KELLAMS: Defining just what a housing crisis is isn't easy. Finding solutions for a housing crisis- even more difficult. Early next month, a two day gathering on Mount Sequoyah is designed to search for community driven ways to help ease housing struggles in the state's second largest city. CoCreate, the Future of Fayetteville, is a partnership between Circles NWA and the city. The purpose is to generate community sourced ideas and then turn those ideas into actionable solutions. Circles NWA is an initiative of the nonprofit organization Innovative Poverty Solutions, and this month, Christina Williams, Executive Director, and Anna Hurley, Director of Advocacy, came to the Carver Center for Public Radio to deliver a preview of what the event on September fifth and sixth will be like. Anna Hurley says the goal is to have an energetic representation of Fayetteville on hand.
HURLEY: Well, we're hoping that it looks like a lot of community members from different socioeconomic backgrounds. Housing is something that affects all people. We're really hoping to draw a diverse crowd with different experiences. I hope it sounds like a lot of collaboration, a lot of new ideas coming out, a lot of solutions that the city might be able to take and turn into actionable items to produce more housing.
KELLAMS: Some of the idea here is conversation.
HURLEY: The idea here is understanding where we're at in the housing conversation, and then ideating possible solutions to some of the housing challenges that we're facing. So we're focusing on three buckets in the CoCreate event. Folks from the community can come and decide to focus on either stabilizing renters, stabilizing and supporting renters, creating more housing using existing spaces or pathways to home ownership.
WILLIAMS: Those are the three different buckets that we're hoping to get some really unique, community centered ideas, coming out of this. This CoCreate is a form of what's known as generative community dialogue. So, in terms of what it would sound like, I hope it sounds like a lot of dialogue and conversation and lots of idea sharing. We really want people to be grounded in a context of what is going on in housing right now. What is this housing crisis that we're in? As well as to understand each other- the experiences. What are the lived experiences across the income spectrum? So you can go into this phase of reimagining, that will be part of this event, with really a good understanding of what's possible. What does it even mean to think outside the box was this box that we're in? I'm hoping there's a lot of good dialoguing and that the room is abuzz with conversation.
KELLAMS: This is a singular, specific event, but this is centered in something that's a bigger approach, right? To how we talk about things.
WILLIAMS: Yeah. We've created this model called CoCreate, and we've used it before in our circles program, specifically around a transportation issue- auto lending. It produced a really amazing community generated solution that we're working on now, actually, in our organization to do a fair auto financing pilot. We've seen it work, we've seen it produce real, tangible solutions. And so we're now expanding this co-create model, testing it out with the city specifically on this housing event. But we believe that this kind of generative community dialogue, this bringing people together is something that can be used for multiple different topics. We're trying to really pull the community in and say, “Hey, take some ownership in this.” This is not just giving public comment or feedback, although those are really important. It's not just commenting on someone else's solution and how does that affect your life. But really, truly, from the ground up, trying to build the things that our city needs to to make it better.
KELLAMS: If everyone is in some way invested exactly emotionally, financially, just civically?
WILLIAMS: Yeah. I mean, those are always the best kind of solutions when people are invested. When there's that buy in and, and you find that, oh, this, this idea has legs and, you know, it's not someone from the top down telling you you need this. Not someone from the outside coming in saying, hey, we have the solution to your problems. It's the community coming together saying, hey, we have a lot here already. There are assets we have. We know what we want our community to be like. And that's why I think it's so important that we're bringing people together across multiple experiences, because there's not just one experience of Fayetteville, but it is our city overall. I think together, that's how we build it to what we hope it can be in the future.
KELLAMS: For this to work best, you got to get people there, right? Get away from, you know, Netflix. Get up and show up.
HURLEY: Yeah. Yeah. And I think that that one thing I hope we'll see is a lot of excitement because there will be energy. I've worked in startups and entrepreneurship in the past and we're really bringing that level of sort of excitement. It's fast paced. There's a cash prize for the winners- there's pitches at the end where groups have formed to come up with solutions. We'll have an opportunity to pitch their ideas. And so I think it will be something where you can come sit and be passive. There's such an opportunity to be active, involved, build new relationships, come up with solutions that we really might see our city implement. And you can walk away saying, “Oh, I came up with that idea.” And so I think that there's a lot of opportunity for excitement and community building in this.
KELLAMS: You mentioned that conversations about thinking outside the box first, just what is the box? Many of us in Fayetteville and Northwest Arkansas are talking about a housing crisis, but we may not always be talking about the same thing. How easy is it to define the box, what housing, what a housing crisis is?
WILLIAMS: It's not easy. It's not easy. A lot of things that go into what is the housing crisis. I think for this event we've tried to draw some parameters around it to be focused on the ALICE population, the asset limited, income constrained, employed to really think about how do we stabilize and support our renter populations? Since we have so many renters in Fayetteville. It’s to really think outside the box of what does homeownership look like? I think that's one of the areas a lot of people feel the burden. You look at Zillow or anything and these prices are completely different than they were five, ten years ago. Is this even attainable for anyone, let alone those who maybe are still renting right now? And then I think a lot of people will look around and say, there's empty lots here. Why aren't we doing something with this piece of land? And the latest development firm came in from out of state to scoop up this house that could have been something cool. So we're trying to put some rails around it so that people can ideate in ways that will feel actionable and not just, oh, we can. We just have to build more housing. Like we all know that that's the solution in a lot of ways, but that doesn't necessarily feel tangible to the average resident here. What we're trying to do is create some, carve out some space where people can say, I can actually do something about this.
KELLAMS: Where and when?
HURLEY: September fifth and sixth up at the Bailey Center on Mount Sequoyah. So it's a two day event. The fifth, Friday night, will be from six to eight p.m. That will be our education portion and will look like panels of experts on each of those topics we've mentioned, learning from them- really having an opportunity to to understand more context more deeply before that reimagining portion comes in. That begins on Saturday. We'll have a conversation with the mayor, who’ll ground us in the work; help bring the vision for community centered work to the event. Then, we'll pretty much jump into some dialogue and understanding. People will break into groups and start, like Christina was mentioning, to understand each other’s perspective on their experience with housing in Fayetteville. Then, diving into coming up with some solutions. We’ll have experts in the room so people can ask questions as they go along so they don't come up with an idea that's just not actionable. It will culminate at three p.m. on Saturday with a pitch event. So ten to three p.m. on Saturday.
WILLIAMS: And this is part of a grant. And so, you know, the city has received the funds. We're working with them. Based on the end of this grant, we put together a business plan with the winning idea, or ideas. That allows the city to apply for part two grant which is the implementation part. So, there's real steps. This is not just going to kind of sit on a desk as a nice report.
HURLEY: The grant we got is through the SCEI, which stands for Southern Cities Economic Initiatives. And Arkansas has never been awarded the grant before. So this is the first year that Arkansas has been awarded. Both Fayetteville and Little Rock were given the grants. So really exciting to see what little Rock is going to do. But in Fayetteville, we are focused on community generating solutions around the housing.
WILLIAMS: When we say pitch competition, people may not have experienced that before, but it's coming up with the idea, pitching it to a panel of judges, and they're going to be prizes. The winners will get to come up and hold the big check and actually take some funds home. So it's really exciting.
KELLAMS: I don't have to be a contractor. I don't have to be a real estate mogul.
HURLEY: Exactly. Yeah. No. In fact, we would love to get voices specifically that aren't. But all are welcome. However, we hope that we see a lot of community members that are just curious and excited to bring their ideas and to meet other community members as well.
KELLAMS: Co-create, the Future of Fayetteville will take place September fifth and sixth in the Bailey Center on Mount Sequoyah in Fayetteville. Registration can be found at https://circlesnwa.org/. The event is a partnership between Circles NWA and the City of Fayetteville. Circles NWA is an initiative of the nonprofit organization Innovative Poverty Solutions. Our conversation with Christina Williams, Executive Director, and Anna Hurley, Director of Advocacy, took place in the Anthony and Susan Hoye News studio earlier this month.
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