‘If anybody can do it, we can’

Over the last several months, Alderman Rachael Moyer said she’d received several concerns about people wandering on Hwy. 62. and that these concerned citizens expressed perceived assumptions that these people were “homeless.”

After learning that the city does not keep track of such data, Moyer reached out to Suzie Bell to learn more about this part of the city’s community.

Suzie Bell and her husband, Dr. Dan Bell, started ECHO Clinic and ECHO village. “So, we are coming with twenty years of experience in working with the low-income and the unhoused,” Mrs. Bell said. “By no means do we present ourselves as experts. We’re just here to give you our perspective of what we have encountered.”

ECHO village is a low-income housing project on Passion Play Rd., where they are now finishing the twentieth home. These are small homes (not tiny homes) that provide for the homeless and the housing insecure.

“I have a stack of applications, probably two-inches-thick, of people looking for housing,” she said. “Every single resident that comes into the village, we try to individualize their basic needs and assist them to lift themselves up out of that cycle of poverty… if that includes medical or medicine or mental health.”

The Bells have also created an emergency shelter to hold up to eight people; for those who find themselves in immediate need. “It could be domestic violence; it could be a house fire; it could be a whole myriad of things,” Mrs. Bell stated.

ECHO is a participant of the Northwest Arkansas Continuum of Care, participating in what is called the PIT Count (Point in Time). The PIT count is a national count of houseless people, always done on a specific day across the nation – and always in January.

“We have one day to get out and count the people in Eureka Springs who are considered homeless,” she said, with parameters to abide by.

The number of houseless families counted last January in Eureka Springs was 29; 31 in Carroll County. “That’s grossly undercounted,” Mrs. Bell said. “Remember that we just have one day. We have to go out, we have to physically contact them and speak to them. There have been many times in January when it’s been icy and we’re stomping through the woods trying to find their tents. If we can’t find them, we just can’t count them.”

Mrs. Bell reported that Carroll County’s unhoused population rate exceeds that of Washington County by ten times, with 128 per 10,000 versus Washington County’s 13 per 10,000. Mental health and substance abuse is part of it, “but not all of it. And this current economy has made it worse,” she said.

“Ya’ll, there’s all flavors of homelessness,” Dr. Bell stated. He described some who don’t want help and who cannot be helped very effectively. “But there’s all kinds of other homeless. The single mom sleeping with her kids in grandpa’s back bedroom. She’s not technically homeless, but they need help, too. And the older person who can’t live independently any longer is looking for a place to go – and they can’t find a place either.”

As a long-term solution, Dr. Bell recommended the city establish a housing authority. To do so, council would have to declare a need and appoint a commission to oversee the authority. The commission would be responsible for securing grants, developing housing, and managing properties.

Dr. Bell referenced the housing authority in Boulder, Colo., which has built homes and placed deed restrictions so that workers can purchase. “You can’t buy this home unless you’re a worker in this town. You can’t be some rich dude coming in and wanting to live in ski country. You gotta be somebody who’s working here.”

“This is an economic thing for our city,” Mrs. Bell stated. “Because we want workers, we need workers. For our restaurants, our motels, our gift shops. And they wanna come. They just can’t find housing.”

Berry said he would like to see vacant land developed and given to low-income people to build a house on, and that one of the banks is interested in participating.

“You need to be proactive,” Mrs. Bell concluded. “Winter is coming. And you might be thinking of how you can have an emergency warming place.

“I will say this,” she concluded. “Eureka is big-hearted and very generous. If you think of all the nonprofits for this small town, it’s pretty impressive. So, if anybody can do it, we can.”