The meeting can be seen in its entirety in the video below the photos at the end of this article.

Judy Watson, CEO of Rainbow of Challenges, told the court that 30 studio apartments and a training center could be made by combining each two of the 72 rooms at the facility. ROC would hire staff to help support the residents there 24 hours a day and seven days a week and would help them acquire skills needed to become independent adults, including GED classes, cooking, financial literacy. Transportation would be provided for bringing the residents to their respective schools. 

Because the grant application is due in about 30 days, Watson said, she needed the court to agree to consider the prospect of leasing the former migrant center property to ROC should it be awarded the grant. 

Career coordinator Dorene Mosier spoke about the need for such facilities. Last year, 200 young people in foster care reached the age of 18 and chose not to continue to receive care from Arkansas Department of Human Services. About 95 percent of these are estimated to eventually either find themselves homeless, in jail or in an otherwise unfavorable situation.  It is estimated in Arkansas that 449 current and former foster home residents are between the ages of 18 and 21. 

Mosier said it is not uncommon for an 18-year-old to have been in 15 foster homes and therefore be wary of staying in the system three more years. “We’re not going to be mom and dad, but we’re going to be that peer to help support them and help get them ready and understand finances and understand what going to college is, finding a trade. We have all the trades here at our local college. We have a lot of industry here in Hope,” she said. 

A question and answer session followed in which Watson explained the residents would be selected based on their likelihood of benefiting from the program and that after the grant funding runs out after about four years the program would be funded through state and federal foster care program funds and Medicaid benefits. 

Asked if the resources of Hope Public Schools would be stretched thin by taking in more developmentally disabled students, Watson said that federal law requires funds to be provided to the schools for each student and said the schools would also work in collaboration with local mental health centers to serve the students. Asked how many jobs would be added, Watson said about 15 or 16. 

Justice of the Peace Jessie Henry made the motion that the court declare its interest in allowing the use of the former migrant center for the sake of ROC’s application for grant funds. The motion passed unanimously by voice vote. 

The benches in the upstairs courtroom where the quorum court meets were populated by more attendees than usual Thursday evening, most in support of Veterans’ Services Coordinator Donna Rosenbaum who spoke to the court to ask that her trip to take a class she said was mandatory.  She also asked that since she works more than the 25 hours per week that she is paid for, that she be boosted to full-time and receive a raise. 

Justice of the Peace and chair of the court’s budget committee Ed Darling said that the number of vets in the audience were testimony to how well she had done the job. He said that the committee would be meeting at the beginning of next month and would certainly take her request seriously. Justice of the Peace Cherry Stewart said there was no question there was need for Rosenbaum’s work in the county and that “she has taken this job and made it a heartfelt job.” 

In other business, the court voted in favor of an ordinance to transfer $16, 225.62 in funds awarded from a grant from the Arkansas Administrative Office of the Courts to various budget categories within the purview of the county’s drug court. For general supplies $800, for other professional services $3,000, for transportation assistance $1,500, for utility assistance $2,000, for rent, land and buildings $2,000, for other and miscellaneous $4,925.62 and for training and education $2,000. 

The court also, at the request of District Prosecutor Ben Hale, passed an ordinance transferring $17,674.00 from the full-time staff budget of Hale’s office to the part-time staff budget.