LITTLE ROCK, Ark. —
The City of Little Rock and other community organizations are bringing the topic of affordable housing to the center stage.
During an event held at Our House on Wednesday, local housing agencies met with dozens of landlords to build connections.
This first event allowed landlords to learn more about options available to match them with good tenants. Organizers also hope this could lead to an increase in the number of affordable housing units in Central Arkansas.
"It really serves as a connection point to be able to listen, understand, be empathetic, gather the information," said Matthew DeSalvo, Little Rock's Chief Homeless Officer.
That is why DeSalvo and other groups and nonprofits came together to host nearly 50 landlords on Wednesday afternoon.
"We have the public housing authorities that are here. So we've got Jacksonville, Lonoke, Little Rock, North Little Rock. All here to be kind of a connection point for housing," DeSalvo said.
He explained how in Central Arkansas, we have a shortage of affordable housing units available, and he hopes this event could be a step in the right direction to add more.
Ben Goodwin with Our House and CATCH said his goal is to get more people out of homelessness, and that coming together like this could lead to more solutions.
"We as homeless serving agencies don't have all the piece. Either it takes landlords, it takes employers, it takes healthcare, it takes all kinds of different parts of our community coming together to support people and to find the right place for everyone," Goodwin said.
He wants to make these partnerships with landlords to help cover the needs of the people they serve.
"It really benefits us all, and we can help all of our neighbors succeed and find the right home and the right opportunities for their success," Goodwin said.
"I think this is going to lead to a lot of other conversations with people who couldn't be here today to start to move forward on to I'm interested in what do I do? Or here's a real-life experience that I have, what do I do to remedy this situation? And we sort of become the connection point for all of that," DeSalvo said.
During the event, landlords took a survey to help give local housing agencies some feedback on working with their program and how they can improve.