Brick by brick

Hope Village to provide small homes, counseling and more for homeless

Phillip Fletcher wants to help the homeless in a big way by building small. The $1.4 million Hope Village — a community of 10 small homes — is a project of City of Hope Outreach and Fletcher, founder and executive director of the nonprofit organization. Work is underway on East Robins Street to build five 490-square-foot one-bedroom and five 640-square-foot two-bedroom homes, with two of the homes designated for homeless veterans.

“This has been a labor of love since 2017,” Fletcher said.

The location on 0.6 acres between CoHO headquarters and the nonprofit’s Hope Home, a transitional shelter created in 2012 for homeless men, “was just perfect,” Fletcher said.

CoHO serves three low-income communities in Conway and one in south Arkansas, providing educational support and community-development activities, in addition to Hope Home. The CoHO headquarters is in the Oakwood Village Mobile Home Park, where Fletcher started his ministry in 2007, simply with services under a tree, and created the nonprofit in 2009.

Fletcher said he was motivated to launch the small-home project by the death of a homeless friend, Gary Harrison, who died in a mobile-home fire in the park, and the difficulty of two other nonprofit organizations in Conway to open a homeless shelter.

The city is home to Bethlehem House, a transitional homeless shelter, Harbor Home for women and Rise House, formerly the Women’s Shelter of Central Arkansas. The city of Conway has purchased property for a future emergency shelter.

Fletcher said he talked with Conway architect Rik Sowell about the idea of building small homes. Fletcher had researched similar projects in Eureka Springs; Austin, Texas; and the Pacific Northwest. He said he also watched popular television programs about tiny homes.

“I went to Rik and said, ‘Is this doable?’ He heard my heart, what I was talking about, and gave me sketch ideas and came up with a final design,” Fletcher said.

The plan was presented in 2017 at the CoHO 10-year-anniversary celebration. In 2018, a house between the CoHO headquarters and Hope Home burned, the owner cleaned up the property, and CoHO bought it.

Fundraising began in 2019, but Fletcher said it was put on pause when Brookside mobile-home park, where CoHO had a ministry, closed, and people were given 30 days to leave.

“That became our main focus, helping

those families move,” he said.

In 2020, COVID-19 hit. However, the bulk of the fundraising was done during that year.

In early 2021, digging began, with Greg Lasker and Lasker Luxury Homes as the general contractor. The water, sewer and electrical work on the project is completed; parking lots are being created.

Each home will cost approximately $45,000 to build. To date, $592,000-plus has been raised in donations and in-kind commitments.

“We’ve got some other inkind commitments seeking to finalize related to construction,” Fletcher said. “Once that’s done, we’ll transition to get furniture in. We’re in discussions with companies who want to donate furniture.”

The nonprofit organization has been creative in fundraising, sponsoring everything from a comedy night to Santa cameos. An ongoing fundraiser is selling 4-inch-by-8inch engraved bricks that will create the walkways for each small home. The cost is $100 per brick. Donor and souvenir bricks are available for $30 and $20, respectively. More information is available at hopevillagecoho.org.

“We’re looking pretty good; my desire is to have some individuals in those homes come May and be fully occupied by next summer,” Fletcher said.

The application process hasn’t started, but Fletcher said he’s already had people interested in the homes.

“We try to direct them to resources to help them in the immediate,” he said.

Potential applicants are those who are homeless or who are living on the street, in other shelters or in homes that are “uninhabitable.”

“We won’t be able to address individuals struggling with substance abuse or anything like that,” Fletcher said.

The goal is to provide housing for individuals “who want to continue to progress” in their lives.

When the application process opens, individuals will meet with a CoHO case manager. Fletcher said the primary criteria will include employability, financial development, and health and wellness.

Emotional well-being is a big component, Fletcher said, and the plan is for trained therapists to help the residents accomplish their goals.

CoHO is pursuing a partial grant from the Arkansas Continuum of Care to pay for counselor contracts. Fletcher said he will also get in contact with University of Central Arkansas counseling students, possibly those in the master’s program, to work with case managers and meet with the residents on a regular basis.

The counselors will be “sitting with those individuals, working through whatever emotional, psychological things they need to confront to have skills to negotiate what they’re going through,” he said.

“You get a house; that burden is off you. … Now let’s address, ‘What are the things going on inside of you that need to be addressed so you don’t make a decision that puts you out on the street again.’ You have men and women who come in off the street or from staying in another person’s house; they’ve experienced things they need to talk about,” he said.

CoHO will pay the renters’ living expenses for 60 to 75 days, he said, but then the residents are responsible for rent and utilities.

One idea he has is for businesses to offer the individuals a three- to fourmonth apprenticeship.

“If a business is not amenable to giving cash donations … or in-kind donations, why not [contribute] in the form of an apprenticeship? Now we’re having an individual, quote unquote, gainfully employed, learning how to work with others, showing up on time, etc. Getting that person from being in a situation being perceived as being lazy … to, ‘No, they are off the street, and they’re working right alongside you.’”

Employers can get to know them, evaluate them and help them develop skills, Fletcher said.

“That’s one of the solutions,” he said.

Renters will be given a timetable — the goal is no more than 2 1/2 years — on how long they can stay in one of the homes, similar to how Hope Home operates, Fletcher said. “We have seen those individuals be very successful.

“One side of the coin is, we want to see you succeed. The other side of the coin is, there’s someone coming behind you that needs it. We want them to progress and make room for the next person or family,” he said.

He said CoHO wants to lead by example and be an example to other cities.

“I think looking at what our city says about itself and what it wants to communicate about itself — overall, I think it’s a great city to live in,” Fletcher said. “I think there are a lot of new and innovative things done for the city. I think our city creates a lot of space for particular demographics of people and business entities. Where I think we lack the energy is a concerted, very public effort where we’re going to help, … using religious language, the least of these, or those fallen on hard times.”

Fletcher said he has had the support of the city. CoHO received a Community Development Block Grant for the project.

One of his advocates has been Conway City Council member Shelley Mehl.

“I think what he’s doing is a really innovative and interesting concept because of the focus of the tiny homes,” she said of Fletcher. “It will really help with this niche of homelessness that Phillip is trying to work with, especially veterans.”

She said Fletcher has worked with the city to make Hope Village “a true community, and I think that’s the best part — not to just give them a physical place, but a community place.”

Fletcher said the Hope Village Committee is “passionate about what’s going on in Faulkner County and the city.”

Alicia Gough of Conway, a member of the Hope Village Committee, said she believes strongly in Fletcher and CoHO’s mission.

Gough said she was taking a local discipleship class a couple of years ago, and Fletcher taught one of the sessions.

“What struck me as a Christian, personally, was how applicable Dr. Fletcher lived out his faith. Once I found out about the Hope Village project and Dr. Fletcher was the director, I was on board,” she said. “I have had the honor to be part of The Conway Symphony Designer Houses in the past, as well as helping with the Bethlehem House when it was built, and it felt like a natural fit. I love this community and what it stands for: promoting the dignity, the worth and the freedom of all human beings made in God’s image. You can’t go wrong with that.”

Fletcher said the past four years haven’t been easy, but that’s to be expected.

“I believe anything worthwhile is going to take time; it’s going to take ups and downs and lessons learned. I am very patient. I play the long game. I want to learn how to do this right and be able to bring people along and encourage them to use what they have to contribute to this project,” he said.

“The other thing is, I just hope that people will see when this is finished that we have the capacity to do more of these things — the more that we come together and keep in front of us that we are seeking to help individuals and families be their best selves, however they determine what that is,” Fletcher said.

“I’m not here to make people in Phillip’s image or CoHO’s image. I just want families or individuals to say, ‘Oh, I can do this; I don’t have to figure out how to live or how to eat.’ These resources are right here where I live, and there are people around me who can help me figure it out,’” he said.

On the Hope Village website, Fletcher explains his vision: “Imagine men, women and children living in a place where every aspect of the self can be nourished: material, economic, psychological and spiritual. Imagine a place that is, for them, a community of hope.”