Our House is rebranding after 36 years of operation.
The Little Rock nonprofit has updated its logo and will now use the tagline "home to new beginnings". Its mission to serve Little Rock’s unhoused and near-homeless populations remains the same.
The rebrand comes in the middle of Our House’s $16 million expansion, which will increase the population the shelter can serve.
Executive Director Ben Goodwin says an increase in capacity is highly needed.
“In the past three weeks alone, 78 families with children have tried to check into the shelter, and only a fraction of them have been able to get in,” Goodwin said in the announcement Tuesday. “We’ve been able to serve them in other ways and we’re proud of that, but clearly we need more capacity to be able to meet the need in our community.”
According to Goodwin, the rebrand hopes to honor the work Our House has done in the community since it was founded nearly four decades ago.
“It's more than just a home today, it’s an inflection point. It's the start of a new chapter. It’s a partnership we form with people as they go about the really hard work of changing their lives.”
Millie Ward is co-founder of Stone Ward, an advertising agency that helped with the rebrand. She explained the new logo incorporates an upward-pointing arrow to emphasize the nonprofit’s commitment to help people move forward.
“We’ve kept the house and the heart, but we’ve opened up the heart to symbolize the amazing access that Our House provides to homeless and near-homeless people,” Ward said.
Goodwin said it has become easy to forget what the term “homelessness” actually means for a family. He describes the situation as a tragedy.
“[Homelessness] is an incredibly stressful and traumatic experience,” Goodwin said. “And that is something that every family who experiences it is highly motivated to fix and get out of that situation”
According to Goodwin, the organization hopes to complete the expansion by early 2024. The nonprofit will host a grand opening for the new facilities in March.
