Last year, Arkansas saw a 6.1% increase in the homelessness population, according to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. In an interview with Arkansas PBS, Chris Joannides, executive director of Hope Campus in Fort Smith, said inflation is one of the reasons for this increase.
“Our middle-aged populations are entering homelessness for the first time ever. It’s usually the folks that have disability income, getting for example $725 a month. They’ve been accustomed to living on that dollar amount for several years now,” he said. “As inflation has seen an uptick, prices have seen an uptick, it’s kind of forced them into homelessness.”
According to the Arkansas Encyclopedia, around 7,400 to 8,000 people in Arkansas are homeless on any given night.
Ben Goodwin, executive director of Our House in Little Rock, said Our House keeps a record of the last place of permanent residence of people they admit to the shelter. He said the shelter has documented intakes from 59 out of the state’s 75 counties.
Arkansas has the tenth lowest homelessness rate in the nation, according to Axios.
