Photo: Andrew Epperson Fayetteville resident Jenny Ridyard manages client records for 7Hills Homeless Center.
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Jenny Ridyard, 50, a client service specialist and data entry worker for 7Hills Homeless Center in Fayetteville, Arkansas, experienced an extreme form of poverty. In fact, she and her husband, Jim, were homeless for seven months before she landed her position with 7Hills.
At that time in her life, Ridyard’s income was zero. Jim Ridyard has Parkinson’s disease, and he lost his job as a forklift operator since he was no longer able to operate the controls. His medical bills increased as the Ridyards’ money decreased.
When they ran out of options, they began living out of a tent.
The 7Hills Homeless Center became an important resource for them, supplying needed medication and meals. The organization was founded in 2001 and aims to serve the growing homeless population in Washington and Benton Counties, which was 2,951 in 2017. The Fayetteville day center serves breakfast, offers clients the ability to take showers, receive and send mail, fill out job applications across the area and get in a position to accrue housing.
When Jim Ridyard’s disease continued to accelerate because of his poor living conditions, his disability application was fast-tracked. The application process can sometimes take over a year, as the government’s social security agency takes time to check and review all applications. During the Ridyards’ waiting period, they ate at churches and continued to frequent 7Hills and the Salvation Army.
Around the same time Jim Ridyard began receiving his disability checks, an intriguing opportunity opened up for Jenny Ridyard. Because of her familiarity with the homeless community and her good standing within the 7Hills community, she was asked to apply for an open job in the client service and data within the center.
With the sudden influx in income and a new penchant for saving, the Ridyards moved into an apartment, and now Jim Ridyard is retired while Jenny Ridyard, Chicago native, continues to work at 7Hills. Still, statistics indicate that Ridyard’s income doesn’t meet the Washington County average.
The median household income for Washington County residents is $43,034, according to data posted on PayScale’s website. Ridyard declined to disclose her salary, yet her job generally fits into the category of “Social and Human Services Assistant” on the Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment Database, which makes $29,320, according to the database’s statistics. Though she doesn’t live in poverty anymore, Ridyard still wonders why people fail to understand the true amount of impoverished individuals in Northwest Arkansas, she said.
Despite the notion that people in Washington County are typically better off than other parts of the state, statistics indicate that workers in Ridyard’s age bracket living in poverty are only a few percentage points fewer than the national average.
After finally moving into an apartment, the Ridyards opened a savings account and began buying their necessities at thrift stores and secondhand shops. Their monthly budget allows them to save money, which they intend to continue doing as they prepare to buy a house within the next year.
The Ridyards live in a one-bedroom apartment, but they understand they’ll likely need to pay more per month for a house. Fayetteville’s average monthly gross residential rent is $749, according to the Census ACS Survey conducted in 2015. The emphasis put on saving has put them in a position to afford that extra rent, Ridyard said.
While Ridyard isn’t living in poverty anymore, she hopes Washington County will put a bigger emphasis on helping those who are, she said.