Meet members of Fayetteville’s housing crisis task force

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. (KNWA/KFTA) — Fayetteville is the second largest growing city in Arkansas, gaining 11 people per day. Housing has not been able to keep up with population growth resulting in the city council declaring a housing crisis in April.

A task force was created in June with Mayor Lioneld Jordan having the last say on who is part of the task force.

Below are interviews and bios of some of the people chosen by Jordan for the housing crisis task force.

Josh Carson

Josh Carson is the executive vice president of Rauch Coleman Homes, according to his LinkedIn page. Carson is an Arkansas native and throughout the years has stayed close to home.

“I have been a resident of Arkansas most of my life. Fort Smith was a home that was also a lot of the home of our company,” said Carson. “Went to Tulsa ten years back to Fort Smith with a firm and have been up here for six years now.”

Carson says Rauch Coleman Homes is one of the largest home builders in the country. The company’s mission is to build entry-level, affordable attainable workforce housing.

“So, when we see that one of our cities that not only we build in, but is our home base for our seven states, large stretch, we obviously have a real vested interest in being involved in solutions for something we just happen to do every day,” said Carson.

Carson believes having a range of different people with different backgrounds on the task force is going to help solve problems in the housing spectrum.

“I think with any kind of problem-solving group, just like a governmental group, especially with the task force of we’re trying to tackle something and find solutions for people across the spectrum, then you need people across the spectrum to help find those solutions. If we were tackling maybe one demographic that was having a housing crisis, that’d be one thing. But this stretches across a lot of levels from homelessness renters, entry-level home buyers and beyond.”

However, one issue that has been brought up to the Fayetteville City Council is all the people on the task force are homeowners. According to Councilman D’Andre Jones, 60% of the Fayetteville population are renters. Recently the city council voted down a resolution that would add a renter to the task force.

“I completely understand that part of the mandate and one of the demographics is the rental community here. Having or not having someone suffering from the problems, so to speak, I don’t think means at all that we don’t all relate to the problem and can’t be a part of the solution piece.”

Carson also stated there are members of the task force

“There’s some pretty good experience with renter programs on the task force now, including ones like us that are in the rental business trying to get people in,” said Carson.

Carson says he understands there are concerns the task force will only come up with ideas and not implement solutions for the housing crisis. He says this is not the goal of the task force.

“We want to make sure that we’re not wasting anyone’s time with this. It is called a crisis for a reason, and we want to make sure that we’re providing practical solutions. If that means we have to narrow our scope to a few areas or categories of solutions, I think that’s going to be worth it.”

Tommie Flowers Davis

Tommie Flowers Davis is listed as the owner and residential contractor developer for Another Door Opens Construction and Development on her LinkedIn .

Davis opened Doors Opens Construction and Development four years ago. Before that, she worked as a therapist, counselor, social worker and community development activist for over 40 years. Now Davis is serving on Fayetteville’s Housing Crisis Taskforce.

“I was strongly encouraged by a number of people who know that my interest is really I have an interest in making sure that people are afforded the opportunity for housing, make sure that wherever they’re living, that is safe, that is clean,” said Davis. “And I have worked as an advocate for renters not formerly the voice, but somehow I ended up being the voice for the voiceless folks who are renting.”

In response to the city council rejecting a renter to the task force, Davis says she believes someone who is a renter currently should have a place at the table.

“I advocated for us having two additional people on that on our task force. And what I know from being a community activist is that problem-solving starts from the bottom up,” said Davis. “If we’re not including those folks that were solving problems for, then the plan is not going to work. They’re not going to have the buy-in. We have to have the lived experience to complete it.”

Despite the resolution being voted down, Davis believes renters will be working closely with the task force.

“We’re going to have some subcommittees, and we’ll have to because it is so complex. And we’re going to have to have different components,” said Davis.

Davis says she has worked with advocating for renters in Northwest Arkansas for years. She says a close friend is having her rent increased by $200.

“A couple of hundred doesn’t sound much, but when she’s gone through some professional types of changes, and she’s waiting to get her credential, which will allow her income to increase, she’s afraid to death that she’s going to have to move out of this place,” said Davis.

Davis says she hears nearly every day about the problems renters face.

“When you’re looking at all these things balled up and you get tenants who are at their breaking point, you get tenants who may not have any support to live anywhere else. They will not advocate because they’re afraid they’re going to be evicted.”

Davis says a large population of Fayetteville is renters which is why she will continue to advocate for their voices to be heard and for taskforce members to listen.

Bo Diamond

Bo Diamond is the co-founder and managing partner of Caisson Capital Partners .

He is listed as an active Urban Land Institute member and an adjunct professor at the University of Arkansas Walton School of Business. He also is a Harvard University graduate . One review from RateMyProfessor said he “made it clear he’s from New York money.”

“Our firm is dedicated to attainable housing. It’s what we live and breathe, not just in Fayetteville, but regionally,” said Diamond.

Diamond grew up in Savannah, Georgia, and the majority of his career was spent in New York. He traveled the world while being trained as an architect.

“One of the things that I’ve been studying here at the Harvard Graduate School of Design is affordable housing and strategies that have been employed not only across the United States, but globally as well,” said Diamond. And I’ve engaged with some experts that have been involved in policy and policy initiatives all over the world from, you know, from Mumbai to Sydney.”

Throughout his career, he has been able to get training in architecture, urban design, and finance.

“I have a good sense of not only what communities need, how cities function and how mixed-income, residential areas sort of contribute to the fabric of a city, but also what financial incentives and how things actually get funded, how projects come to fruition, from both an investment and a lending side,” said Diamond.

Diamond says Fayetteville is doing the right thing by creating a task force.

“We’re getting ahead of the problem. I think before it’s getting out of control if you look across the country, the situation and this problem is certainly more acute, which is a good thing,” said Diamond.

He says everyone on the task force is excited to begin working together and start finding solutions to the housing crisis.

“We are in this space in some way, shape or form, not just because it’s our profession or it’s because it’s our business, but because it’s something that we really believe in,” said Diamond.

Jessica Lewallyn

Jessica Lewallyn is the founder and Architect of Gemstone Design Studio .

“So, I grew up in Central Arkansas, but came to go to the University of Arkansas School of Architecture, and that was quite a long time ago,” said Lewallyn. So I’ve now been in Fayetteville much longer than I was in Central Arkansas, although I visit pretty frequently because of family and friends.”

Lewallyn has been an architect in Fayetteville for more than 20 years. Over those years she has seen the regional growth and affordability issues become more apparent. Lewallyn realized if she didn’t buy a house 20 years ago, owning a house would be unreachable for her.

“I also have friends that are, you know, single ladies in their thirties and forties who are schoolteachers and would love to have a home, a house, or even an apartment on their own,” said Lewallyn. “But with affordability the way it is on a teacher’s salary, they have to be roommates.”

Though Lewallyn has a passion for helping solve Fayetteville’s housing crisis, she was taken aback when she was chosen to be on the task force.

“Honestly, I’ve never really interacted in the public realm in this way. As an architect, I’ve attended planning commission meetings for a specific project, but never really participated in the government process quite in the same way,” said Lewallyn.

Despite this surprise, she says she is ready to work with the other task members to find solutions to the housing crisis.

“I’m excited about working with them and trust that we can provide some forward movement,” said Lewallyn. “I mean, it’s a super complex issue and in one year, a group of people can’t solve the whole thing, but I think I trust that we can make some forward movement.”

Lewallyn says her background as an architect will be valuable for the task force since architects have to have an attention to detail to solve complex problems.

“As an architect, you have to understand at least a little bit about every piece of the puzzle when it comes to building a building, and that makes architects a good fit to understand complex issues, to understand how pieces and parts work together and sequence of things.”

She says this is a complex problem that will require time to fix.

“We want to learn as much as we can about the factors at play, what some of the hurdles and challenges are, whether it’s for renters, home buyers, builders, investors, things like that,” said Lewallyn.

Keaton Smith

Keaton Smith is a commercial relationship manager. In this role, Smith works with small business owners, nonprofits, and commercial real estate developers. According to Smith, through his work, he has become aware of the housing challenges in Fayetteville.

“If we think back ten years ago, we really kind of bragged about how affordable of a place we were,” said Smith. “And that has changed, and changed really quickly over the last ten, maybe 15 years.”

Back in 2011, Smith joined the board of a nonprofit housing developer called Partners for Better Housing to try to get ahead of some of the housing challenges he was seeing. One of those challenges is the growth Northwest Arkansas is seeing.

“We want to continue to grow, we want to continue to add quality of life amenities that we all enjoy,” said Smith. “But growth brings challenges, and so being intentional and being proactive about how we preserve the affordable housing.”

He says the answer is to get better at proactively addressing the growth-related challenges the city is facing.

“We need to build capacity in the nonprofit sector through nonprofit housing developers and property managers,” said Smith. We need to develop capacity in the public sector, in the philanthropic sector, in the private sector, and that takes time.”

Smith says while everyone in the task force has been a renter at some point, he isn’t sure any of them have rented in Northwest Arkansas over the past five years. He says housing problems have only increased in recent years.

“So I think through the design of our process, how we go to the community and ask for feedback, how we incorporate community voices in our plans not just in our meetings,” said Smith.

Smith says the task force will work on making sure all voices are heard.

“I think the main, primary task in front of the task force as we sit here today is to figure out how to organize our conversation in a way that is inclusive and transparent and brings all good ideas to the table,” said Smith.

KNWA/FOX24 reached out to the other members, Henry Ho, Eleanor Parizek, Nick Thorn, and Robert Sharp for interviews but did not hear back.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KNWA FOX24.