Transitional housing facility near Omaha won't go forward

     An application for an Arkansas Community Corrections transitional housing facility in Boone County has been put to a stop. Arkansas State Representative Ron McNair told the Harrison Daily Times Friday he was informed by ACC officials the license application was pulled because the group opening the facility near Omaha didn't meet regulations, and the newspaper reports the reason was management didn't want to take in sex offenders.
     Lotus Recovery Services, LLC, applied for the transitional housing facility license at 5035 Center Loop between Omaha and Burlington. It would have accepted parolees, counseled them back to living on the outside and secured employment for them. However, residents of the area signed petitions and took to social media in an effort to stop the proposal after viewing the application and seeing it included accepting sex offenders.
     Giving Back Industries CEO Jo McEntire says her agency is partnering with Lotus in the program's development, and she adds the regulation the partnership didn't meet was that it didn't want to accept Level 3 and 4 sex offenders. She says the program would have been for non-violent drug offenders released from prison, but they don't know how to help Level 3 and 4 sex offenders.
     Scott Swanson is another partner in the project. He opened the Oxford House addiction recovery houses in the Harrison area. Swanson sent an e-mail to ACC officials using analogies saying Lotus agreed to take approximately 20 "sticks of dynamite" being released, and the program would disarm them in hopes they would not be refused. ACC informed Lotus as the project drew closer there would be a couple of "armed nuclear warheads" Lotus would have to figure out how to disarm. After Swanson informed the ACC the venture had no programs for sex offenders, they responded Friday by saying the application would be considered inactive, and the licensing process was discontinued.
     McEntire says even though the location near Omaha is no longer possible, the partnership is continuing its efforts to develop transitional housing for drug addicts. A meeting about housing for parolees is scheduled for Wednesday afternoon at three in the John Paul Hammerschmidt Center on the south campus of North Arkansas College in Harrison.