Harbor House expanding behavioral health space, resources

With two major construction projects underway Harbor House is working to boost the number of people they reach in the Fort Smith area. The agency has treatment centers and transitional housing for men and women in Fort Smith and treatment centers in Hot Springs.

Harbor House, Inc. is a Fort Smith-based nonprofit behavioral health agency focused on treating addiction started in 1967 by a group of Fort Smith businessmen as a place where men in the city could get help for alcoholism, said CEO Carl Norris. Over the years, the focus grew to include treatment for drug and alcohol addiction. Those with alcohol addictions now only make up about 10%-15% of the program’s patients now, Norris said.

“There are men and women in this city who are very successful people, and you don’t know that they went through here 30 years ago, 20 years ago,” he said during a media day event Wednesday (March 6).

The men’s facility in Fort Smith – commonly referred to as The Big Red House – has been living quarters for men seeking addiction treatment since the early 1970s, Norris said. Located at 615 N. 19th St., the building was built as home of the Rosalie Tilles Children’s Home in 1912. The children’s home closed in June 1961.

In January, Harbor House Inc. started work on a $5 million renovation and addition project on the building. The project is expected to be completed in summer 2025.

“There is a great need for male residential treatment in Arkansas. The Big Red House’s current capacity is 32 men with limited kitchen and ‘free’ time areas,” a news release said.

The renovated facility will increase capacity from 32 to 44 men in the 28-day residential treatment program, Norris said. It also will have a new dining hall with a modern commercial kitchen that can serve as meeting space for the residents as well as for the community, Norris said.

The new 3,900-square-foot kitchen and dining facility will be built adjacent to the in-patient men’s treatment facility where parking was once provided. The new addition will be connected to the older facility. Parking will be moved to a volleyball court area behind the facility.

Kelly Wilson with Beshears Construction, architect and contractor for the project, said the addition will be more modern than the older part of the house.

“I’m not looking to extend the (historic) building, but rather to compliment it,” Wilson said.

The house is not on the national or state historic register, which makes remodeling easier. But Wilson said they are working to keep the outside portion of the house much like it is. They are repointing the red bricks on the building, meaning they are adding mortar to make the building more structurally sound. But they are also adding new windows and doors.

Other aspects of the $5 million project include rewiring to meet electrical codes, removing asbestos, adding a modern classroom with audio/visual tools for group sessions and expanding the laundry facilities. A new library and meditation area will be added on the third floor, which has not been used since the building was an orphanage.

“The exciting thing is we spent several months designing and working on changes we thought needed to be made,” Norris said.

Harbor House will use the third floor for the first time since it was an orphanage in the 1950s, he said.

“For years, it’s had nothing but baby bathtubs up there. We’re going to turn that into a library and meditation area. One of the issues is that men go through their counseling and group meetings that they do during the day. In the evening they have down time. And not everybody wants to play ping pong or lift weights or watch TV. In addition to having a dormitory for that many men, we also need to have a place where they can go when they are not receiving counseling or meeting,” Norris said.

The building has been emptied now with the 22 men receiving inpatient treatment being moved to a transitional housing house next door to the facility. The only part of the building being used while renovations are ongoing is the dining room and kitchen.

After men and women complete the 28-day residential program, they go into a transitional living facility that allows them to still be able to participate in meals and counseling at the treatment center.

Over the years, Harbor House has been able to purchase many of the homes on the street surrounding the Big Red House for use as transitional housing, Norris said. But the women completing the 28-day residential program at Gateway Recovery Center, the women’s residential treatment facility on Armor Avenue, have then moved to residential housing Harbor House has rented in other areas of town.

In February, Harbor House began work on a $700,000 new women’s transitional house. The funding for the project came from former Gov. Asa Hutchinson’s office before he left office at the end of 2022.

Once completed women completing the residential program will be able to move to the new transitional house, which will be able to house 12 women and a house monitor, and continue their treatment. Norris said that the agency has property by that site where they can build two more houses as money becomes available.

“The transitional house will allow the women to just cross the street to get to Gateway, which makes it much more convenient for them,” said Pam King, Harbor House marketing director.

Though having two major building projects can be a bit stressful at times, Norris said it will all be worth it.

“The importance is that we have a waiting list. We are never 100% full, but we always have a waiting list. We have about 12 or 13 different pay sources – the state, health insurance, drug court, the Cherokee Nation, etc. We have a lot of different referrals. So we have to balance that with our admission,” Norris said. “When we are able to increase our capacity, we’re going to be able to serve the community on any given day at a greater level.”