COLLEGE STATION, Ark. (KTHV) – People in College Station are growing increasingly upset after learning ‘halfway house’ could be coming to their community.
The “Re-Nu” Life Center plans to be a place for former convicts to live and participate in accountability programs, addiction therapy and job training. The center is in partnership with Arkansas Community Corrections.
"We don't want it. It's not that you're not welcome, there's nothing here for you,” Cynthia Mason-Ingram said.
Born and raised in College Station, Cynthia Mason Ingram knows the small town like the back of her hand.
"I been here 52 years, I raised my children here. My mom lives next door to me,” she said.
The town of a little over 300 people had its downfalls. In the 70s and 80s, Ingram said the area was rampant with crime. But today, she said it is a safe place to live.
“We don’t have a lot of crime now,” she said.
But the proposed halfway house in the center of town is creating major concern. “Re-Nu” Life would occupy the vacant StoneRidge Center that was one a health rehab center.
"We thought that they should have offered it to us as a community…it was a nursing home for years,” Ingram said.
People who live within one-thousand feet of the center received a letter in the mail last week notifying them about the program and asking them if they'd like to contribute by donating money or by volunteering.
"Why do you continue to want to bring stuff into black neighborhoods? To tear us down? We have fought hard,” Ingram said.
Christopher King is also a life-long resident of College Station.
"Don't understand why they always pick a community like ours to come in with these criminals and felons,” King said.
He said the center will only destroy what the community has established.
"It'll bring drugs into our community, it'll bring sex crime people here,” King said.
Ingram said she asking the entire community to come together to peacefully protest the halfway house. She said College Station is a small town anyways, and there is not much to offer in terms of jobs and resources.
"Take it somewhere else. Not here. Not in College Station. Not after we fought so hard to have a positive image so people won't be afraid to come to College Station like they used to be. That's all we want, we want to continue to have a fighting chance,” she said.
A spokesperson for Arkansas Community Corrections said an original meeting was planned with the community on Wednesday to answer questions and relieve any concerns the community had. It was planned for 10 a.m. That meeting has now been postponed until further notice.
King said they hired an attorney to look into the case and why Arkansas Community Corrections decided to hold a meeting in the middle of the day when most people cannot make it.