The two-day summit is designed to unite residents, landlords, developers, realtors, city leaders, and other stakeholders to brainstorm community-driven solutions.
FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — A Northwest Arkansas nonprofit that works to break the cycle of poverty is joining forces with the city of Fayetteville to tackle the ongoing housing crisis.
Circles NWA will host a two-day event called “CoCreate” Sept. 5 and Sept. 6 at Mount Sequoyah. The summit is designed to unite residents, landlords, developers, realtors, city leaders, and other stakeholders to brainstorm community-driven solutions.
“This is a model that we’ve developed to get at community-driven solutions,” Circles NWA Executive Director Christina Williams said. “We’re inviting community members that live in Fayetteville or Northwest Arkansas to come together with city leadership. And when I say community members, I’m talking about renters and landlords, realtors, developers, anyone, homeowners — we want everyone to come together.”
Williams said housing has long been a concern for her organization.
“We worked really closely with city council and the city to try to get a housing crisis declared last year, and that came out of one of our circle leaders bringing to our attention some of the housing issues that she was having at her apartment complex,” she said.
During the summit, participants’ ideas will be categorized into three areas: stabilizing and supporting renters, building more paths to homeownership, and finding creative ways to repurpose existing spaces for housing.
“It’s an experiment,” Williams said. “In some ways, we don’t know what people are going to come up with. We don’t know what’s going to be said and shared. But I have a lot of confidence and excitement in our community and for all the different ideas that are going to pop up.”
Registration is required to attend the event.