Homeless shelter to shut after panel favors no permit

A homeless shelter operating for months inside a house without proper Little Rock approval will shut down after the Planning Commission recommended Thursday that the city withhold the necessary permit.

Neighbors asked the commission for “immediate relief” after harshly criticizing the shelter — called Truth and Transitions — and its owner Henri Pousardien, with one accusing him of indentured servitude and trying to profit from homelessness.

Pousardien said in an interview that his neighbors drew the wrong conclusions about the shelter, but he said he will not ask the city’s Board of Directors to overturn the decision. He will close the shelter, at 7109 Archwood Drive, by Sept. 1 and look for a new location, he said.

“We have to find out where we would be accepted,” Pousardien said of his next move. “We’re probably going to have to go back into the county again, where we’re not in the city limits.”

Pousardien’s original aim for Truth and Transitions was to acquire an Arkansas Community Correction license to operate a private re-entry facility that helps prepare former inmates for life outside

of prison, but he temporarily shelved that plan after learning that he was not in compliance with city ordinances.

Pousardien began operating in Little Rock in March when he relocated the shelter from a home that was just outside of Sherwood, a move prompted by how hard it was for the home’s residents to access public transportation and other services, he said.

Little Rock later instructed Pousardien to either cease operations or apply for a conditional-use permit, the city’s zoning manager Dana Carney said. That application was denied Thursday, but the city will not take enforcement action against the shelter until after a 30-day period for him to weigh an appeal, Carney said.

Pousardien applied for a permit that would allow the shelter to house up to 13 people at one time in the 1,700-square-foot, one-story home. The address is next door to an existing home at the back of a neighborhood that borders Boyle Park.

Truth and Transitions’ plan would comply with city laws regarding the number of beds allowed per square foot, but “it leaves no or very little common living area,” the city’s Planning Department staff wrote in their analysis. “It appears all rooms, save the kitchen and bathrooms, are proposed for use as sleeping areas.”

The shelter charges residents $120 per week for rent and groceries and imposes strict rules, such as a nightly curfew and restrictions on what residents can do with their wages.

Truth and Transitions recently housed an 18-year-old man diagnosed with autism after the man’s release from an Arkansas Department of Human Services juvenile treatment center near Alexander, said Robert Steel, a program administrator with the department.

Steel, who said the man’s parents had abandoned him and that he would have no place to go, said he signed off on placing the man at Truth and Transitions after taking a look at the home.

“It may not be a perfect transition home, but things can be corrected,” Steel told the Planning Commission after residents aired their concerns. “There is a need for a transitional home, and they served this young man well.”

Human Services did not pay for the man’s stay at the shelter, Pousardien and Steel said.

New arrivals sometimes work at Pousardien’s other rental properties, with their wouldbe wages deducted from the weekly rent cost at a rate of $10 per hour, the homeowner said.

Joe Busby, president of the University District Neighborhoods Association, called that arrangement “indentured servitude, or slavery,” while urging the Planning Commission to reject the application.

“The University District accepts a lot of services for people in the city,” Busby said. “We accept properly run facilities. … They’re not helping these people. They’re making money off of them.”

Ultimately, the shelter helps residents find employment doing maintenance, warehouse and other work throughout the region at places such as the Coca-Cola distribution center, said Pousardien’s assistant, Paul Owens.

Pousardien said he has lost at least $1,000 each month operating the shelter because the five to six tenants who stay there at a time aren’t always required to pay the weekly rent, while he always covers a

mortgage, utilities and regular maintenance.

One guest, 56-year-old house leader Tim Templeton, said he went months without paying rent because his health condition prevents him from stable employment. Templeton and Owens, while giving a tour of the house, said that’s not rare.

Two worn couches provide seating in the living space around a small square coffee table. Small beds are tucked against walls or in the corners of bedrooms. A bottle of body spray, a coffee mug and sunglasses sat on a piece of furniture in one bedroom.

One refrigerator, which the house guests share, contained several boxes of baked and fried chicken, dessert and a small tub of French onion dip on Thursday. A second icebox is always locked — Templeton holds the key — to protect housemates’ personal food or snacks from hungry roommates, Owens said.

A list of chores rotates among the house guests, Owens said, and the home is mostly clean. Owens saw a mess in the laundry room and told Templeton to have someone clean it up.

Owens said about 20 of 150 people who have been through the shelter have moved on to more stable housing, often rental properties offered by Truth and Transitions, he said.

Owens attributed the high turnover to strict rules, which include work requirements, a ban on alcohol and drug use, mandatory attendance at church and meetings and Bible verse lessons.

The rules also require residents to open a personal savings account at a local bank, deposit half of their net earnings in the account and provide proof of that to Truth and Transitions within two days of their payday. The money must remain in the account as long as the resident stays at Truth and Transitions, the rules say.

“We’re very tight,” said Owens, who said he is an addict who has been sober for 3½ years after finding help at a similar transition home.

Strict rules and rent payments are vital to helping people transition to independent lives, he said.

“We try to get them back on their feet so they can move on in life,” Owens said, adding that he tells them to live honestly. “If you do crooked things, it’s going to fall back on you.”