the neighborhood with Solomon Burchfield (ep 2b, 44).

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
solomon (00:00):
It makes our, our life better when everyone
has what everyone needs.
That is what's the mostcounter-cultural for us.
Our culture atomizes us.
You're supposed to be thehappiest when you live as a
single individual, isolated,often from family, isolated from
a lot of community belonging.
I'm staring in my phone.
I live alone.

(00:20):
Everyone has to buy andacquire all the things
you need for yourself.
And the most counterculturalthing you can do is to
step out of that and say,actually we need each other.
We're at our best when we arein relationship, and we're
at our best when we havecommunities that support us
and bring out the best in us.
And so there's a almostnarrative layer in this of what

(00:44):
story do we live in as people,and therefore, what kind of way
will we organize life together?
What social systems, economicsand politics and city planning,
et cetera are we excited about?
Because if we live inthis narrative of every
individual for themselves,we end up accepting a

(01:04):
whole bunch of suffering.

mike. (01:53):
Well, you're listening to the underview, an Exploration
and the Shaping of Our Place.
My name is Mike Rusch andeven though we're in between
seasons right now, we stillhave some really important
community conversationsthat need to take place.
So while our episodeschedule may not be week to
week, we are continuing toaddress the most important
conversations about ourcommunity here in the Ozarks.

(02:14):
Today we're gonna sit downwith Solomon Birchfield, the
Executive Director of NewBeginnings in Fayetteville.
Solomon's work puts him atthe intersection of some of
Northwest Arkansas's most urgentquestions around belonging
and community and who getsleft behind when a region
grows as rapidly as ours has.
While there are somegreat economic numbers to
celebrate, there are alsosome statistics that we

(02:35):
need to pay attention to.
The number of homeless peoplehas increased 23% in our
region between 2024 and 2025,and with housing costs rising
nearly 71% over the past fiveyears, the gap between those
who thrive here and those whoare struggling to survive is
unfortunately becoming wider.

(02:56):
But Solomon brings more thanstatistics to this conversation.
He brings his ownlived experience.
Growing up in a family ofeight that faced the real
possibility of homelessness.
That memory combinedwith his years of working
directly with some of ourmost chronically homeless
neighbors, has shaped hisunderstanding of what community
wholeness can really mean.

(03:17):
I'm gonna warn you, thisisn't a simple conversation
about homelessness.
That's too easy to stereotype.
It's too easy to dismissas someone else's problem.
This is a conversation abouthousing as infrastructure,
about community care asshared responsibility.
About healthcare systemsthat either catch
people or let them fall.

(03:37):
It's about creating systemsin our region here in our
place that don't allowpeople to drop out of them.
Systems that recognize housingas the foundation without
which nothing else can work.
The path to addressing theseinterconnected challenges,
it's, yeah, it's complex.
It's tangled up in zoningbattles, not in my backyard

(03:58):
politics, in harmful stereotypesabout who deserves housing,
and the need for entirelynew financing models to make
affordable housing viable.
It's confusing, overwhelmingat times, but here's
what Solomon knows.
That cuts through allof that complexity.
This is a problemthat can be solved.
We have the resources and wehave the solutions, but what

(04:19):
we need now is the collectivewill to implement them.
In this conversationSolomon challenges us to
see homelessness not asan individual failing,
but as a community one.
One that we have the powerto address if we choose to.
This is a conversation aboutdignity and belonging and
the uncomfortable truth thatthe community we're building
right now, it's leaving someof our neighbors behind.

(04:41):
Alright, we've got a wholelot to work through today.
Let's get into it.
Well, I have a privilege todayof sharing a table with Solomon
Burchfield, who's the ExecutiveDirector of New Beginnings
who is working and has beenworking, I feel like maybe most
of your life around what doesit look like to care for some
of our most vulnerable neighborsuh, here in northwest Arkansas
and I've had the privilegeof being able to yeah, watch

(05:03):
you and the work that you'vedone for the past five
years in New Beginnings.
Solomon, thanks for beinga part of the conversation.
Thanks for being here.

solomon burchfield. (05:10):
It is a pleasure to be here.
Thank you for having me.

mike rusch. (05:12):
It's privilege is mine, but thank you.
Maybe before we get started,we've got a whole lot to talk
about around we're gonna talkabout trails, we're gonna
talk about homelessness.
We're gonna talk aboutcaring for neighbors.
We're gonna talk about housinghere in northwest Arkansas,
and I would love to knowas we start into this bring
us up to speed a littlebit on your background and.
Yeah.
How did you come to sit in thechair that you are today and
doing the work that you are?

Yeah, I think that there's probably
a core memory inside methat's part of my motivation
to join this kind of work.
I grew up in a family that wasrich in love, but poor in money.
And we lived on the southside of Fayetteville.
And I remember my familystanding in line for WIC using
food stamps at the store.

(05:53):
We had a rental assistancevoucher, like a lot of
lower income families doin northwest Arkansas.
And the day that the landlordraised their rent at the
unit where we were rentingwas a jarring day 'cause the
family started talking aboutwhere are we gonna move?
And honestly, if it wasn't forthe friendship of family members
in our church that we grew upin, we would've been homeless on

(06:15):
the street, a family of eight.
I think that memory issomewhere in my motivation
system more as an adult.
I got started when I actuallywas taking a break from work
to try to find my vocation,trying to get in touch with
my purpose, and I ended upcompleting the camino de
Santiago, which is like asix week walk across Spain.

(06:38):
And I was thinking, whatcomes to the surface?
What do I want to commitmy life energy toward?
And I've always been someonethat has a passion for
being part of work thatbrings healing and promotes
justice in our community.
And homelessness seemed likethe issue that was just right
on the foreground for me.
I was lucky enough when Igot back to Fayetteville

(06:58):
to get hired at SevenHills Homeless Center.
I started as a case manager,supporting people that had
been chronically homeless.
Was able to step intoa leadership role
over there over time.
And then about four and a halfyears ago, got the opportunity
to help launch New Beginnings.
So there's kind of a throughline there for me about
trying to build communityand include everybody in

(07:19):
the community that we have.

This whole conversation, or a lot of
these conversations we'vebeen having, is really
about what does it mean tobelong to a place mm-hmm.
and to live within acommunity of people.
And I think

mike. (07:29):
For most people who live here in northwest
Arkansas, this idea of athriving, growing community
with lots of opportunity.
The reality is that, that,that's probably most people's
frame of reference, and sowhen I think about my own
belonging and my own place inthis community the reality is
that people that are maybe inthe margins, if you want to use
that term, or who are withouta home is not, I don't think

(07:52):
that affects my day to day.

Mm-hmm.

mike. (07:54):
But I'm curious like how you would view kind of the work
that you've been doing, thepeople that you've been serving
as a part of everyone's senseof belonging within a community.

Yeah.
The people I meet who havebeen unhoused for years are
some of the most resilientpeople I've ever met.
Funny people that I've evermet friendly people, what
we are missing out on istheir presence amongst us.
We're missing out on peoplethat have a lot to offer because
we haven't supported them in away that allows them to really
belong, to really contributeto our shared community life.

(08:27):
And then also, part ofmy motivation bleeds into
this because part of myspirituality is even about
how we are all connected.
In, in my physical body ifmy finger is gangrene, I
can't just say like, ah,that's just my finger.
Like here the rest ofmy body is doing fine.
Uh, We're all connectedin that way, I think and

(08:47):
so when there's somebodyhurting in our community and.
In some way, we're all hurting,and so to heal that is to bring
wholeness to the community.

mike. (08:56):
I think sometimes it's easy to dismiss that as not
a part of maybe some of theproblems we need to worry
about in our community forthe large majority of people.
And I, I don't wanna move pastthis understanding of how does
that have an impact on me and mylife ? Give us a starting point
to think about our communityin this way that is Not gonna
lead us down this kind ofstereotypical definition of how

(09:18):
we think about homelessness.

Yeah, we're trying to create a community
where everybody matters, andtruthfully, that's not been
our history in our culture.
It has been okay that somepeople's lives don't matter,
and so I think this is just aglaring opportunity for us to
try to face that and changethat and make a community

(09:40):
where every single human lifecounts and the dignity of
each person is recognized.
It's also true that in morepractical terms, everyone's
wellbeing matters to all of us.
And so when we leave hundredsof people on the street, what we
can expect is to pay really hightaxes, building prisons that

(10:01):
end up sheltering people withbehavior challenges in life.
We can expect our healthinsurance premiums to go up
because hospitals are havingto provide healthcare over
and over again to peoplewhose only way to access care
is go in the emergency room.
So in a really practical wayand in a more kind of spiritual
way, we all share an interestin building a community

(10:25):
where everyone belongs.

I will make this one connection.
We've been talking abouttrails and how trails in our
community are a leveling factorfor people to think about
jobs and income and access tohealthcare and transportation
and all these things.
And traditionally, whenwe talk about this active
transportation conversation it'sfrom the perspective of bikes.
And while that's been a hugepart of our community, I

(10:47):
think what you experiencedjust two weeks ago was really
an incredible example ofhow trails can be used in a
different way in our community.
As you, I'll let you explainwhat you did, a 30 mile
walk, to really use thosetrails and those systems as
a way of showing and tellinga story around a group of

(11:07):
people in Northwest Arkansas.
Give me a little backgroundon your story and your walk
and all, how that all evolved.

Yeah, we just completed about a
week and a half ago, a 36mile pilgrimage along the
Razorback Greenway fromBentonville to Fayetteville.
And I'm someone thatloves our bike trails.
I'm on the trail probably everyweekend riding to a brewery or a
restaurant or just to have fun.
And this was adifferent opportunity.

(11:33):
We repurposed a recreationalor transportation oriented
community resource to totell a story about our
unhoused neighbors who areoften camping in the woods
and using the trails just toaccess basic needs services.
We had 18 people who hikedall three or one of the days.

(11:53):
About half the folks arepeople that have been
homeless themselves.
So as we'd walk, they'd pointout, here's where you'd want
to camp, or here's whereyou could like, get water.
And the other half ofthe group like my friend
Irvin Camacho that

Oh yeah.
That's awesome.

Yeah.
Hiked with us my friend AliceGuzo Colleen, who's a great
community builder in Springdale,pastor Clint Schnekloth here
in Fayetteville, people thatI think were motivated to
participate in this three dayexperience, to show solidarity,
to show, empathy, but morethan empathy, like taking
action together with peoplewho have been marginalized.

(12:28):
Here's why we chose the trail.
First off.
Our neighbors who don't havehousing are using the trails
and sidewalks and streetsto walk about 10 or 12
miles a day just to survive.
And so this was a littletaste for us to know a
bit of what that is like.
It also stands out to methat the Razorback Greenway
connects all the citiesin northwest Arkansas and

(12:52):
sometimes homelessnessin our conversations ends
up being like, oh, that'ssomething that's happening
down in South Fayetteville.
And that's not true.
People in this economic realityare housing insecure and lose
their housing in Bentonville,in Rogers, in Siloam Springs,
in Springdale, in Fayetteville.
This is a regional problem and Idon't believe that people should

(13:15):
have to travel to another cityto get the help that they need.
We should have aregional solution for
this regional problem.
And the the trail seemed likea cool symbol of how the trail
connects all the cities innorthwest Arkansas as a shared
amenity and to get to repurposeit as a way to highlight how

(13:39):
connected the homelessnesschallenge is in our region too.
And so the being on the trailkind of helped highlight how
that's true in our community.

mike. (13:48):
I know one of the things that you were trying to
accomplish through this walkis to bring this more front
and center into kind of thepublic spotlight around this
issue of what it looks like tobe a neighbor here in northwest
Arkansas are those that areexperiencing homelessness.
Help us connect this to someof our regional problems
around housing affordability.
What does homelessness innorthwest Arkansas look like?

solomon (14:10):
Homelessness is growing in northwest Arkansas.
The last survey counted over500 people who were homeless
in northwest Arkansas, and morethan half were not in shelter.
They were unsheltered.
So there's not a city innorthwest Arkansas that
has enough shelter bedsfor the people who are
homeless in their city.
And what's true locallyis also true nationally.

(14:33):
We're settingrecords in a bad way.
Seeing more and more peoplefall into homelessness
faster than we can getpeople outta homelessness.
Locally, we also wannaunderstand the characteristics.
Who is it that's homeless andwhat are their different needs?
So we see a growth infirst time homelessness,
especially after COVID.

(14:53):
We're seeing growth among seniorcitizens who are homeless,
we're seeing growth in peoplewho have disabilities and have
been chronically homeless.
So we often try to think inthe homeless services system
about how to help the peoplethat need like a quick hand
up and then separately howto help the people that need

(15:14):
more long-term intervention.
So the people that are goingthrough like a situation of
homelessness often are fullycapable of independence, but
they lost a job or a healthevent happened, and that's
what pushed them over theedge and they lost their home.
So now sleeping in my car,I'm sleeping at the shelter.
The majority of folks inthat circumstance actually

(15:34):
resolve their own situation.
So they need to have thatshelter, they need to have some
support but they can rebuild,get into a new house, get into
a new job, and that's the folkswho are situationally homeless.
The folks who end up chronicallyhomeless are typically
people that get trapped.
Year after year, andthere's a reason for that.
You or I, if we lost ourhouse, I bet that we would

(15:55):
do everything we couldto get back into home as
fast as possible, right?
So what does that sayabout people who have been
stuck for years and years?
There's usually somereally serious support
needs for that person.
We find a lot of times it'sfolks that have serious
mental health stuff likeschizophrenia or borderline
personality disorder.

(16:16):
There's often a story oftrauma behind them in their
childhood and into adulthood.
There's chronic healthproblems, if not disabilities.
And to help that personrecover from homelessness.
It can't just bea quick hand up.
And so that's really thepopulation that New Beginnings
has focused on trying toassist is helping people

(16:37):
who have longer term supportneeds fully recover and
stabilize from homelessness.
Unfortunately, we are seeingchronic homelessness increase
because the intervention thatworks requires more money and
a more long-term commitmentto help people stabilize.

These are problems that we as a
society have ideas aroundhow to solve though, right?
And I, it's not disconnectedfrom the rest of our healthcare
systems or what's happening inthe economy or what's happening
within housing affordability.
Help us place that.
For so long, I, it feelslike my understanding
of homelessness was thatsomeone did something wrong.
And if they would just workharder, this would be better.

(17:15):
But this population of peoplethat you would use the term
chronically homeless, we'redealing with much more
complicated issues that reallyrequire a different way of
thinking about it though.
Is that a fair statement?

Yeah, I think that is fair.
It's, it is a complex solution,but it's also clear what works.
So we know that thehousing market has a lot
to do with how many peopleare gonna be homeless.
So there's a book called"Homelessness is a Housing
Crisis," and basically thepremise is that if you know
a city's rental market,how healthy is the rental

(17:49):
market in our community?
What do the rents looklike compared to income?
What's the vacancy rate?
If you can tell me thatabout my city, I can tell
you the homeless count.

Like almost directly?

Yeah.
There's a strong correlationand all the other things that
we tend to think about thecities where the poverty's
deeper is where you'regonna see more homelessness.
It turns out it's not true.
The cities that have highermental illness rates is where
you'd see higher homeless rates.
It's not true.
Maybe it's the climateor the political climate.
All of those data pointsend up not correlating.

(18:23):
And the one that does, the mostexplanatory work is knowing
what, how healthy is yourrental market in your community?
So that does, it's one ofthose primary drivers that
combines with other factorsto end up producing the
homelessness that we see.
But that's a key one becauseit's one that decision
makers can influence.

(18:43):
How do we generate moreaffordable housing?
How are our citiesusing our land?
Do we want it to be usedfor developing multifamily
housing and more affordablehousing and public transit
that makes life more affordablefor lower income folks?
Those are decisions thatcome from our city and
county decision makers.
So affecting the rental housingmarket is a really important

(19:04):
part of addressing homelessness.
It's not the only thingthat needs addressed.
So even if we have a reallyhealthy rental housing market
in a society where we continueto see that the cost of living
goes up even while the wagesthat people receive stay
flat, that's a big pressure onfamily stability and housing.

(19:26):
When we see a healthcaresystem where millions and
millions of people stilldon't have health insurance.
Or the people that do havehealth insurance end up facing a
system that doesn't have enoughfor mental health services.
That's another pressure pointthat's going to, put a target
on certain people's back.
We have some really significantsocial drivers that are

(19:47):
creating the homelessnesswe see in our society.
And it comes back to aneconomy that is making
life more unaffordable.
A healthcare system that hashuge gaps in it and people
fall through the cracks.
And a failure to repairthe damage of systemic
racism in our society.
Therefore, in a societywith all of that, we

(20:08):
are guaranteeing there'sgonna be homeless people.
It's just a matter of whichpeople, and that's why we see
people with, intergenerationalpoverty backgrounds, that's how
much higher likelihood you'llbe one of the people that's
homeless or people with mentalhealth concerns or people that
have experienced discrimination.
If you are a black or aNative American person, if

(20:30):
you are a LGTBQ person, that'swhere those risk factors
for an individual are there.
Because our society has thosesocial systems around our
economy and our healthcaresystems that end up putting
pressure on families' wellbeing.

Solomon, one of the things that, we've had
no surprise to anybody isthis housing affordability
crisis, where even thoughwages are going up in northwest
Arkansas, the cost of housingis just far outpacing that.
And, I see a lot of effortthat's being done around
zoning and housing, thinkingdifferently about housing
thinking differentlyabout transportation.

(21:07):
All of these things thatare being worked on are
still like, we are stillnot getting ahead of it.
Do you see that, it sounds likethis is a direct impact back
to some of our most vulnerablepeople is this something
that's front and center inmind when we think about how
our region is growing, howour region is being planned?
Is this something we need tospend more attention on or

(21:28):
do you feel like we're doinga pretty good job trying
to get our head around itso that we can address it
or try to get ahead of it?

I think there's more and more people
waking up to how importantthose decisions cascade
down and affect everybody.
But there are alsodecisions that will take
time to produce results.
That's true.
So the land in northwestArkansas is almost exclusively
zoned to build a singlehome on a plot of land.
We know that pattern ofdevelopment is both bankrupting

(21:55):
cities 'cause it's reallyexpensive to build the roads
and deliver the public servicesif you're spreading, 20,000
people out over a huge area.
Whereas if we can developin more dense patterns, then
it can be more affordableper square foot in the
homes and we can servicepublic transportation when
people live in that pattern.
So the things that have tochange like rezoning land to

(22:19):
allow us to build multifamily inplaces that currently can only
have businesses or single homes,that's a fundamental shift
that is occurring, I think.
But it is gonna take some timebefore it really unfolds and
you start to see the impact.
I think another piece isdirect investment in housing.
So cities around the countryhave issued bonds where a

(22:41):
city takes on helping financeprojects if a percentage of
the units will be affordablefor their citizens.
And that's one of the ways toreach below market rate rents.
If we want below marketrents, we have to have
non-market financing.
There's really no otherway to square that circle.
Market financing will createmarket rate rents, and so

(23:04):
whether it's philanthropythat devotes money to help
close the gap in financingaffordable housing projects,
or at cities or counties orthe state that provides some of
that financing, that's the toolthat allows new construction
to actually offer affordableunits for people in the city.

I spent a lot of time listening to conversations
about zoning and land use andI just can't really remember
many times when some of thosepeople in those positions were
really seeking out the adviceof the people that are dealing
with when it doesn't work theway that it's supposed to.
I'm curious, what do you seewithin Northwest Arkansas,

(23:43):
around are we spendingenough time really trying to
understand this or enact this?
Do you see initiatives thatare like making progress?
Or do we have some, somereal areas we need to
be focusing on if we'regonna try to solve this?
'Cause this is not acity by city problem.

Right.

This is something we're gonna have
to tackle as a region.
Is that a fair statement?

Yeah.
We gotta tackle it as a regionand there can't be a race to
the bottom of, I'm a developerthat wants to develop with the
least regulations and the leastattention to affordability.
I'll go to the city that has theloosest regulation around that.
It does need to beaddressed regionally.
My gut take is that we stillhave too much thinking that
is, the housing that's gettingbuilt is affordable to the

(24:26):
off people who are movinghere for corporate jobs.
So what's the problem?
I think there's a lot ofpeople that's just not
their life circumstance.
Maybe they grew up here,maybe they work as a nurse or
a teacher or a firefighter.
Maybe their family got hit sohard by the economy that they
did lose their housing andhave gone through homelessness.

(24:46):
That's the group of peoplethat I don't think planners
and decision makers arereally putting front of mind.
So it varies city by citybecause there's a whole toolbox
that cities and counties need touse to address this challenge.
City like Rogers has donean incredible amount of
work, rezoning their land.
Hopefully that is gonna resultin a lot more multifamily,

(25:10):
denser development withinthe city and make it more
affordable for the city andmake it more affordable for
their renters in the city.
Fayetteville has also beentrying to up zone a lot of
the land so that it's legal todevelop a more, in a more dense
pattern throughout the city.

I think traditionally, I've been in
northwest Arkansas for a longtime now, and have, I feel like
been trying to pay attentionto this issue and it feels
like for most services whereprobably the city that has
to deal with this the mostis the city of Fayetteville.

Yeah.

Is that true?
It feels that way, but it feelslike in many ways I don't know,
by the lack of services in othercities, sometimes that puts
a , it feels like it puts anundue burden or a greater burden
on the city of Fayetteville.
Can you help us maybeunderstand what your thoughts
are there or how that works?

Yeah.
I would need two hands to countall the nonprofits and churches
that are supporting peoplewithout housing in Fayetteville,
it has become a challenge.
And I don't think it'sbecause more people become
homeless in Fayetteville.
I think people are havingto travel to another city to
get the help that they need.
And so it's importantfor every city to take

(26:18):
a look in the mirror andsay, this is our problem.
We can't offload this onsome other community to
take care of our neighborsstruggling to maintain housing.
And we need to cooperate,fund solutions together,
collaborate, share data.
Really coordinate the servicesthat would help people stay
in their housing or recoverhousing after they've lost it.

I hear that.
I, I just wanna be practical,and I'm not trying to put
you on the spot all, butthat's not happening, right?
I mean it, or is it, andwe're just not seeing it?
Or is this is there a practicalkind of process by which, as a
region, we're working throughsome of these, I guess regional
problems in a way that's gonnaactually make a difference?

The infrastructure is there for the
collaboration and coordinationand I do think almost all
the nonprofits I'm aware ofdo lean in, do participate
in the same shared softwareplatform, participate in
the collaboration meetings.
I think that heart is there.
I think the sense of ashared agenda to produce
more affordable housingand help people get out of

(27:21):
homelessness is not there yet.
And the resources are available.
I think it's a matter of ourcity and county, and I have
to say philanthropic leaderssaying this is a top priority.
Change the policies that willhelp promote production of
affordable housing in thatbig picture, and then fund
the programs that are neededto actually give someone the

(27:43):
direct assistance they needto get back into a home.

We've been talking about this as a regional
problem for a long time.
But the region isn't solvingthe problem together.
And I hear you that theinfrastructure's in place
to be able to do someof this, but maybe it's
a question of funding.
I live in the cityof Bentonville.
You would be hard pressedto think there is anyone
that is homeless in theCity of Bentonville.
And I know that's just not true.

(28:08):
But for some reasonit's just not a topic of
conversation where I live.
We're talking aboutaffordable housing.
Obviously there's great workthat's being done to think
about the infrastructureto support more affordable
housing but how that impactssome of the most vulnerable
people in our community.
It's just, it, this is not theframe of reference we're really
talking and that, and there's awhole lot of reasons for that.

(28:30):
And it's one of thosethings that no one
person's responsible yet.
Everybody is.
I'm just curious is that,I don't know, is my feeling
typical or not typical or doyou feel like that's the reality
of what we see within NorthwestArkansas or within other cities?

Yeah, I don't think it has to be an
intentional plan to produceoutcomes where there's
too many homeless folks.
I think that it's more aboutjust who is front and center
in the mind of those, doingthe planning and making
those top level decisions.
So the way we have developedcurrently is really amenable

(29:06):
for people who work corporatejobs, who love to go to
concerts and museums wholove to ride the bike trail.
Those regional planningdecisions and funding decisions
have come to fruition and.
I think my question is how dowe put at the front of our mind
the people who are working atcash registers or the people

(29:29):
who are teachers or the peoplestruggling so bad, they're
sleeping in their car andneed a really affordable unit.
Is there an equal amountof regional thinking of
regional planning and regionalfinancing for the kind of
programs and projects thatwill make housing available
to everyone in our community?

(29:51):
That hasn't happened yet, andso those regional meetings
and funding things that, thattalk about an airport or the
interstate or the tourismindustry, those things are
being done successfully.
If we applied the same amount ofenergy and focus and money into
making sure that our communityhad abundant, affordable
homes, we could do it.

I think this is one of the reasons why I
wanted to sit and talk withyou about New Beginnings
is because and I'm biased.
I've been involved therefor a long time now.
But this is, I guess thisis the question is, can
homelessness be solved?

Yeah, it is a solvable problem.
It does require us to dosome new things, and I think
that we focus on kind ofthe hardest to help people.
The folks trapped for yearsand years in homelessness that
have ongoing support needs andhave become alienated from a
lot of their healthy community.
This is the part that'sthe hardest to change.

(30:46):
And so it's a good placeto begin if we can help end
homelessness for chronicallyhomeless folks, we can make
sure everyone is taken care of.
So the approach we take atNew Beginnings is thinking
about how you've gotta havethe three magical ingredients.
First you've gotta haveshelter or housing that is
affordable, even if someone'sliving on disability income or

(31:08):
social security, fixed income.
We have to solve for that.
To end the homelessness, wealso need to have available
personalized support services.
You mentioned how mentalhealth and other chronic health
issues are part of the story.
It's not just housing.
When people are in aneighborhood with support, they
have someone giving them a homevisit once a week and they're

(31:30):
working together on managingmoney or learning how to cook
in a healthier way, or makingsure that they're connected to
their psychiatric appointment.
Taking care of legal issuesthat may still be haunting
them from years before.
They have a trusted personthat is in their life.
If they go through an episodeof mental distress, they

(31:50):
have somebody they trust toreach out to instead of just
blowing up their life andending up back on the street.
So those ongoing supportservices that are tailored
to what the personneeds is a key part.
You have to combine thatwith the affordable housing.
And then the third magicalingredient is that nobody
wants to just have anaffordable roof over my head

(32:12):
and a weekly home visit fromsomebody doing their job.
To really thrive, we haveto belong to a community.
And so we really take thatseriously at New Beginnings
all through our programs, isputting a priority on community,
connecting with each other inhealthy interdependent ways,
with appropriate boundarieswith all the stuff that

(32:32):
comes with relationships.
And so the New Beginningsmodel for ending.
Chronic homelessness involvesdeveloping neighborhoods
with support, where we haveaffordable homes, we have
support services, and we addneighbors who are intentional
about helping build communitywith people as they recover
from chronic homelessness.

(32:54):
The point in time surveyidentified about 170 odd
people who are chronicallyhomeless in northwest Arkansas.
So the solution is pretty clear.
Let's develop neighborhoodswith support and community
and make sure that peoplecan transition off the
street and into homes andcommunities where they belong.

Solomon, talk a little bit more about this,
I mean, we've got a lot ofhistory in northwest Arkansas
around what zoning looks like.
What you're describing doesn'tfit into an easy zoning pattern,
and we talked with Ali Quinlana few episodes ago to talk
about like our history of zoningand what's that's based in,
which is a lot of historicalissues of segregation that

(33:34):
has kept people apart, thatcities have used to keep people
apart from each other who aredifferent races, different
economic conditions, like.
What I hear from you istrying to break down some of
those really long establishedunderstandings of how we
even think about makingor building a community.
I don't know.
Give gimme some moreinsight into how you're
thinking about this.

Yeah.
The history of zoning isbased on history of trying to
exclude, first people of color,also people of lower economic
status to create neighborhoodsthat are really homogeneous.
It's all people of the samebackground, same ethnicity,
same economic strata.

(34:14):
Is that okay?
Do we want our communitiessplintered off from
each other in that way?
When I talk about developingneighborhoods with support,
where people that have beenhomeless and have disabilities
of some kind can live, myquestion is, could I build
that in your neighborhood?
Okay.
Or would people show up at citycouncil and say, oh no, no, no.

(34:37):
We love that.
They want to do that,but not here, not where
I raise my family.
So we really have to go to theheart and heal some of that.
How do we have neighborhoodswhere everyone can belong,
where we accept people inall of their differences.
That's a precondition tobe able to develop the
kind of neighborhoods thatI think are the solution
to chronic homelessness.

Yeah.
I mean, Because you're pushingthe boundaries of what we think
that means in our own community.
Could people, could you buildthat in my neighborhood today?
No.
'cause of the zoning lawshave been created in a way
that doesn't allow that.
But that at the end of theday, I'm a neighbor that lives
there, so I'm gonna have tostart thinking differently
about who can be my neighbor,as Mr. Rogers would say.
Not to steal from that,but how does this work?

(35:19):
What does this mean withsupported neighborhoods?
You're having people who havebeen in chronic homelessness
going through a process totry to get them to a place
where they can be housed andthey need some extra support.
How should we think about thisdifferently as a, as a region?

A little in the concrete terms.
Like we need homes thatpeople can pay like 250
or $300 a month to rent.
And that's why it shouldprompt us to go as a bank
gonna finance Solomon buildinghomes at that rent rate.
The answer is no.
' cause you couldn't pay thedebt that you borrowed to build
with that kind of rent revenue.
So we'll have to find waysto finance the construction

(36:00):
of homes that are affordable.
We'll have to be insomeone's neighborhood.
And I think that our citiesbelong to our neighbors
without housing as much asthey belong to you and me.
And so my neighborhood andthe library I go to and the
grocery store that I ride mybike to we need to make sure
that those quality of lifeservices are just as available

(36:21):
to the people that we endup helping regain housing in
these really affordable homes.
So we have to have kindof a, as a, at the social
level, like we have to getreconciled to this idea of our
community belongs to everybody.
And so we need the land to be,we need to be legal to develop
the solutions to homelessnessin every neighborhood.

(36:44):
We need neighbors thatwanna welcome people.
So the first neighborhoodwith support that we're
developing now currently haseight people who live here.
We have weekly home visitsfrom our support team.
We do social night wherepeople can get to know each
other and grill togetherand garden together.
We're gonna add an outdoormovie screen and do some

(37:05):
movies in the summer.
The goal is to build somebelonging amongst the, our
people that we support, butalso connected to the neighbors
that have already lived inthis neighborhood for years.
And so it will take a commitmenton all of our parts to make
space for new people in ourneighborhood to get educated
about mental health and beable to be good neighbors that

(37:28):
don't just call the policeon folks that may need some
support from time to time.
And it'll take some intentionaleffort because part of our
history is that we are naturallysegregated from each other.
And you think economically welive in different neighborhoods.
We worship in differentcommunities, we eat at
different restaurants, wevacation to different spots.

(37:51):
We are economicallystratified already.
And so much of our socialsystems pre segregate all of us.
And it takes a reallyintentional effort to
be the fish swimmingagainst the stream.
If we're gonna heal some ofthat, we actually have to reach
out and say, it's gonna be okay.
Even if it concerns me, I'mgonna be okay with an affordable

(38:14):
housing development going upnear me and my family, or I'm
going to do some work to learnabout what are the support
needs for folks recoveringfrom homelessness and, and
that way I don't freak outas much if someone's having
a mental health episode.
I instead be the kind ofneighbor that would reach
out for help or be a, be anassistance to that person.

(38:35):
So anyway, I ran somedirections on that, but

So walk me through kind of the lifecycle,
for lack of better words, ofsomeone who is experiencing
chronic homelessness today towhat this supported housing,
new situation looks like.
What does that looklike and what's in?
I think it would help meanyway, understand a little bit.

Yeah.

And maybe lower, I, I don't know, anxiety
or worry or just, which isprobably based in just my own
ignorance or un not knowing.
What that process looks like.
Walk us through what NewBeginnings does from I
guess from beginning to end.

Okay.
This may take just a minute, but

it's okay.
Go for it.

So we'll call this guy Greg, and Greg,
when you and I meet him, hasbeen chronically homeless
in northwest Arkansas.
But rewind his story alittle bit, probably Greg
grew up in a family that waspoor, that was economically
struggling, didn't have thebest opportunities through life.
There may have been somechildhood trauma in Greg's

(39:31):
life, and that's part of howhe ended up developing the
coping skills that he developedthrough his teenage years.
Got in trouble in school.
Ended up, going tojuvenile detention for
acting out at school.
This person may have ended upleaning on drugs as a way to
cope with stresses in life.
And over time gotalienated from his family.
They gave him a second chance.

(39:52):
They gave him a third chance.
Finally they hadto ride him off.
And so he's gotten alienatedfrom his family over the years
and he's working a job and hegets divorced and that sends
him on a downward spiral.
And he's relapses, he's backon his old habits of using
drugs to deal with stress.
So he loses the job andhe is lost the wife, and

(40:14):
he's given up on life.
And so he walks out from hishome that he can't afford.
The apartment he was renting.
For somebody with mentalhealth needs or substance use
addiction, sometimes they'rethe hardest people to help if
they walk into a food pantry ora shelter and they get called
that the difficult to serve.
And so sometimes they getbanned or they, or the programs

(40:35):
that are on offer just don'tfit what their needs are.
So they end up, they stopgoing, they isolate themselves.
They end up finding otherlong-term homeless people
and camping together.
And so they kinda take careof things with each other.
They, one person guardsthe camp overnight.
One person goes in andpicks up meals at the soup

(40:56):
kitchen and brings 'em back.
And they really becomeacclimated to life without
housing isolated from therest of the community.
They deal withcrime differently.
They deal with health issuesdifferently, and they really
often don't think thathousing is in their future.
Where New Beginnings tries tostep in is first developing

(41:17):
real relationships with peoplein those circumstances, to
build enough trust, to havesomeone allow you to help them.
We actually did a lot ofmeetings with long-term
unsheltered folks before webuilt New Beginnings, and they
helped us come up with theideas that they said would work.
They want a community, but theydon't want to be controlled.

(41:38):
So I wanna be able to comeand go when I need to, but
I wanna have a fence aroundit so the wrong people don't
come in and make live hellfor us who are staying inside.
We want to have more privacy.
They told us they, we wantto have, be empowered to,
to take care of ourselvesinstead of it always being
someone hands you food orhands you a, does your laundry

(41:59):
for you or what have you.
So we really designedsome of those features
into new beginnings.
We have a neighborhoodof cabins where there's
20 individual cabins.
Each person has theirown private space.
We have a community buildingthat has the kitchen and
the bathrooms, showers,the laundromat so they can
get all the things takencare of that they need to,

(42:19):
the people that stay thereactually run the place.
So people are very capableof running their own lives.
We always say we aren't gonnado anything for someone.
We want to dothings with someone.
So the individual staying thereelect a leadership council.
We got three people onthe leadership council.
Each leader is incharge of a team.

(42:40):
One team's over kitchen, oneteam's over the bathrooms, one
team's over recycling and trash.
And in the course of runningthe place, people are working
on the life skills thatthey need to get readjusted
to living in a real home.
I've been camping for 10 years,dealing with things my own way.
Now I'm practicingbeing a neighbor.

(43:01):
I'm getting along with that guythat's really hard to deal with.
Next door, I'm following thequiet hours rule about things.
Gotta be quiet at 10 o'clock.
I'm showing up atmy appointment.
I said I'd, volunteer atthe front desk and talk
to people as they come in.
So I'm managing mytime differently.
So there's a skill buildingeffect for staying at the
New Beginnings neighborhood.
And then our support team meetswith each person each week.

(43:25):
And so the person whenthey first come in,
often they're strugglingwith everything, right?
They don't, I don't have an id,I don't have health insurance.
I haven't seen adoctor in 15 years.
I used to have this medicationI was on, but I stopped
taking it 12 years ago.
I've got four chargeswith the court for
trespassing and littering.
And so they meet with oursupport team each week

(43:48):
to start identifying thebarriers that they need to
overcome to regain housing.
And maybe that's gettingincome through work.
Maybe that's gettingincome through disability.
It's definitely becomingconsistent at following
some basic rules, just likeyou would need to do in a
lease if you're renting.
It definitely involves gettingalong with my neighbors ' cause

(44:11):
that's gonna be needed asI move out into a home.
In mainstream society.
So it's a transitional periodwhere I'm practicing becoming
a neighbor again instead ofthe life I've adapted to on
the streets for many years.
And then what we found atNew Beginnings was, here's a
bunch of people who are ready.
They've got some income,they can be a good neighbor,

(44:31):
they're ready to move outinto homes of their own.
And where do they go?
Especially if you earn 900bucks a month on disability
check, where are you gonna rent?
In Northwest Arkansas.
And so that's what motivatedour organization to say,
how can we follow peopleinto permanent housing
and increase the capacity.
There are some opportunities outthere, there's just not enough.

(44:53):
And so we set our minds to howdo we offer permanent housing to
people who are ready to move on.
Part of it is optionsthat are scattered
throughout the community.
Some people want to live ina neighborhood where no one
else knows I've been homeless.
But a lot of people reallythrive on living next to
people that have some sharedbackground that may also have

(45:14):
support needs that we've gottento know each other, staying at
New beginnings, and now we'dreally like to continue that
and live in a neighborhood withpeople that I know and trust.
So that motivated us tolook for opportunities
to pioneer this kind ofneighborhood with support.
That can be a long-termliving situation.
It's not a transitionalthing that someone has to get

(45:36):
rehabilitated and move out from.
Anyone can choose to leavewhen they want to, but it's
a place that someone canactually live and belong
and rebuild their life.
They're paying rent, they'refollowing their lease, they're
getting along with theirneighbors, and they're receiving
support to figure out how arethey gonna contribute back?
How are they gonna livea life with purpose?

(45:56):
And that's what we have seen inthis kind of proof of concept
that we're developing now, iswe've seen people thrive as
long as they have affordablehomes and support and community.
And our vision is tocomplete developing that
neighborhood so that we canadd in the cottages where
intentional neighbors live.
We'd like to double how manyfolks with homeless backgrounds

(46:18):
can live here in thisneighborhood on Spruce Street.
And then we'd like to invitein churches and community
groups that want to be partof building community with
our neighbors, recoveringfrom homelessness, and show
that it takes all of us, theingredients are here, but
we've gotta organize togetherand wrap around these people
and build a life together.

(46:39):
Once we can show everyoneit works, like people
are healthy and happy andthriving, they're not falling
back into homelessness,then we really want to pour
gasoline on this model.
We want to plant a neighborhoodin every city in northwest
Arkansas and keep growingthis type of intervention
until we can go from 177chronically homeless people

(47:02):
in that survey down to zero.

I, as I listened to you, this falls
outside of what many woulddefine as the community
that they're familiar with.
This is a different wayof thinking about what
community looks like.
It's a different way of reallytrying to understand who my
neighbor is and what does itmean to belong to a place and to
be intentional with those thatare around me live around me

(47:27):
or are a part of my community.
Where do we start to reimagineor to reset how we think about
what community can look like?

Yeah.
I think it helps to becomeface to face with people.
If I've found that my life is alittle isolated from all these
problems that I'm sharing aboutwe need to make some intentional
choices to go and meet people.
Whether you're volunteeringat Salvation Army, at Seven
Hills, at New Beginnings,whether you're showing up at
our Laundry love event andhelping do laundry, once a

(47:59):
month you will meet people.
And if you bring in opennessand a friendliness, you'll
end up finding a friend.
You'll find people thatmake you laugh and you'll
start to empathize with whatthey're struggling with.
And hopefully that willhelp you activate that.
That shift towards how do Iget, how do I in my personal
life, but then also in my publicroles, like my political life,

(48:21):
how do I make sure that ourcommunity is making planning
decisions and investing themoney that is needed to be
invested, that make a communitywhere everyone can belong.

I think you're going there, but maybe I'll
ask you to keep going becauseit is how we think about who
our neighbors are, how webuild our communities, but
this is gonna require somestructural change within how
we think about zoning laws.
Yeah.
And how we think about housingtypes and like, how do we start
to think about that in a newway and in a way that people can

(48:54):
embrace and not be afraid of.

Yeah, I think there's like the two
hands connected there of one.
Is that the personal piecefor me, if I'm seeing, I
like my community to bedifferent, I'm seeing some a
pain point in the community.
It does start, I think,with me finding some way to
have more personal exposureand learn from the people
who are struggling andmarginalized in our community.

(49:17):
And then that can't be enough.
So to keep this through lineof neighborliness, like I
want to love my neighborin a personal way, but
also in a political way.
I want to see my communityget assertive about
getting more housing built.
And I want to see my leadersask us if we would like
to use tax money to fundpublic transportation.

(49:39):
And I want to see howdo I love my neighbor
through my city council,through our tax dollars.
Like we need to hit bothof those sides where I'm
personally connected andliving in a way that has space
for people who are differentthan me or recovering from
stuff that I don't understand.
And there's an energy in ourcities and counties and in

(50:02):
leadership roles throughoutthe community to become the
solution and to shift thingsand to not accidentally even
become part of resistance tothat, to hear that there's a
new apartment complex comingup and immediately rushing to
how it affects me personallyand the property values that
I'm worried about for my home.
Like maybe that'snot the top priority.

(50:24):
Maybe to be a neighbor.
I should be excited to seethat there's more places
for people to live andthat's what's gonna allow
our community to be diverse.
And it's gonna allowpeople in our community
that are struggling toget real opportunities,
like what we've had.
So I think there's that personaland that political line that
we need to keep together.

Part of the hard part of this is we live in an
economic model where so muchof someone's household wealth
is built into their home.
And so that becomes, in manyways, like an investment
strategy of that that wecount on or that many people
count on growing to providesome sort of value, right?

(51:02):
And we could go into all thehistory of how that emerged
and the problems with thatand how not everybody gets to
share within that hope but Ithink when we start thinking
about different models forneighborhoods, you're gonna
run smack into this resistancemaybe for all the wrong reasons
and I don't know how we solvethat problem, if I'm honest.

Yeah.
Probably what's part of, at theroot of this not in my backyard
movement is people that evenif they want to be loving,
kind people and understandthemselves that way, they
nevertheless, at a root level,understand their self-interest.
And if you're telling meyou're gonna build an apartment
complex in my neighborhoodthat jeopardizes how my home

(51:48):
value's gonna appreciate inthe coming years, and that
appreciation is what I'mcounting on for retirement.
I'm planning to sell this houseand make a mint to get ready
for my, being an older person.
If I'm self interestedenough, which we all are.
I'm gonna have this visceralreaction to building
homes for people withlower incomes next door.

(52:09):
And we need to name that Ithink that's a healthy thing
to face and struggle with andgo, what are really my values?
What kind of communityam I really committed to?
A lot in our economic systemis gonna teach me to prioritize
that economic self-interest.
And if that's so then okay,I'll be on the other side of the
fence organizing against you.

Yeah.
But that becomes a barrierwhether sometimes we're even
aware of it or not though.

Yeah.

I, and I don't we're, so to solve homelessness
and to create more affordablehousing, like there's not a
solution for what we thinkabout an economic model.
This is the economicmodel that we're in.
Just point blank and like it'sreally hard to be in it and
not participate in it or needit to be able to, hopefully
provide stability for yourself.

(52:54):
So I think, I don't know ifyou've got an idea about how
solve that I'd be great, butI do recognize, 'cause I've
seen this happen in my ownneighborhood where I live
in, single family homes andpeople want to consolidate
lots and put up town homes andand there's just an automatic
resistance to it because ofthe fear of what that's gonna
do to the economic model orviability of the neighborhood.

(53:16):
And so we start arguingabout zoning conversations.
And we're just anti any changewhatsoever without really
engaging in a thoughtfuldialogue about what does
it mean to be a neighbor?
What does it meanto be a community?
And is my sense of net worthor my future plans, is it
dependent upon a community andthe way they care for me, or
what they can produce for me?

(53:37):
I think these are thethings that I start to,

yeah.

I could wait I start to ruminate about.

Right?
Yeah.
No, I think you're ruminatingon the right things.
What if it's not in myfinancial self-interest
to create a communitywhere everyone belongs?
What if?

Yeah.

solomo (53:50):
Now what, in a sense we.
Have to defect from someof the values of the
dominant culture in orderto make space for everyone.
I think the same ruleapplies for how we
think about our 401Ks.
The policies that wouldhelp create more equality
and universal wellbeingin our country may hit
certain 401ks and if.

(54:11):
I prioritize the values ofthat dominant system that
says human beings have valuebased on how much they produce
or how much they consume.
If you're really productiveor if you have a big consumer
in a market system, thenyou're really valuable.
And if you're someone thathas been homeless for 15 years

(54:32):
and eats at food pantriesand qualifies for disability,
and you're not gonna be.
Producing the next factoryand you're not gonna be
buying the next boat.
What's your value?
And that comes back to havingto defect from some of the
values in this dominant culture.
If we're really gonna havea society that includes
everyone, there's somethingbetter than the limitations

(54:54):
capitalism imposes on us.
Are we still thinking through?
What are, how do youdescribe that Better system?
Yeah, I think there's alot of good conversation to
be had there to transcendthe limitations that
capitalism imposes on us.
But I hope at the valueslevel that is something
that we are reckoning with.
We can't get trapped in theanthropology that capitalism

(55:16):
offers us and make a worldwhere everyone can belong.
We won't.

I think back, for those that have been listening
for a while, they know they.
We listen to Alyssa Hornerat the beginning of season
two, and it's one of, one ofthe things was this idea that
within our society, we just,one of the things that we're
constrained by is this ideaof a limited way of being.
And that we have this ideathat this, it, like we, we
don't use our imaginationto think about how this

(55:41):
could be done differently.
So we become these willingor unwilling, if you will,
participants in that system.
And I think about it, as Ithink close to home, there's
so much focus on how do wecreate workforce housing.
And which, not afan of the label.
I think people are, workmore, are worth more
than just a workforce.
But it's in need of the labormarket, unfortunately, I think
we live in a world sometimeswhere someone who's homeless

(56:03):
there's probably a stereotypethat they're not gonna be part
of that labor market and orthey can't be, or whatever
the limitations may be.
And so therefore they're notgonna serve in that production
that you're talking about.
And I guess we could probablygo through this a lot, but.
I think this is going to be,and is something that I've
seen actively work itselfout in our community and I

(56:24):
wish I had solutions for it,but I think maybe it begins
with just a conversation.
And to your point,acknowledging.
We're naming it as a problem.
So we can get some, yeah,broader thinking around it,

I guess.
Yeah.
So we can strugglewith ourselves on,
that's a good word.
And in that same vein, oneof the reasons that seldom
talked about for why there'sa affordable housing and
homelessness crisis isthat the housing in America
is very financialized.
It is an investment vehicle.
And so I can choose to investmy money in a business or in

(56:54):
building homes, but in bothcases, I'm trying to maximize
the return on my investment.
And if that's the systembehind generating housing
in the society you'regonna see certain outcomes.
If you take adifferent approach.
And there's a couple countriesaround the world that do.
That think about housingmore in line with how we
think about public schoolsor libraries or nonprofit

(57:19):
hospitals or community collegeswhere we take a collective
interest in making sure thatwe are providing the basic
needs for people universally.
Then it would result ininvestments in housing that
may not be the most profitablevehicle for investors for
the permanent capital class.

(57:40):
It instead would be producedthrough the same revenue
strategies that we createcommunity colleges , hospitals
and public schools with, andwhat we would see is we are
making sure that human needs aremet universally because having
housing determines so muchof how healthy your future is
physically, mentally, socially.

(58:02):
Having housing is a primarysocial driver of health, we
need to find a way to realizethat in our life together,
not just talk about itlike how it's a social pro,
social determinant of health.
It has to work its way intoour budgets and our policies
and how we look at the systemthat's making housing, and how
do we introduce new strategiesthat will produce housing, not

(58:22):
based on are you a valuablemember of the workforce?
Are you a consumer that iswilling to pay a price for this
home I built that returns me agreat profit on my investment
but rather thinks about howdoes housing meet basic human
needs and contribute to health?

Yeah.
Okay., I think these areconversations that are needed
and necessary because , and myhope would be that it broadens
our way of thinking, or atleast it lets us understand
sometimes the constraints thatwe have placed ourselves in and
that we don't have a limitedway of being and that there are
other ways to think about this.
But unfortunately part of,it's not usually part of
our community dialogue orwe don't feel empowered to

(58:59):
change the institutions thatwe've created to serve us.
Which I think we havethe ability to do that.
But it's gonna create a, asituation where we have to
have a better imagination.

Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
The imagination isalways the leader.
I love the quote from uh,Shelling that said uh,
artists are the unacknowledgedlegislators of our time
because artists can imaginea alternative reality.
And then it's up to usto live into what version
of the future do we want.
And I look back at, thepublic housing that we have in

(59:29):
northwest Arkansas was all builtback in the 1970s and looks like
it hasn't been maintained well.
'cause it.
Hasn't been funded to bemaintained well, but what if
we had actually built new.
s ocial housing, publichousing, every four years.
If a Hillcrest Towers, that'sby the library in Fayetteville.
What if we had built oneof those every five years

(59:50):
for the last 40 years?
Would that be differenttoday of how many people were
struggling with affordablehousing or homelessness over
time policy investments likethat are what, and no one's
making a million dollars offof the people living in public
housing, but it's people thatare able to be healthy and
contribute to our community.

(01:00:11):
They're not camping out infront of businesses and holding
signs at the stoplights.
And so is housing the kindof thing that we want to
guarantee across the board?
And if so.
What kind of shift in ourvalues does that require?

mike rusch. (01:00:24):
I'm gonna refrain from answering that.
'Cause I'm gonna have to do somesoul work there to really think
through the layers of that.
And which is true ofprobably all of us, but yeah.
And I'm just curious, Iknow you're still early but
you're doing very practicalthings at this point.
Like where are you seeingsome successes here?
Are there certain municipalitiesthat are like interested or

(01:00:46):
leaning in or do you feellike, do you feel like we've
got that political will tostart to see some of these
things really come alive?

solomon burchfi (01:00:53):
On some things.
I think the land usepiece has gotten a lot of
attention, the rezoning, andI think that's a big one.
So I hope that we continuethat push and we see every city
get serious about rezoning sothat we can get more housing
and that will take time.
But those are primarydriver decisions.
So I see some movement on that.

(01:01:14):
I don't yet see a lot of energyaround the programmatic as
opposed to the policy wise.
So we need to actuallyfund the programs that
help people regain housing.
Fayetteville is the only cityin northwest Arkansas that
is holding grants from HUDthat allows for there to be
supportive housing in the city.

(01:01:36):
Fayetteville has been assertiveabout dedicating general
fund money to help nonprofitswho are assisting neighbors
to get back into housing.
And there have been.
Smaller efforts in other cities,like in Springdale and Rogers
and Bentonville, but to see itas a priority, no, I don't think
that I have seen leadershipreally get energetic about

(01:01:56):
what is a whole of governmentresponse, policies that need to
change, development staff thatneed to be hired, and programs
that need to be funded, thatare targeted at where the pain
is the worst, and implementingthose best practice solutions
that help people regain housing.

mike rusch. (01:02:12):
I'm curious, Solomon, as I think about this
I guess my question is, what amI missing out on by not seeing
these kinds of programs in mycommunity or promoting them, or
at least asking the questionsabout how they may become real.

solomon burchfield. (01:02:26):
Yeah.
What am I missing out on?
I'm missing out on meetingpeople like Mark who walked
the pilgrimage with us.
Yeah.
And said that he hasnever felt more alive.
Getting to lead thepilgrimage each day.
Getting to know him wouldmake your life better.
And I've known Mark for manyyears when he slept behind
dumpsters and in his carand was not his best self.

(01:02:51):
Today I know Mark as someonethat lives in a home.
He has a roommate heis making a chess set.
He's got a really artistic mind.
He collects coins and would loveto show you his coin collection.
We're missing outon living with Mark.
Instead of seeing Mark holding asign at a stoplight and judging
him for, I bet he didn't makegood decisions or whatnot.

(01:03:13):
We're getting to experiencethe best of Mark when he's
healthy and happy and fulfilled,and it actually makes our
life better too to have spacefor all kinds of diverse
backgrounds in our friendscircle and in our neighborhood.
It makes our lifebetter when everyone
has what everyone needs.
That is what's the mostcounter-cultural for us?
Our culture atomizes us.

(01:03:34):
You're supposed to be thehappiest when you live as a
single individual, isolated,often from family, isolated from
a lot of community belonging.
I'm staring in my phone.
I live alone.
Everyone has to buy andacquire all the things
you need for yourself.
And the most counterculturalthing you can do is to
step out of that and say,actually we need each other.

(01:03:57):
I need you and you need me.
We're at our best when weare in relationship and we're
at our best when we havecommunities that support us
and bring out the best in us.
That is a reallycountercultural move.
And so there's a almostnarrative layer in this of what
story do we live in as people,and therefore, what kind of way

(01:04:20):
will we organize life together?
What social systems, economicsand politics and city planning,
et cetera, are we excited about?
Because if we live inthis narrative of every
individual for themselves,we end up accepting a
whole bunch of suffering.
We go those who can get it.
If you can afford ahome, you get a home.
If you can afford a nicerhome, you get a nicer home.

(01:04:42):
And if you can't,that's just tough.
You are on your own.
So we really have to healsomething like that in our
core that our society hasreally socialized us into.
If we want to have a betterstory about how we belong
to each other and how wecan get through the hard
things in life, if we, if webuild a community together.

mike rusch. (01:05:01):
One thing that I just keeps coming back in my
mind here we are in 2025, 2050,were estimated approximately
to have a million people here,which is about almost 400,000
more than we have today.
The need for housingwithin the current
models is not going away.
Without change, my assumptionis that the rates of
homelessness that we see areonly going to increase and

(01:05:24):
probably become more complex.
I'm curious, as you looktowards the future, what do
we need to start to do now,or how do we start to get
our head around this in a waythat we don't end up in 2050
having the same conversation?

Yeah.
Are they saying thatour region will double
in population by 2050?
if we don't change things,I think we can expect to see
homelessness, growing morepeople in tents, on sidewalks,
more people at stoplightsand sitting in front of
businesses struggling, hurting.
We're gonna see more of thatand we're gonna see what

(01:06:03):
happens in other communitieswhere ultimately people throw
up their hands and give up.
This is too big.
There's thousands of peopleand some of 'em have really
intense support needs.
Look at the drug addiction, lookat the mental health stuff, and
they end up turning folks intopariahs instead of neighbors.
They say, start blamingthem like they're trying

(01:06:24):
to ruin our parks.
They're trying toruin our trails.
We see this in the nationaldiscourse of talking about
this camp out in Utah.
The, they're looking at buildingsome camp outside of the
city, some separate place tosend all the homeless folks.
It's an internment camp.
That's the opposite ofhow do we make space for
everyone in our community.

(01:06:44):
If we do change things, if westart to say, Hey, we need to
see by 2050, we need to startseeing a lot more multifamily,
smaller homes that can bemore affordable for people
built in our communities.
And we're gonna see busesable to provide transportation
for the people that livein more dense areas.

(01:07:07):
And we're gonna address theproblems in the mental health
care system so that when peoplehave serious mental illness,
it, their insurance pays for thesupport they need to be stable.
If we make those kinds ofchoices and we see apartments
that get built where 25%of the units are offered at
lower rates, or 10% of theunits are offered for people

(01:07:29):
recovering from homelessness.
If we start making thosedecisions and funding those
solutions by 2050, we cansee a place where it's
a lower cost of living.
It's a place where lifeis more affordable.
My home and my transportationcosts are doable.
I don't have to see peoplesleeping in the dugouts
at the park or groups oftents along the bike trail.

(01:07:53):
Like we can have a communitythat is affordable for everyone.
We can have a community abundantwith affordable homes, and we
can have neighborhoods wherewe're actually connected to
each other in healthy ways.
But it is gonna take a reallyintentional shift, both at
the personal and at the sociallevel to make that reality.

mike rusch. (01:08:13):
For those that, this may be new information
or a new way of thinking aboutit, like what practically
could a next step look like?
If someone cares aboutthis, where do we start?
What's a way that can make adifference in our own community?
Even if we are not surroundedby maybe visible homelessness,
but we know that we're workingon the future problem of

(01:08:33):
what zoning reform lookslike, or policy, or just even
starting to think differentlyabout this I don't know,
give us a place to start.

solomon (01:08:40):
It always helps to get personally familiar.
So I say either volunteersomewhere or donate somewhere.
Start to get involved in yourown personal way, and then
ask yourself, what does mycommunity need to do about this
problem that I'm closer to now?
So if I'm giving five bucksto a guy at the stoplight,
and I wonder is he justgonna go spend that on drugs?

(01:09:02):
Now I need to ask myself, howeasy is it in my community to
access residential treatment?
Is it free?
Does it depend on insurance?
Do you have to wait sixweeks before you can get a
bed in a treatment center?
What needs to change at thecommunity level to address the
problem that I've encounteredat a more personal level?
So get involved personallyand then ask those questions.

(01:09:23):
I need to sit down with my citycouncil member and tell 'em
how my priorities have changed.
I need to talk to my neighborsand say, we need to not speak
out against development.
We need to welcome thatmore homes are getting
built so that everyone hashousing in our community.
And if you've done that, you'realso welcome to donate to
nonprofits who are currentlysupporting people living in

(01:09:44):
the world that we do have.
And if you really wantto get more educated.
I say, reach out to us and wewill bring some people that
have recovered from homelessnessto come and visit with you
and your community group.
We'd love to be inchurches Sunday morning.
We'd love to bespeaking at a business's
monthly staff meeting.
Like we'd like to come andshare what it is like for

(01:10:06):
someone to recover from chronichomelessness and let that
be the place that you start.

mike rusch. (01:10:11):
What you've laid out is is really practical way
of getting really proximate tothe needs that are here in a
way that allows us to understandthem, which is sometimes
the hardest thing to do.
Whether it be volunteeringat New Beginnings or laundry
love, or what that looks like.
There are some real practicalways to start to interact
in our community in a waysthat, that allows you to learn
a story and learn a name.

(01:10:32):
And I think back to the,gosh, 20 years ago when we
started doing Laundry Lovein Fayetteville, that's
still going on today.
How much that shaped myunderstanding of what it
means to see other peoplebeyond a quote unquote
label or condition.
But to be able to see people forreally the beauty that they hold
intrinsically in who they are.

(01:10:52):
And I would encourage everybodyto find a real practical way to
make sure that we are engagingpersonally in these issues.
And obviously we can go toNew Beginnings website to get
more information about that.
But I would like to knowwhat keeps you awake
at night in this space?
What are the fears that youcarry from your perspective
about about this work orabout the situation that
we're dealing with here innorthwest Arkansas around this?

(01:11:14):
What are your fears for this?

Yeah, I guess I would blend northwest
Arkansas and our nation.
My fear is that our unreasonableeconomic system further
and further divides us.
Between a very few peoplehaving more and more resources
and power over the decisionsmade in our communities,

(01:11:37):
and therefore more peoplestruggling, keeping their head
above water just to pay bills.
And some people actuallybecoming destitute,
living on the streetwith practically nothing.
And then what happens from that?
If we tolerate such anunreasonable economic
system, we end up havingto justify why that is.

(01:12:00):
Okay.
And that's when we beginto dehumanize the people
who are struggling and wetry to blame them more.
They're immoral.
They made bad choices.
They need fixed, send them away.
That's the scary thing to me.
When we start dehumanizingthe people that we.
Share the image of God with.

(01:12:20):
Yeah.

mike rusch. (01:12:21):
Uh, the other side of that is this idea
of community wholeness.
We've been trying to carrythat theme through every
conversation that we've had.
And so when I use thatterm wholeness, I'm curious
what comes to mind andhow you would think about
wholeness in this space.

Yeah.
I've used the phrase acommunity where everyone
belongs a couple times today.
I think that is what wholenessmeans to me instead of community
being where some people livein pockets over here and others
are completely isolated fromwhat it feels like to live in
that pocket where we're separatealong lines of economic, race,

(01:12:57):
religion, where we don't seethat we have a stake in each
other's future, or we don'thave space for people who are
different than us in our lives.
Having wholeness would meanthat we've healed from some of
those scar, some of those scars,and we've taken intentional
efforts in our personal andpolitical life to create a

(01:13:20):
community where everyone haswhat they basically need.
Not the best way to saythat, but everyone has
dignity and everyone hastheir human rights respected.
Everyone has the chanceto have housing and food
and friends and I think Isaid it somewhere in there

mike rusch. (01:13:39):
Solomon, I'm deeply grateful just to be
able to sit down and heara little bit more about the
story of the work that you'vebeen doing, your own story,
the work in New beginnings.
I love hearing thestory of the walk.
You're gonna do thatnext year is that?

Definitely gonna do that next year.
This was just like thesmall version Okay.
To work out the kinks.
So next year we will wanta lot more people walking.

mike rusch. (01:13:58):
Oh, okay.
All right.

We'll want more congregations to let
us sleep in their gymnasium.
Okay.
We'll want to raise alot more money to help
build neighborhoods withsupport and community.
So if you are a person or abusiness owner or a church
leader and would like tobe involved, we'd love to
welcome you to the planningmeetings in early 2026.

mike rusch. (01:14:16):
I love that.
Put me on the list.
I would love to take this,and I think what I love
so much about this is it'snot just a bunch of people
who have never experiencedhomelessness that are walking.
Do.
That is good.
I'm not saying thatit's a bad thing.
You're doing this with peoplewho have real life lessons
to be able to teach you.
And I think that's thatsounds whole as you would talk
and share that definition.

(01:14:36):
So Solomon, thank you forthe work you're doing.
Thank you for the workof New Beginnings.
It's really beautiful tosee that in this world
there are solutions to theseproblems that we can find.
And I think the work thatyou guys have done has really
pioneered and shown that whatis possible in a way maybe
that I've not seen before.
And Soloman, thanksfor sitting down.
Thanks for thework you're doing.
Really appreciate it.

solomon b (01:14:56):
It's been a pleasure.
Thank you, Mike.

mike rusch. (01:14:58):
You bet.

Well, a big thank you to Solomon
for reminding us thathomelessness, it's not really
about homelessness at all.
It's about housing asinfrastructure, about
community care as sharedresponsibility, about healthcare
systems that either catchpeople or let them fall.
It's about whether we're willingto create systems in northwest
Arkansas that refuse to letpeople fall through the cracks.
I truly appreciate Solomon'ssharing of his own story,

(01:15:25):
that memory combined withyears of walking alongside
some of our most chronicallyhomeless neighbors, it has
shaped his understanding thatthe people at the margins of
our community, they aren'tlacking in resilience or worth.
They're just lacking accessto the basic resources that
allow all of us to belong.
Through new beginnings,Solomon and the team, they're
creating solutions that centerdignity, that recognize housing

(01:15:48):
as the foundation withoutwhich nothing else works.
From micro shelter communitiesto medical respite programs
to the mixed backgroundneighborhood at Spruce
Street, he's showing uswhat's possible when we
choose to see homelessnessas a solvable problem rather
than an inevitable condition.
But this conversation alsoconfronts us with some

(01:16:09):
uncomfortable truths thatour current economic system
is dividing us furtherbetween those who have
resources and those whoare struggling to survive.
The "not in my backyard"perspective and exclusionary
zoning while they're creatingthe very homelessness that
we say we wanna solve.
The fact that housing costsin our region have risen 71%

(01:16:30):
while wages haven't kept pace.
It's pushing more and morepeople to the edge of that
circle that Solomon describedfurther and further from access
to what they need to survive.
The question he leaves uswith isn't whether we have the
resources or the solutions.
We do.
The question is whetherwe have the collective
will to implement them.
Whether we're ready to builda northwest Arkansas where

(01:16:51):
everyone belongs, let ourcommunities reflect all people
who live here, and uphold thebelief that dignity isn't just
a word, but a reality thatwe've chosen to create together.
The work of building amore whole community,
a more just community.
A community where everyonehas what they need to
survive and to thrive.
That work continues and it'swork that requires all of us.

(01:17:14):
So I wanna say thank you forlistening and thank you for
being the most important part ofwhat our community is becoming.
This is the underview,an exploration in the
shaping of our place.

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