LITTLE ROCK — When Lindsey Graham learned that abused children had to be sent from Newton County because it had no children’s shelter, she decided to start one.
“If we ever want to break that [abuse] cycle, then we have to show [children] there is a better way,” Graham said.
Graham and Love Ministries, a nonprofit group she registered with the state in 2010, are spearheading an effort to build an emergency shelter to cover Baxter, Boone, Conway, Faulkner, Marion, Newton, Pope, Searcy and Van Buren counties. The Love is Here Children’s Shelter would be the only shelter in the ninecounty area for both boys and girls, Graham said.
“The name of the shelter is important,” Graham said. “We want them to know up front that they are going to be loved.”
The shelter was registered as a separate nonprofit Sept. 7.
“We’re trying to make this a community effort rather than a small ministry effort,” Graham said.
The proposed emergency shelter would serve girls from birth to 17 years and boys from birth to 12 years for up to 45 days in a six-month period, Graham said. The shelter would start with 12 beds, but Graham hopes to increase that number. Eventually, Graham also hopes to take boys older than 12, she said.
According to a brochure for the shelter, it will provide 24-hour emergency residential care to children who are victims of family violence, neglect, and physical and sexual abuse.
About 20 volunteers are helping to start the shelter, Graham said.
During the past three months, the city of Jasper and the Newton County Quorum Court separately passed resolutions to support building a children’s shelter. Graham said she hopes the officials’ support will help garner Love is Here an Arkansas Rural Development Commission grant of up to $150,000.
“If there were a place here locally, it would benefit the kid and the parent,” Jasper Mayor Shane Kilgore said.
Graham originally wanted to locate the shelter on land that Love Ministries owns in Jasper, but the property wasn’t adequate, Graham said. Earlier last week, Love Ministries members inspected an acre of land in Deer that a landowner has offered to lease for 100 years at $1 a year, Graham said.
“We’re much more in the baby-step phases than people realize,” Graham said.
Graham said the group must have a site to apply for the grant, and it also needs estimates of the cost to build the shelter. An architect is drawing construction plans that will include building costs, Graham said.
The group has until Nov. 18 to apply for the state rural development grant, said Stephanie Neipling, rural development deputy director.
Even if the state awards the maximum $150,000, it’s unlikely that would be enough money, Graham said. The community would have to raise more to build and operate the shelter, which will use a mix of volunteer and paid staff members, she said.
Graham hopes to break ground on the shelter in the spring and open it in 2013.
About 175 school-age children live in Jasper, Graham said. When she isn’t ministering, Graham works on the school district campuses in Deer, Jasper and Mount Judea as the college and career coach, a position funded through North Arkansas College in Harrison.
Love Ministries members noticed when some children quit coming to youth group meetings, Graham said. They found out those children had been removed from homes that were deemed unsafe. With only one foster home in Newton County, most of the children had to be housed outside the community, she said.
This spring, officials from the state Department of Human Services asked Graham if she would be interested in building and running a children’s shelter.
Newton County has never had a children’s shelter, and the only women’s shelter for domestic abuse victims closed a few years ago, Kilgore said.
The state Human Services Department documented 389 children entering foster care from the area that includes Newton County during fiscal 2011, which ended in June.
Twenty cases of child abuse or neglect were confirmed for Newton County alone in fiscal 2010, a department report shows.
Statewide, the number of confirmed cases of child abuse and neglect increased 16.9 percent between fiscal 2009 and 2010, according to the report using the most recent numbers available.
The 15 children’s shelters under contract with the state Human Services Department are trying to handle a growing number of children who need a safe place to stay, said Greg Russell, spokesman for the Northwest Arkansas Children’s Shelter in Highfill.
Last year, the shelter turned away about 600 children because there was no space for them, Russell said. The number of children the shelter has turned away has doubled since 2000, he said.
To keep pace with growing demand, the Northwest Arkansas shelter moved into a larger facility in April, adding 16 beds for a total of 48.
“There is a definite shortage of both emergency beds and foster parents,” Russell said. “The demand for our services, unfortunately, outpaces our capacity to meet that demand.”
Arkansas, Pages 9 on 10/24/2011