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A Place for
the Homeless in our Community: Sheltering People in Public
Spaces
 When
the state capital city earns the moniker “Meanest City in
America” from the National Coalition for the Homeless,
everyone
takes notice. The designation means that a city’s
laws or
practices and the general political climate are judged to be inhumane
as applied to the plight of the homeless. City government
began
to address the concerns cited in the report but a broader examination
seemed warranted. The growing population of Arkansas, fueled by a
burgeoning Hispanic population and hurricane evacuees from New Orleans
and the Gulf Coast, many with limited assets, strains homeless services
across the state. . The most pressing need is, of course,
shelter—temporary quarters, day centers, food service
facilities,
and affordable housing
AIA Arkansas initiative, Places for the Homeless in Our
Community: Sheltering People in Public Spaces, focused on the
needs of the state's homeless population by bringing together community
leaders, public officials, experts, activists and architects to
identify and address the major issues confronting that
population. Many of these groups had never worked together
nor
even met each other before. The creative and innovative ideas
resulting from the design workshop were encouraging to all participants
and evidence that many of the issues and problems associated with
homelessness can be resolved. Especially noteworthy, was the
success of the collaborative effort between the design professionals
and those individuals working daily with the homeless.
AIA Arkansas hosted lectures at the Clinton School for Public Service
at the Clinton Presidential Library featuring Michael Stoope, Executive
Director of the National Coalition for the Homeless, and Murray Legge,
AIA, designer of the Austin, Texas, Resource Center for the
Homeless. They discussed the needs of the homeless population
as
well as means of responding to those needs. The design
workshop
enabled AIA members to team with community leaders, public officials,
experts and activists for the homeless community to design solutions
for a Homeless Resource Center. A booklet of the results will
be
available to the participants and all public officials in the larger
cities in Arkansas.
The support of Governor Mike Beebe and Dean Skip Rutherford of the
University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service were important
to the success of the initiative.
View
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