My Buddies House
Facility to be built for Russellville homeless
I t started with a photo on Facebook that Fred Teague of Russellville just couldn’t believe.
About two years ago, he said, Ashley Francis posted a picture of a homeless camp in Russellville.
“I was like, that’s my hometown — there’s no way there can be homeless people in my hometown,” Teague said. It was the reality, though. Teague contacted Francis, and they brought in another partner, Victor Whicher of Russellville. A recent volunteer is Tyler Holly of Russellville. They all have full-time jobs, but they volunteer countless hours to help the homeless through The Russ Bus, a nonprofit organization formed two years ago this month under the umbrella of The One Inc., based in Little Rock.
Francis said she was coming back to Russellville from Little Rock a couple of years ago and saw a glimpse of red near the Welcome to Russellville sign. “I said, ‘Was that a tent in my town?’” Curious, she got off the interstate and investigated. She found a man living in a tent.
“It was October or November; it was cold,” she said. Francis asked the man if he needed anything. “He said, ‘Well, some blankets and some water would be nice.’ It all kind of snowballed from that. Once you meet one homeless [person], you meet a dozen. I met the needs as best as I could possibly meet them,” she said.
When the man’s tent collapsed from the weight of a snow and ruined his belongings, she posted more photos and asked for help. That’s when Teague called and ask to meet with her.
“We started trying to seek out people who were homeless and meet the needs that we could,” Teague said. “From that one
camp, we started growing and finding other people.”
A handicapped-accessible van was donated to the Russellville group by Sorrells Body Shop to aid the volunteers in their mission, Teague said.
He said there are 14 individual camp sites, to date. “We’re the ones who have made the camps — we’re the ones that put the camps there,” he said. “Originally, if they didn’t have a place to stay, we’d put them in a tent and get blankets and sleeping bags, whatever. Every camp we have has a heater in their tent, or small building, whatever it may be.”
Some of the camps are within 75 to 100 feet of each other, he said, “but we try to space them out. Some is private property — most is. Some [landowners] know it’s there; some don’t,” Teague said. “If there’s a child involved, they have to stay in a hotel.”
Micro cabins have been built for the homeless, too, he said.
The living situation for some of Russellville’s homeless will change with My Buddies House, a planned 12-unit facility to be built on property leased near The Journey Church. The outreach is funded by private donations.
The group got a boost in the form of a $25,000 grant from the state’s General Improvement Fund through the West Central Arkansas Planning and Development District Inc.
“Thank God we got it,” Teague said. “We’re going to need a lot, lot more.” The estimated construction cost of the facility is $300,000.
Teague said the group has applied for two more grants, “and then we’ll have to start some really solid fundraising.” He said all the money raised in Russellville will stay in Russellville.
“The architect doing the drawings, Jeff Harrison [of Russellville], is donating his services, which is amazing,” Teague said.
Each unit will include bunk beds and a larger bed with a bunk, possibly, Teague said, a bar with a sink, small stove and refrigerator, and a bathroom with a vanity.
“When I first started this, everybody said, ‘ We need a homeless shelter,’ and I was against a homeless shelter,” Teague said. “The awesome thing about the transitional-living facility is it’s not just shelter.” Each unit is going to be adopted by a local church or civic organization, Teague said. “That means if someone is having problems in their marriage, somebody on that team” will help, he said. “Budgeting will be something we’ll go over with everyone.”
The living quarters won’t be free, exactly, he said.
“You will have to pay because we’ve learned if you give somebody something for free, you’re not helping them at all,” he said. Tenants will be required to get a job in a certain period of time.
“When you get a job, you can stay longer, but you have to submit 30 percent of your income every time you get paid.” That will be in the form of a cashier’s check or money order made out to themselves, he said. “If you don’t pay that 30 percent, you don’t stay,” Teague said.
“When they leave the facility, all those money orders and cashier’s checks will be there to jump-start them and ensure their success,” he said. “This is a model we came up with.”
Francis said not everyone will be a good fit to live in My Buddies House, so some homeless people will continue to live in shelters such as the tiny cabins.
Teague said the goal is to launch a “small website” once a materials list is made and ask people to “buy” those items.
“Someone in Conway can go onto our website and buy particular items. You can buy a bed; you can buy a toilet; you can buy a piece of Sheetrock. Somebody could buy 5 percent of the heating-and-air unit,” he said.
“We’re excited about it; it’s amazing what the community has done — not just our community,” Teague said. Former Russellville residents who live in other states, including California, have donated to the effort, he said.
Operating funds will come from donations, too.
“We feel like we’re going to be able to sustain it just with the money we’re not going to spend on motels, propane, etc.,” he said.
Ground will be broken for the project in March or April, Teague said.
The way Teague and his cohorts help the homeless has changed since he saw the photo two years ago on Facebook.
“We don’t necessarily go out looking anymore; they come to us,” he said. Teague said the Russellville Police Department, the Pope County Sheriff ’s Office, the Department of Human Services and other agencies refer homeless to The Russ Bus.
Teague said that in addition to getting shelter for people, the group provides support services such as propane, clothing and laundry.
“We have a building that’s donated to us that has showers and a laundry in it,” Teague said. A formerly homeless couple live in the building, and others live in a camper and tent on the property, he said.
“A couple of our sayings are, ‘ No rules. No Apologies. Just help,’ and ‘ Love without expectations.’ We’re faithbased, and that’s what we feel like Jesus does. When people are offered Jesus, there are expectations,” Teague said. “We just really want a person to help themselves.”
Teague said one misconception that frustrates him is that homeless people in Russellville “just need to get a job,” he said. “We deal mainly with the working-homeless population. They live in tents, but they get up and go to work every day. A lot of their employers do not have a clue that they are homeless.
“Today, we had to order a birth certificate [for a homeless man] so he can get an ID and we can get him a job.” If a homeless person gets a job, The Russ Bus volunteers take the person to get clothing.
“The people who are homeless, they look just like you and me. They don’t look rough; they don’t look dirty. They might be serving you food at a restaurant, … selling you cigarettes, working at a call center. Bosses don’t know unless every now and then, one says, ‘ Hey, I want to hire somebody who’s homeless.’
“The biggest thing that causes a lot of people to be homeless — they make themselves an island because they’ve burned every stinking bridge in the world, and some people, they just have no one,” he said. “We bring them in and get them a support system.” Donate to The Russ Bus at
donate@therussbus.org. For more information, go to The Russ Bus’ Facebook page.
Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 3270370 or tkeith@arkansasonline.com.