and developing affordable housing is a primary concern.
"We need to take a deep look at zoning," Fox contended. "What other models of housing are available in the near term, and how do we actually build deeply affordable units in the long term to meet the need?"
Recent estimates showed Connecticut is short 100,000 affordable housing units and current housing is too expensive even for higher-paying jobs in the state. The National Low-Income Housing Coalition finds Connecticut rental prices far exceed the pay of most if not all jobs the state has to offer.
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