Harrison Mayoral Candidates have differing views on House of Hope

Watkins says House of Hope helps get homeless people off of the street, Jackson says it is a magnet for them.

This is the second in a series of stories about the Harrison Mayoral election which is on November 8^th. Early voting starts on October 24^th.

During separate interviews with Mayoral candidates Rhonda Watkins and incumbent Mayor Jerry Jackson House of Hope was clearly an issue for both candidates but each had a different take on the organization and the problem with homelessness in Harrison.

Watkins said she is on the board of directors for House of Hope, and she feels the city has tried to shut them down.

“I feel like we should be proud that we can help people out there,” Watkins said, “I’ve been a single mom with two daughters. I’ve worked two jobs. And in the past year we have helped 250 people get places to rent and we’ve kept them in that place.”

Several business owners in the vicinity of House of Hope have complained about theft and trespassing by homeless people multiple times. Watkins said that she understands their side on the issue but asks them to consider why a homeless person would steal things.

“If they steal something, where are they going to take it? They don’t have any place to take it” she said.

On the other hand, Mayor Jackson said, “We’ve got a problem with House of Hope. Our police force believes it’s a magnet and I believe there is a lot of truth to that.”

 Jackson made a couple of claims regarding rental payments and grants received by House of Hope that Director William Tollett said were not completely accurate. Jackson said he had heard that House of Hope received a $600,000 grant to pay rent for their clients. Tollett clarified that the $600,000 dollar total was not received in a one-time grant but came in stages over the last three years and most of it is used for rental assistance. He said that approximately $70,000 has been used for operations cost of the shelter and the rest is for rental assistance.

Jackson said that Tollett had told him that House of Hope was paying rent for their clients for a year and said, “now I’m not sure what good that is. I’m not sure how many of those people after one year were upstanding citizens. I’ve got a feeling, probably not so many.”

Tollett clarified that claim as well saying that there was one client that House of Hope helped with rental payments for a full year, and he had to have special permission from the Arkansas Department of Human Services to do so. He said that under normal circumstances House of Hope can only use their funds to pay for three months of rent. They can pay up to six months of rent with COVID-19 related funds they have received.

Tollett also confirmed Watkins claim that in the last year House of Hope has helped approximately 250 clients.

Jackson went on to say that since House of Hope is here and is on city owned property that the city wants to work with them the best that they can, but he is clear that they don’t fully agree with everything House of Hope does.

Jackson appointed an Ad-hoc committee to research the homeless problem in Harrison back in the spring and it gave its first report to the city council in September. Jackson commended Tabitha Eddington in particular from the committee for, “calling a spade and spade” in identifying the homeless problem in Harrison as a mental health problem primarily caused by drug addiction.

“That’s it,” he said, “I don’ t think people want to say that but that’s our problem.”

He went on the say that the city is going to work with Boston Mountain Rural Health to help with the mental health and addiction issues.

Watkins says House of Hope isn’t ignoring the homeless issue but is being proactive with it and wants the shelter and the city to cooperate more.

“Act like you don’t have a problem? No. Face the problem head on,” she said, “let’s work together to help these people. To take care of them.”