Ministry Center officials in Conway have one more hoop to jump through before they can start work to open a homeless shelter on the center’s property.
The Conway City Council is scheduled to vote Tuesday on the request for a conditional-use permit for the Ministry Center on Harkrider Street to renovate a building and offer up to 30 beds for homeless individuals to stay temporarily. The Conway Planning Commission, at its meeting last week, recommended the request 8-1, with seven conditions, said Bryan Patrick, Planning and Development director.
Greg Pillow, president of the Ministry Center Board of Directors, said the homeless shelter is needed in the city.
“If you got evicted from your apartment at noon today, you’re not going to have a place to stay,” he said. “Our goal is not to duplicate anything that’s being provided; it’s more to fill a gap. We’re calling it temporary housing; … 45-60 days would be a maximum stay.
“Every situation is different. People, when they hear of a homeless person, they think of a 60-year-old man who sits on the street corner, drinking.”
Pillow said a family of five children and two adults came to the Ministry Center seeking help.
“Their house burned, and they needed to find a house that would fit them for $800 a month,” he said. A woman connected to the Ministry Center took them into her home, Pillow said, because there was no shelter, and other emergency beds in town were full.
Bethlehem House Executive Director Judi Lively said the transitional homeless shelter also has two bedrooms with eight beds for emergency stays.
“We generally keep those emergency beds full,” she said. Residents’ situations range from a man who fell off scaffolding and broke his back to people who were evicted from their homes and needed a place to stay while saving money.
Lively said she supports the Ministry Center’s plan.
“I think there’s definitely a need in this town for emergency shelter. I think the [Ministry Center’s] building is great for it, and I think you’ve got compassionate, caring, smart individuals working on it.”
Pillow said some of the stipulations the Planning Commission set were requirements that the Ministry Center planned to make.
“We were going to do background checks anyway — that was always going to be in the cards — and no sex offenders,” he said.
Residents would get a morning and evening meal, and the shelter would be staffed 24 hours a day. The Planning Commission stipulated that the shelter could operate from 4 p.m. to 9 a.m. each day.
Pillow emphasized that anyone staying in the shelter would have to be involved in the Ministry Center’s case-management program, “moving them to stability.” For example, Pillow said, that could mean they need to be reunited with their family, or apply to live at Bethlehem House or the transitional shelter for men at City of Hope Outreach, a nonprofit ministry.
The Ministry Center describes itself on its website as “a one-stop locale of physical and spiritual resources for our neighbors in need.”
Patrick said a couple of business owners spoke in opposition to the shelter because they are concerned about “property values, transient people hanging around the property, an increase in crime, and safety for their tenants and employees.”
Jack Bell, the city’s chief of staff and interim sanitation director, is a member of the Ministry Center Board. Bell said there isn’t enough temporary housing in the city, and he doesn’t think the shelter’s location is cause for concern.
“I think it’ll be well-supervised; it won’t be a situation with people hanging out all day,” Bell said. “People will be out either looking for jobs or doing some training.”
Attorney Matt Brown was the Planning Commission member who voted against the conditional-use request.
“I voted against it because — even though I think what these folks are wanting to do is absolutely great, laudable and a need that needs to be filled — the location is not a good fit with all the redevelopment going on,” Brown said.
He said one of the business owners in the area was supportive of the idea, too, but not the location. Brown said he agreed with the man’s concern that if homeless people came to find a bed and were turned away, they might stay in the area, and the businesses would be “impacted.”
“At the end of the day, the Planning Commission, our job is — is this an appropriate land use for the parcel that’s under consideration? And I just did not feel that it was,” Brown said.
If the City Council approves the conditional-use permit, Pillow said, the building will be renovated.
“We’ll have to do a variety of things there. We need to spruce it up, put sprinklers in there to meet fire-code requirements. We’re going to have to install some doors, security measures, furnish the different rooms with beds.”
The downstairs of the building will be the “hangout area,” a place for children to do homework or for people to watch TV. Common areas will have cameras, he said. Men and women will sleep in separate quarters, he said, and doors will be locked.
Pillow said he didn’t want to give a cost estimate for the project. He said in addition to fundraising, the center would apply for grants.
“We’re hoping to get a lot of in-kind donations to help us,” he said. One idea is to have churches adopt a room, Pillow said.
“Our goal is to be open by winter. If we were open by January, we would be thrilled. I think that our goal is to help people move forward toward stability. Our main mission there is just to share the love of Christ to people in need. We really feel like, when we do, that it gives them hope — when they see that love, that it provides them with some hope to make better decisions.”
The Conway City Council meets at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Russell L. “Jack” Roberts District Court Building downtown.
Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 327-0370 or tkeith@arkansasonline.com.