Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Little Rock Government Protests ring hollow on vet center notice
Posted by Max Brantley on Tue, Jan 10, 2012 at 11:50 AM
When Mayor Mark Stodola's last-minute objection to a long planned relocation of a day center for veterans surfaced, U.S Rep. Tim Griffin joined the fray. From the Democrat-Gazette, quoting Griffin:
"I spoke with the VA staff [Thursday],” he said. “What concerns me is they led me to believe that they have been very open about the process, but it seems as though they did not provide information to the critical people in Little Rock who would have an interest in this issue. ... What is most telling is that the mayor’s homeless coordinator was not informed about this location.”
Ah, yes, the homeless coordinator. One of many city offices that missed notice of the VA plans to move published last July as well as recent chatter on a neighborhood group website about the project. Kathy Wells, president of the Coalition of Little Rock Neighborhoods, asked homeless coordinator Jimmy Pritchett if the city Homeless Commission had a position on the proposed move to 10th and Main of a service center that has operated without controversy for 15 years at 2nd and Ringo, less than a mile away as the crow flies. His response:
This group hasn’t met since March of 2010 except for a site visit to the East 9th location previously considered for the Day Resource Center which was held on December 1, 2010. The Mayor has indicated he wants to create a new body to replace this one which has basically disbanded.
So, somebody who'd want to talk to the city authority on homeless would have found it didn't exist.
That's not all. The VA has regular homeless summits and the city is always invited to attend, including the mayor. Neither the mayor nor his homeless coordinator attended the October summit, but a deputy city manager did. The VA said that, while the relocation of the center wasn't on the agenda, it was discussed informally at that session three months ago.
VA officials met this morning with U.S. Rep. Tim Griffin. Spokeswoman Debbie Meece said he toured the existing facility at 2nd and Ringo to learn about services there. He said he wanted to be fully informed before making a final decision on his position on the center's proposed new location.
About that word "proposed." A lease has been signed. The VA contract office is inquiring whether it can be broken without cost. But Dr. Tina McClain, the psychiatrist who heads mental health services for veterans in Central Arkansas, said that, despite comments that better places were available, nobody had pointed the VA in the direction of one yet. She said the Main Street location was ideal for the VA and was the product of a lengthy search.
VA officials will be at a Downtown Neighborhood Association meeting on the proposal Thursday night, along with the mayor, Griffin and a large crowd of residents.
"We feel strongly we have found an appropriate site," McClain said. "But we need to educate. If everyone fully understood what we're proposing, that opposition would greatly diminish."
The day drop-in center serves homeless veterans, but not exclusively homeless veterans. McClain and Meece said it would efficiently combine staff now housed at three locations, plus provide enclosed parking for VA vehicles used for shuttle services. Time is now wasted daily for employees to go to Fort Roots in North Little Rock to get vehicles and return them to the drop-in center. They could be locked up in the former auto dealer's service area.
McClain said she believes the VA center benefits in some ways from its current proximity to the Salvation Army transient shelter on Markham Street, but also suffers from a belief that all those seeking soup kitchen service and shelter are veterans. They are not.
She said vets using the drop-in center are sensitive to appearances and have formed a neighborhood watch group and even banded together to buy paint to cover a building marred by graffiti.
"We want to distinugish ourselves from the typical notion of a homeless shelter," she said. "We are a clinical service. This is an outpatient clinic. But we do provide services to people who are homeless."
She said nearly completed design plans will make a "beautiful" facility on Main and she said security would be provided by VA officers who understand the veterans' "culture." She said downtown was far better than moving to the city homeless shelter near Granite Mountain, as the mayor has suggested, first because that facility doesn't have space to accommodate the VA. But also, she said, the downtown location is near to other services the vets need, such as the Social Security office and banks, since most of them have regular sources of money.
The center will provide psychiatric assessment and treatment for non-serious mental illness; vocational counseling; a veterans benefits officer; employees who work with vets with legal problems and to help those who've been jailed move to treatment and housing; group and individual therapy; education; housing assistance (referrals to temporary and emergency housing, for example, but none on-site); a primary medical care service two days a week. McClain said the expanded center also will provide a better setting for training by social worker and psychiatric trainees from local schools.
VA officials' clear preference is to stick with the Main Street location. But they acknowledge that politics has altered the landscape. McClain she hoped a final decision could be made soon, perhaps within two weeks.
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Comments (20)
Showing 1-20 of 20
So, just what does Jimmy Pritchett do to flesh out his work day as Homeless Coordinator?
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Griffin really is the son of Turd Blossom, isn't he? What a pompous little ass.
I live next door to the current one, and there's a couple of things to note here:
1) The veterans center is too small to accomodate all the people it serves. Every morning when I walk out of the door the parking lot is full and there is a line out the door to the street.
2) it's not hardly patrolled on the weekends and becomes a meeting place for homeless people. Don't believe me? Ask the guy who likes to sit there in the summer with his pants around his ankles.
3) The field across the street known as "crack corner" is a definite problem, not with the shelter itself but the are itself... If you live downtown, you probably know what I'm talking about. the problem is that there are 3 shelters in one area and the homeless that stalk downtown like to come down there. I agree that these people are our fellow humans and need help, but maybe it would be more beneficial to spread them out to different areas instead of grouping them all there. It's like telling people of the wrong sort "if you build it they will come" all that being said I don't think it's the right place to send our veterans who need our help.
4) My friend, "George" who used to live behind the shelter would probably not agree with Ms. Wells, particularly when there's tornado warnings in the area and he won't come into my house for shelter because the VA is supposed to let them in in emergencies and they don't do so. He always insisted on staying out there because he wanted to prove a point . Maybe his point wasn't that the VA isn't doing enough, but that it simply can't facilitate everyone in its current location.
A few weeks ago, your good mayor was all het up over the decision by a culinary program NOT to locate in downtown LR for a wheelbarrow full of good reasons. So now a facility with a wheelbarrow full of good reasons wants to locate downtown and he's all het up again? Sheesh.
2nd street, I hope they're not standing in line today. It's miserable out there.
I too live a few blocks away from the current location. Most of these people are not a danger to anybody and some of the ones I have talked with are pretty polite despite their condition. The problem is the few bad ones that are mixed in with the bunch and people group them all together as dangerous.
People don’t despise helping veterans. They fear transients. People don’t build business where groups of people campout on the street at night. People don’t live there or walk by there. Money isn’t invested there. If the new center provides services to veterans then that is great, and I could even see it being designed and operated to be a beneficial part to Main st. But if it takes the same approach is has now of being a business by day and a homeless camp by night then the hopes for a Main Street revitalization are finished. At least until they relocate the center again.
As Vets, we owe them EVERYTHING. We owe the homeless Vets the path out of homelessness.
The last homeless census done found 1,250 homeless people in LR, 19% of them were Vets. That works out to be around 240 homeless Vets in LR.
There must be a way to work something out without losing sight of the mission to serve our Vets and lift them up out of a life of homelessness
The location looks good to me. I drive by there all of the time. And I could not agree more with the above comment: we owe it to our Vets to do all we can to help them, epsecially in their time of need. I guess mini-turd is getting an earful from his puppet masters that its a bit too close to the lucky spermies playthings.
With extra tax money(increased tax money) out LRPD can run more patrols up and down Main, which is long overdue. Say, lets get that Chamber-spewed job creating park to locate on Main Street, heck right across the street if possible, so they can look at those that sacraficed all to allow them to have all that they have.
Speaking of the military, this is sickening. It's about the suicide of a Chinese-American soldier in Afghanistan after weeks of severe hazing and racial taunting.
http://www.democracynow.org/2012/1/9/death…
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away....
We have met the enemy... and he is us.
I am an established Little Rock business and property owner. I was finalizing year-long talks to purchase a building and open a thirty-five-employee business two blocks down Main Street from this location. Unfortunately, because this business is entirely retail and would be reliant upon members of the general public feeling safe at all hours, including after dark hours, I'll be canceling those plans.
A sincere thanks to the Arkansas Times for reporting on this deal just-in-time to save my butt!
I own the house at 2nd & Ringo (on the other side of the street). These people are not criminals. If, however, you group all of these things into one corner down between Ringo & Izard you invite the few bad apples in the bunch. These people deserve a better place than they have right now.
If you were building on Main Street and didn't know about the homeless / panhandling situation in the downtown area until this story then you hadn't done your research anyway... That exists with or without the addition of a more comprehensive day center for veterans who fight so that you can open entirely retail businesses.
To add to what I said previously, I bought the house in March, knowing what was in the area. If more people ran towards the fire to put it out instead of running away and letting it burn I think the downtown area would be a lot better off.
The problem is not the location. The problem is that we are not doing enough. Voodoo economics tells us that these people are not a danger to themselves or others and therefore not my problem. We used to know better. But tax breaks for the wealthy are more important.
It's difficult to say, but it's true many of these shelters end up hurting the neighborhoods in which they're built (see 2nd street above). How will this shelter fit into the overall plan of a Main Street revitalization? Why aren't other neighborhoods like Hillcrest, Stift Station or The Heights inviting such shelters (perhaps they are, and I'm not aware of it)? Isn't this place directly across from Warehouse Liquor? Now who made that decision? Further, aren't there thriving hardware businesses located across the street and one block down? What will this shelter do to those fragile businesses?
Which is more important, a revitalization of Main Street or helping Homeless Vets? Difficult decisions, all.
This won't make me any friends, probably, but I'd have to say that until I see more information, locating this shelter on Main Street, near two businesses and across from a liquor store is a bad idea. It smacks of a 1970's type of inner city planning: outdated and ill conceived.
Leave it to a Heights guy to use a DAY DROP IN Service Center for homeless American veterans as an excuse for backing out of a downtown LR deal.
This facility is NOT going to be a homeless SHELTER.
If all you've done to help the homeless is annually spoon mashed potatoes onto plates or drive by them in a leased car that costs more than apartment rent, you might buy into the hysteria of Heights Observer (HO) and Mayor Stodola.
The truth is that our Vets deserve far better than what they get now. This location @ Main & 10th is NOT GOING TO BE A SHELTER, it's a convenient location for DAY services.
If H.O. knew facts and had met or talked personally with any homeless vets who use the center, he might not cancel his real estate deal. Everyone on this thread needs to know that this location is for a VA DAY SERVICES CENTER, NOT A SHELTER at Main and 10th Street. The present location at Ringo and 2nd is not now and has not been a shelter.
Instead of howling, H.O. should meet with VA Services to see what he can do as a local business owner to help the guys who made possible his very freedom to own a business.
It could be H.O., Griffin, Stodola or any one of us on here headed tomorrow morning to VA Homeless Vets Day Services Center instead of these men and women who served for ALL of US.
Actions, always and forever, speak louder than words.
Let's see.
Y'all rake in $2 billion from Oaklawn, how much from sports, how much from churches?
How much from corporations with initials like Stephens, Vratsinas, Tyson, Walton?
And, um, HOW much of all that is set aside annually to help provide vital services to Arkansas's vets?
What trained professionals, exactly, study and analyze veterans' needs; hire experts to design a comprehensive approach to fulfilling them; then execute those plans and programs across the years and state / city administrations?
Arkansas is hardly alone in this. But the message is clear to generation after generation of troops (and would-be troops) who serve with their lives to protect and (hopefully) honor America: We will give you a nice Welcome Home, or a nice burial, then avoid you, shuffle you around, and forget about you. Next, please?
All talk, little action, no shame.
Sounds like your mayor is in denial about a drinking problem.
Rancho Mirage is especially lovely this time of year, for loved ones feeling called to stage an intervention.
Betty Ford Clinic: (800) 434-7365
"Leave it to a Heights guy to use a DAY DROP IN Service Center for homeless American veterans as an excuse for backing out of a downtown LR deal."
Oh no, not in the least. The public at large makes that decision. They can make it for me now, or I can spend a couple of million bucks and they can make it for me later.
I'm skeptical that people would want a day drop in service center next to the new Apple store in Chenal. Or above Ferneau in Hillcrest. Or sandwiched between Banana Republic and the Gap in Park Plaza.
Revitalizing downtown with a vibrant mix of new arts venues, restaurants, retail, day drop in centers, halfway houses, and homeless shelters is a novel idea--and one that I wish well--but I'm just not convinced the average Little Rock consumer is ready for that.
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