HOPKINSVILLE, Ky. — Jeff Littlefield is a 62-year-old man, awaiting heart surgery, living alone in one of the most crime-ridden parts of Christian County. Littlefield has one message for his neighbors, “Any hour of the day or night, my door is always open.”
Littlefield is a part of “The Challenge House,” a hyper-local nonprofit organization with a mission to attack crime and poverty in the inner-city area through a method called “relocation.” Relocation is the process of moving individuals with a willingness and ability to provide resources and productive programs into homes in at-risk neighborhoods.
According to research completed by “Feeding America,” 62% of Christian County’s population is below the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) threshold, meaning that they are below the 130% poverty requirement to receive SNAP. Hopkinsville also had a crime rate higher than approximately 83.6% of the United States, according to a study by City Data.
Littlefield is what is known as an “ambassador” for the Challenge House.
“It’s hard to say what an Ambassador is because we’re a lot of things,” Littlefield said. “I think that the important thing is, that they know I’m here, and that if they need something, they can come and ask me, if there’s any way I can do it, I’ll give it to them.”
Challenge House purchases homes in the center of local neighborhoods with high crime and poverty rates. An ambassador moves into the home purchased by Challenge House and is responsible for tending to the needs of their neighborhood. They currently have six properties.
Littlefield said although the common perception in Hopkinsville is that he lives in a dangerous neighborhood, he doesn’t see it that way.
“I’m out in the neighborhood. At least once a day, I try to walk through the neighborhood,” Littlefield said. “Guys that I know ask me, ‘What do you mean, walking over there?’ I tell them I walk in this neighborhood. 24/7, and I’m not concerned. I’m not worried, because they know that my motives are pure and that I don’t want anything.”
Llittlefield moved into his Challenge House a day before the Covid-19 virus was deemed a pandemic and quarantine began. For Littlefield, this meant coming in at full swing, and he has. He has been required to go above and beyond the typical demands of an ambassador right out of the gate.
“Next thing, you know, I moved in on the 16th and they closed down everything on the 17th due to Coronavirus. So, it’s been a unique, a very unique situation,” Littlefield said. “Within the first little while the YMCA called and asked if we needed any meals and Indian Hills Elementary schools set up a food program here and then we just went on from there. There’s 134 kids that go to school in the neighborhood so we were trying to get them fed. I mean most people here work or at least one family member works. They were laid off just like everybody else. So, it didn’t take long to integrate into the neighborhood.”
According to a study by U.S. Facts about 48% of Americans said they felt “down, depressed, or hopeless” since the Covid-19 pandemic began last March. The study also found feelings of anxiety and depression have a strong positive correlation with income. Respondents with lower household incomes reported to have more anxious and depressed feelings. The study shows approximately 65% of respondents in households earning less than $25,000 said they felt depressed, or hopeless, while only 37% of those in households earning more than $150,000 reported the same feelings.
Littlefield said one of his greatest and favorite responsibilities during this pandemic is just to be a person there to talk to any hour of the day or night.
“People need stuff and they’ll knock on my door late at night.” Littlefield said. “See, when somebody knocks on my door at three o’clock in the morning, I wake up and answer the door. I don’t holler, go away, and come back, or ignore. That is not easy, because you don’t know what’s on the other side. I’ve never had a bad thing happen to me at two or three or four in the morning. But, I’ve had some things happen to me that literally blew me away. They left, and I just cried like a baby. You know, because how do you pick something like that?”
Littlefield said although the work his role as a Challenge House ambassador has been demanding during the pandemic, he has never felt more content.
“There’s days when I just cry with joy. I mean, I’ve told people this many times that ‘I’ve never been more content in my life’,” Littlefield said. “The minute that you care more about what you’re doing for the people around you, then you do yourself, then you’re living. That’s life.”
Aida Vega was the first ambassador to the first Challenge House in Hopkinsville. Through her efforts that Challenge House became an accepted organization as it entered into a skeptical neighborhood. Vega said one day, shortly after moving into her Challenge House on Durrett Ave. in Hopkinsville’s inner-city, she was asked by a neighborhood if she had a “white savior complex.”
“I’m just gonna be quite blunt and honest,” Vega said. “I was told by somebody ‘Is this just a bunch of white people coming in to be white saviors to our community and when it gets hard they run?’ I kind of assured them that that was not the case that the challenge house was going to be there through the long haul.”
After this accusation, Vega wanted to take a more genuine and holistic approach to the Challenge House’s process. She said her degree in social work taught her to enter into other’s lives humbly because “they are the expert of their own lives.” Vega said this mentality led her to develop the Challenge House’s current operational methods.
“That’s when the idea came, to cultivate a more holistic approach of actually interviewing people within the neighborhood. So we canvassed and we surveyed, and based on that we created programs specifically for what they wanted,” Vega said. “So yes, there was skepticism, but I would say that attitude very quickly turned. Once they saw the initiative, they saw the programs, they saw the real heart behind it wasn’t to be saviors to anyone, but really to, you know, be of service having a servant’s heart towards the community and providing the resources that they needed that they couldn’t get to.”
Many Hopkinsville residents know the 2007 origin of the Challenge House. Wally Bryan, former mayor, set a mission to bring hope and opportunity to his city’s poorest communities when he chose to move into the housing projects in the 1990s.
William Wallace Bryan, better known as Wally, founded the Challenge House. He is best described as being selfless and non-judgmental by those who knew him best. Two characteristics essential to the success of a Challenge House ambassador, says Will Bryan, Wally’s son. Bryan said he believes the values upheld by his father’s nonprofit reflect his dad’s view of people and their worth.
“After he was finishing up being mayor, actually, during the time that he was mayor, he actually for a short bit actually moved into a housing project area. I think that was the big turning point for him. He started to understand the struggles of people in that community,” Bryan said. “My dad was definitely unique, I think probably a little eccentric. Anytime he could have homeless people living in his house. He just really truly befriended anybody. He was as comfortable talking to the governor of Kentucky as he would be talking to a homeless person laying in a sleeping bag and he would treat them both with the same level of level of respect.”
The Challenge House is currently searching for an ambassador for one of the locations. Those who would like to get involved with the Challenge House can contact Will Bryan at (270) 305-2775