By: Gabriella Phelan
FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. (UATV) – Being forced to heal in a tent is a situation that has been a harsh reality for many people experiencing homelessness.
In Fayetteville, tents can be seen lining the Razorback Greenway, beneath bridges, and across wooded areas. However, a groundbreaking initiative has been launched in Fayetteville to assist the unhoused community, making history as the first of its kind in the state.
In 2017, New Beginnings launched as a bridge housing community for the chronically unsheltered. Now, they are opening a new program on the New Beginnings campus that focuses on providing healing. The program is called ‘A Place To Heal,’ serving as a medical respite facility.
“We are starting the first medical respite program in the state of Arkansas… Medical respite is a program for people who are experiencing homelessness,” said Janet Gardner, Director of Healthcare at New Beginnings.
The respite will provide individuals facing homelessness with a secure and supportive space for healing, allowing them to recover in a stable environment instead of relying on tents.
Gardner says the space will provide each guest with the necessary essentials for healing, while also eliminating other obstacles related to living.
“They have to be able to walk to the community meals, they have to be able to go to a place to get a shower, they have to figure out how they’re going to use the bathroom in the middle of the night. And so this is we’re hopefully taking some of those barriers away in providing those things for them,” said Gardner.
Currently, two cabins on the New Beginnings campus are intended for respite purposes. The cabins offer each temporary resident a bed, a nearby restroom, a seating area, and storage space for medication and food.
Gardner has been a nurse for over twenty years; She says she has witnessed many heartbreaking challenges faced by unsheltered individuals that she has cared for.
“I had a gentleman that had a terminal liver disease, and he was in hospice care. The hospice nurses would come to the day center and help him the best they could. He didn’t want to be in an inpatient hospice facility because his friends wouldn’t come visit him. He died in his tent. He would sleep on the trail next to the waterfall, because he said that would make him concentrate on the waterfall and not listen to other things and that would help him go to sleep… We are better than that… This is America. We are privileged, we are blessed. Nobody should be dying in a tent. No one should be,” said Gardner.
New Beginnings says their hope is to expand the program even further to give more people an alternative.
“If they don’t have this option, then that is what they’re experiencing, that they are either in a tent, or maybe their car,” said Gardner.
The area surrounding New Beginnings is currently engulfed by heavy woods, however, the land will soon transform in order to make room for more respite cabins, allowing sheltered healing to become an option for many.
“Everyone deserves to be pampered a little bit and be cared for when they’re sick,” Gardner stated.
Craig Kritzer, a resident at New Beginnings, experienced thirteen years of homelessness living in a tent. Looking back, he says healing becomes challenging when you’re forced to live in a tent that is exposed to the elements.
“Recovery is almost impossible if you don’t have a clean atmosphere, to keep the germs and the dirt out of your open wounds… It’s a painful experience not having anyone to help you out during those medical times,” said Kritzer.
Kritzer recounted some of the challenges associated with facing a medical emergency while experiencing homelessness.
“I just lost a friend who died from overdosing, they sat with that girl until she died. You don’t even know what’s happening sometimes, and we don’t have that experience…. When you don’t care it’s kind of hard to find people who care for you,” said Krtizer.
Kritzer says he’s sure the respite will have a positive impact
“How could it not? I mean seriously, how could it not,” Kritzer stated.
New Beginnings says that those seeking healing can be admitted to the respite program after a hospitalization at Washington Regional Medical Center