LR vets center, detractors mend fences

Estella Morris considers the Veterans Day Treatment Center in downtown Little Rock a good neighbor.

The director of the Central Arkansas Veterans Healthcare System's center for honorably discharged veterans knows her facility, opened in March 2013, has to be. People are watching.

"I think we've been good neighbors," Morris said. "That was always our intent."

As its name states, the center is not an overnight shelter, but it does offer a range of programs to the veterans -- many of whom are or have recently been homeless -- who visit on weekdays. Those programs include assisting with locating permanent housing and helping veterans with noncriminal legal problems such as child support issues and bankruptcy filings.

The center, with its staff of about 40, is open from 7 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. weekdays, Morris said. Between 90 and 100 veterans visit on an average day.

But when officials first announced that the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs was moving its drop-in clinic from Second and Ringo streets to the new location at 1000 Main St., some business and residential neighbors in the Main Street area objected. They feared that opening the center in the abandoned home of a Cook Jeep-Chrysler automobile dealership would attract more homeless people to the area.

There were also fears expressed that more substance-abuse problems would surface in the area, especially with the center sitting directly across the street from a liquor store.

The debate over the new location of the day treatment center raged for roughly three months in early 2012.

City and state leaders joined the fray. U.S. Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla., chairman of the U.S. House Committee on Veterans Affairs, visited for meetings about the new location of the center. Zoning and land use were checked and other sites suggested.

In the end, the VA said it had already signed an option to lease the property after a more than two-year search and that its old location, opened in 1996, was cramped and veterans needed a new, larger center.

On March 4, 2013, the 12,000-square-foot Veterans Day Treatment Center opened.

Two years later, the stir created by the relocation of the center has calmed.

"While I had expressed concerns about the notification issues and ultimately the land-use issues ... Dr. Estella Morris [and I] met after the issue was decided and have developed a cooperative working relationship together in a variety of ways," Mayor Mark Stodola said last week.

Stodola openly opposed the new location of the center in early 2012, calling its relocation across the street from a liquor store "idiotic" and "not the right thing to do." He also asked that the VA consider consolidating the planned expansion with the city's Jericho Way Resource Center, a day center located on Confederate Boulevard.

Stodola now calls the 2012 debate "water under the bridge" and said he is happy the center is "assisting in every way possible with the rebirth of Main Street."

"The decision has been made," he said. "The federal government has done this. Those decisions are past us. Let's make this situation work. I would tell you that Dr. Morris and myself have been able to work together for the common good. Most importantly, the common good of our homeless veterans, and secondarily, the redevelopment of Main Street."

Crime data show the day treatment center has had little effect on the area.

Since the center opened, Little Rock police had responded to 24 calls to its address through last week, with 13 of the calls being either a false alarm, a nonpolice incident or a "coded call," which is when police were dispatched to the address for a particular reason but couldn't find any criminal activity when they arrived.

The other 11 calls were minor, with the exception of a second-degree terroristic threatening call June 10, 2014, and a third-degree domestic battery call Feb. 5. Both of those calls, however, were to 1000 Main St. after the center had closed for the day.

Police have responded to two alcohol-related calls at the address: a driving while intoxicated call at 4:13 a.m. March 9, 2013, and a public intoxication call at 3:30 p.m. Oct. 9, 2013. Again, both calls were to the address while the center was closed. March 9, 2013, was a Saturday.

"There are no major issues with this facility," police spokesman Sgt. Cassandra Davis said. "We don't provide extra patrols to the area, but it is regularly patrolled by the district officer. We have a good relationship with this facility and would provide any necessary resources requested."

Lt. Gov. Tim Griffin, who at the time was a U.S. representative with Little Rock in his district, received several calls about the planned location of the facility, mostly negative, he said last week. In the past, he publicly decried the lack of communication between the city and the VA over the move of the center.

"What I was doing at the time was giving voice to a lot of my constituents ... particularly in that downtown area, over the lack of communication," Griffin said last week. "I was quite vocal about it. I think I made my point.

"I toured the facility as a member of Congress and was very impressed with it. [The VA] was sensitive to a lot of the complaints and objections, particularly as it related to security and neatness."

Morris said the center, after all the conflict over the relocation, held a series of community meetings when it first opened, inviting neighborhood business owners and residents. After roughly three months of lightly attended meetings where a few complaints were worked out, the center stopped the meetings for lack of interest from neighbors.

Joe Fox, owner of Community Bakery, just across Interstate 630 from the center, was one of those business owners initially skeptical of the day treatment center moving to Main Street.

"The concern we had, of course, was about homeless folks and panhandlers, and I don't think [the center] has impacted that at all," he said last week. "We certainly still have a problem with homeless folks and panhandlers, but I honestly don't think the VA day treatment center has had a negative impact on that whatsoever. I certainly don't have anything negative to say. I have no complaints."

The debate has faded, Morris believes, because the center has done what it said it was going to do: help veterans.

And the center is giving back to the community. Recently, the center's Safety and Support; Treatment and Transition project team joined the city's Adopt-a-Street program, claiming a three-block section of 10th Street from Main to Spring streets.

Metro on 03/30/2015

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