#2BFayetteville

How is this possible, in this thriving part of the country? Northwest Arkansas Council's 2022 State of the Region report stated that Northwest Arkansas saw 7,500 new jobs between 2019 and 2021, and its median household income grew 16.4% to $71,767, the fastest growing median income of any of the six other metropolitan areas in its study. It also reported that the poverty rate in our area fell from 12.6% to 9.8%. However, the median price of single family homes grew 33.6% between 2019 and 2021. Home prices have risen to record highs in Benton and Washington counties and the region's population has been growing faster than new housing construction over the past decade. The typical Northwest Arkansas resident spends 52% of their income on housing and transportation. An adequate supply of affordable housing remains a pervasive concern. People become homeless due to a wide variety of circumstances. Changes in life circumstances and life crises are the most common reasons. For example, homelessness and housing insecurity can come from the loss of employment, divorce, mental and physical health issues, accidents, and more. Fortunately, there are organizations and dedicated individuals working to address homelessness in Northwest Arkansas. 7hills Homeless Center For the past 20 years, 7hills Homeless Center has been committed to serving people experiencing housing insecurity across Northwest Arkansas by working alongside them to support their short- and long-term needs and help them work toward stability. The services they provide are critical and account for a large part of our community's efforts to end homelessness. "The main causes of homelessness that we see in 7hills are substance abuse disorder or drug and alcohol addiction, particularly emotional trauma that happens in someone's life and then mental health is really the biggest reason," said Mike Williams, 7Hills Homeless Center Chief Executive Officer. "And at 7hills, most of the people we see are experiencing all three of those things at the same time. And when you are dealing with all three of those things, maintaining housing security is nearly impossible. So, our role is to help people build a plan to begin to address those challenges." 7hills approach is two-pronged, providing services through with their Day Center and HOPE rehousing program. Every month, the center conducts an average of 351 case management sessions with individuals. Sessions include working toward employment, improving physical and mental health, obtaining benefits, creating and maintaining budgets, and setting individualized goals. 7hills Day Center partners with outside agencies and individuals to provide resources for clients in areas that 7hills is not able to directly assist with. Acting as a hub, the center helps its clients receive health care, address any legal issues, even get haircuts. Individuals also have daily access to a case manager at the Day Center to help with crisis counseling, benefit application assistance, referrals to additional resources as needed, and much more. Their goal is to help those in need move toward self-sufficiency, and the services they provide are available for anyone in need. "The real beauty of the day center is that we begin to build a relationship that builds trust," Williams said. "When you're experiencing homelessness and this amount of trauma you have a real difficult time trusting new people. By meeting someone's basic needs we begin to build trust and then with that trust we can then transition them into a housing plan that's where our HOPE program comes into play." 7hills HOPE rehousing program provides rapid rehousing, transitional housing, and permanent supportive housing services, covering the full spectrum of housing needs. Currently, 7hills houses anyone needing transitional or permanent supportive housing services at their Walker Family Residential Community. All other housing services are community-based. The HOPE team meets program participants where they are and secures them housing without conditions or barriers. This helps to ensure that individuals and families exit homelessness quickly, increase self- sufficiency, and prevents participants from returning to homelessness. "We're extremely hopeful about the future," Williams said. "We can't control trauma and mental illness and other factors that lead to homelessness. But what we can control is the system that's designed to respond to a person experiencing those issues and right now that system is very inefficient. On average it takes us about six months to have someone go from homelessness to secure housing and we just don't think that's right. We are working on a strategic plan that will have us reduce that wait time from six months to 30 days." The Salvation Army of Northwest Arkansas The Salvation Army is a vital organization addressing homelessness in the area. Free meals are served to the community every evening from 4:30-9 p.m. at the shelter in Fayetteville. Their shelters are intended to be a temporary option, and they work with their guests on a case-by-case basis to help them find permanent housing. During the hot summer months, The Salvation Army opens its cooling center in their Activity Center in Fayetteville when there is a heat advisory issued for the local area. Likewise, during the winter months, when windchill temperature is 34 degrees or below, they open their cold weather warming centers. This helps keep people safe and warm in critical temperatures. Even if their shelter beds are full, they create space and provide cots and blankets to people needing a warm place to stay during the day and night. 6

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