DALLAS — Sept. 4, 2015 — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recognized Our House for the redevelopment of a boiler plant associated with the former Little Rock Veterans Administration Hospital, stated a recent press release. The project participants were recently honored at an awards ceremony in Chicago.
The facility’s new children’s center cares for 150 homeless and nearly-homeless children. This $4.8 million project was one of ten honored by the EPA with the 2014 Phoenix Award, according to the release. In 2013, the EPA funded this project, which has become a model for helping homeless families, to remove asbestos and lead-based paint and restore the building.
"In planning our Children’s Center, it was crucial for us to have the confidence to tell parents, without a shadow of a doubt, that their children would be safe in our care," said Ben Goodwin, assistant director of Our House and project manager for the Children’s Center project, in the release. "And now we can do that, thanks to the tremendous help we received from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality and the Pulaski County Brownfields Program."
The Phoenix Awards, created in 1997, honor individuals and groups working to solve the critical environmental challenge of transforming blighted and contaminated areas into productive new uses, stated the release.
To read the full release, click here.
