Editors note: This is part 1 of a two-part series
Meeting Darren Hendricks -- one of Pine Bluff's newest residents -- for the first time, one might be struck by his friendly, open and calmly self-assured demeanor that is in stark contrast to his gruff and somewhat careworn appearance. But if, at 58 years of age, Hendricks looks a bit road-weary, it's understandable when it becomes clear that his laid-back facade hides a steely determination to rise above circumstance and take charge of his own destiny.
Born in the northwestern Ohio town of Van Wert, which was once known as the only place in the world that produced Liederkranz cheese, Hendricks graduated from high school and headed to San Diego to study aviation maintenance and automotive technology, then set out into the world to make his fortune
Between San Diego and Little Rock, however, Hendricks said he lived in a number of places around the country from California to Florida, was married and divorced twice, and had two children, a son and daughter, both grown now. He lived in San Antonio for four years, and in 1985, in what he said had to be the worst possible timing, he moved his family to Oklahoma City at the bottom of the bust end of the oil field's endless cycles of boom and bust.
"I got there and saw there were lines around the block for jobs at Circle K," he said, ruefully. "Not a good time to be in Oklahoma City."
So, he said, he immediately packed up and went back to San Diego, soon divorced, later remarried, lived in Phoenix for a time, divorced again, then went to Florida where he went into business doing painting and remodeling work.
"I bounced around a lot," Hendricks said of his yearslong circuitous journey that, in late 2016, brought him to Arkansas, looking for a place to retire. Soon, however, he found himself homeless and in need of help.
He found that help at Our House, a Little Rock organization that encompasses an emergency homeless shelter, a family housing program, job-skills program, employment assistance, financial education, and, as Hendricks says, "a new start in life." He spent nearly three years at Our House, working, saving, learning, and in his spare time, building a home of his own.
At the end of the first week of September, Hendricks moved out of Our House and into his 450-square-foot wood frame home complete with sleeping loft, that he built himself from the ground up, paying for it as he went on a half acre lot near Interstate 530 just inside the Pine Bluff city limits.
Hendricks arrived in Little Rock from Charlotte, N.C., where he had a job and shared living quarters with a roommate, but when the roommate abruptly left, and health problems began to interfere with his work, he discovered he could no longer afford living expenses on what he was earning. With financial calamity looming, he began looking at options and soon decided on Arkansas, he said.
"The cost of living in Arkansas was significantly lower than most places," he said. "But the rate of pay was actually much better than it was in North Carolina, so I said well, I need a place to retire so it really just fit the bill."
Once his roommate left, Hendricks said, he faced a stark choice of either paying his rent for the next month and having no money left over or picking up stakes and starting over.
"I put in 35 job applications in Little Rock and as soon as I got my check, I headed for Arkansas," he said.
After his arrival, however, Hendricks said it took about two months before he could be cleared for work at a financial information services company. With no money coming in, it took only a short time for what little money he had to run out.
"I had lived in Canada for eight years and it took the [Royal Canadian Mounted Police] about two months to get the information back for my background check," he said. "I was actually at Our House by then."
Hendricks described Our House as a homeless shelter for the working homeless.
"You have to be working at least 32 hours a week or find a job that provides you with 32 hour a week within 21 days," he said.
Unlike a typical emergency homeless shelter, which offers short-term assistance for sudden homelessness, or which offer shelter as space is available to those who suffer from chronic homelessness, Hendricks said Our House offers a wide array of services along with a long term program that he said is designed to provide people with a stable foundation as they transition back into the community.
"They've got a great staff, great counselors," he said. "They are much better set up to actually assist you in getting a job; they've got daycare for anybody who needs it. They are really set up to actually support you. Unfortunately, most homeless shelters in America, and I've volunteered at a number of them, I can count the ones I'd recommend to someone on one hand."
Not long after he started work, Hendricks began planning for the future. He purchased the half-acre lot with the plan of placing a travel trailer or small mobile home there to live in. But he soon found that his plan wouldn't work, which forced him to come up with a drastic new plan.
"I thought the property was out in the county, but it turned out it's just inside the city limits of Pine Bluff," he said. "Zoning restrictions meant that I couldn't put a manufactured home up. So I asked what was the minimum size for a site-built home and was told there is no minimum.
So Hendricks went to a website that supplies plans for small homes and began looking at his options. The smallest available, he said, was a 175-square-foot floor plan but he settled on a 450-square-foot plan with a sleeping loft. That decision out of the way, he began buying materials, and on May 29, 2017, he broke ground on the construction.
Three years later, he has moved into his new home, which he said is about 98% finished, with his companion, a rambunctious, 3-month old Labrador retriever puppy named Honey.
"I got her from a guy whose neighbor abandoned six adult dogs and one of the dogs got pregnant," Hendricks explained.
When he moved from Our House into his new home three weeks ago, Hendricks said he received another setback, this one from the coronavirus pandemic. Because he suffers from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, which places him in a high risk category, he has had to work remotely since March. But with no internet service set up and no word on when he can get connected, working inside a call center was not a viable option, even temporarily.
But, he said, that situation didn't set him back very far, as he was quickly able to secure employment locally with a company that provides transport for Union Pacific train crews. Originally, he chose Jefferson County because it fit his requirement that he live within 50 miles of Little Rock because he assumed he would be commuting, but the new job kind of dropped everything into place.
Moving forward, Hendricks said, his goal is to establish a planned community to provide affordable housing for those who are chronically homeless, modeled on the Austin, Texas-based Mobile Loaves and Fishes organization's Community First Village.
"It's going to be what's known as permanent supportive housing," he said. "It has to be rural but close enough to the city for medical care, shopping, and at least a VA clinic if not a VA hospital, and an on-site community garden, a workshop, everything you would expect people to have access to in their own community."
Ben Goodwin, the director of Our House, said Hendricks has shown an immense capacity for hard work and a laser-like focus on achieving his goals through a combination of work ethic, frugality and resolve that has served him well in his transition from homeless to homeowner.
"Darren is an incredible exemplar of the value of hard work," Goodwin said. "He has worked so hard, like long hours at his day job for years, scrupulously saved his money, focused on his goal, and then went and toiled to build this house all by himself, 50 miles out of town, nights and weekends for three years. That is a tremendous amount of dedication, hard work and vision.
"Now that he's built it, he's got some bandwidth to spare," Goodwin continued. "I'm not going to bet against him in anything he wants to do."
