Wichita Council to vote on new homeless winter shelter

The emergency homeless shelter would be at a city-owned property at 2220 E. 21st Street. Most recently, the Phillips Fundamental Learning Center was located there. The building has also been used as a training center for aviation manufacturing.

The old emergency winter shelter

HumanKind Ministries has operated the area’s only emergency winter shelter for men and women for 17 years, averaging 105 people a night. After COVID-19, it saw an increase to a record of 180 people on one night last winter.

City, county and state leaders met on the issue and began the search for a new place for the emergency winter shelter.

The plan for the new location

On Thursday, the city announced the temporary location to get through this winter season. If the Wichita City Council approves the funding next Tuesday, the plan is for:

“Today’s announcement represents the most promising public and private endeavor our community has ever undertaken to address homelessness,” LaTasha St. Arnault, HumanKind president and CEO, said. “While there remains numerous details to be worked out in the short term, today is just the beginning of what we jointly hope to be a long-term solution to make homelessness rare, brief and non-reoccurring in our community.”

She said HumanKind would devote 100% of its winter shelter resources to operating the new shelter and would not open its winter shelter.

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The cost

The city says the new shelter would cost $885,000. HumanKind would provide $200,000 to cover supplies, equipment, beds and setup. The Wichita City Council will vote Tuesday on the other $685,000.

St. Arnault said the $685,000 would cover staffing, including 35 to 40 full- and part-time staff, security, utilities, and other associated costs.

Mayor Brandon Whipple said that if the city council approves the funds, the shelter workers would not be city employees. HumanKind would hire and train the staff.

Wichita Assistant City Manager Troy Anderson said the city has the funds but plans to reach out to the county and state to see if they can also help with the cost.

“If there are other dollars from our partners and from other volunteer organizations that can help draw down those expenses, then that will reduce the city’s obligation,” he said.

Opening date unclear

HumanKind had planned to open its temporary shelter on Nov. 15. With the new location, the City of Wichita says the opening date may have to wait until December.

The assistant city manager said the contract for services will be on Tuesday’s city council agenda.

“What that will allow our service provider, as well as the city, is to begin to ramp up efforts to facilitate things like transportation, buying beds, buying mattresses, buying blankets,” Anderson said. “Our guess is that’s going to, probably going to take about three weeks to ramp up to acquire all the equipment and things necessary to outfit the facility. So, realistically, we’re probably talking about the end of November, first of December.”

Anderson said if there are opportunities to be open by Nov. 15, the city would work toward that date. But certain requirements need to be met.

“We don’t want to compromise safety, security, the impact on the neighborhood, neighboring businesses, residents,” he said. “We want to make sure that everything is in place before we open up the doors, so we want to make sure that we’re super diligent in that coordination.”

Who would stay at the new site?

If the Wichita City Council approves the funding for the temporary shelter, St. Arnault said it will house men and women, not families.

“What we’ve worked out is a plan. Basically, we’re diverting single men and single women to the singular location,” she said. “That is going to free up our 60-bed facility, and we’ll be devoting a large portion of that to families experiencing homelessness.”

“Because it’ll be a no-barrier facility, meaning that we will not turn anyone away for any reasons,” she said. “So when we serve minors, there are screening requirements on that, so we’ll put them in a different facility.”

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The reason for 24/7

The people who stay at the proposed new shelter will not have to leave in the morning.

“It’s difficult to ask them to leave in the morning when it’s very cold outside and expect them to go find a job or with everything they own, carrying around,” Wichita City Council Member Maggie Ballard said.

She said the 24/7 portion of the plan is something that was started last year, and she is excited that it would continue at the new location.

St. Arnault said the hours would be helpful for providing services for the unhoused.

“Currently, HumanKind Ministries, we actually have over 40 active nonprofit partner agencies, and also local government, of course, that actually come into our facilities and offer services,” she said. “Our goal is to have several nonprofit organizations that are administering services that our clients can benefit from, to be inside the facility with dedicated office space. The City of Wichita, the Housing Department, they’ll be onsite as well.”

She said HumanKind is dedicated to wraparound services that help clients stabilize and become independent.

“We have several behavioral health services partners that will come in and offer a variety of auxiliary, you know, offerings to our clients,” St. Arnault said. “It really makes a world of difference when we can all work together in tandem to get people stable and back to a really productive, healthy life.”

She said HumanKind is counting on other nonprofits and hundreds of volunteers, including medical personnel, to help.

“It’s critical because not one singular agency can do this work alone,” St. Arnault said. “It really is a true government, public, nonprofit partnership, and that’s really when magic happens with clients.”