Lenexa commission deals big blow to Johnson County homeless shelter plan. What happens now?

A plan to convert a Lenexa hotel into Johnson County’s first permanent, year-round homeless shelter will head to a City Council vote next month — without the support of city staff and planning commissioners.

On Monday night, the Lenexa Planning Commission voted 9-0 to deny a request for a special use permit to operate a homeless shelter at the La Quinta Inn and Suites hotel off of Interstate 35 and 95th Street after a public hearing when more than 70 members of the public spoke.

It’s a significant blow, though not necessarily fatal, to the county’s plan to address a growing need in Kansas’ most affluent and populous county. City Council will make the final call.

The decision came after city staff recommended denying the permit, writing in a 540-page dossier that the proposed shelter was “inconsistent with the character of the neighborhood” and would draw “negative external impacts” to nearby homes and businesses.

Staff also said it anticipated needing increased law enforcement to oversee the proposed shelter, which they said the city doesn’t have money for. And they wrote that the shelter was too close to Johnson County’s temporary winter shelter.

“(Homelessness) isn’t just a big city problem,” Lenexa planning commissioner David Woolf said Monday night. “This is in our community today. This is a Johnson County problem. This is a Lenexa problem. But when you look at it through the lens of the golden criteria… I don’t feel like this use is in the characterization of the existing neighborhood.”

Johnson County has committed roughly $10.5 million in federal funds toward purchasing and renovating the hotel, which would be operated as a shelter by reStart, a Kansas City-based homeless services organization.

Obtaining the special use permit from Lenexa is a crucial step, as it is required to both close on the purchase of the hotel and to run the shelter. The process to grant the permit requires the planning commission to hold a public hearing and make a recommendation to the council, which it did Monday, and for the council to vote, which it will do next month.

ReStart is proposing turning the hotel into a 50-bed shelter, with private rooms and bathrooms. Another part of the project would include 25 transitional housing units, to help residents move into permanent homes. The organization intends to provide residents with several resources, including access to health care, job opportunities and more.

Residents would only be allowed to stay at the shelter after being referred through the county system, which includes Johnson County Mental Health and other agencies. The permit application includes details on parking, as well as security, such as a curfew for guests, full-time staffing, security cameras and bag searches.

Monday night, reStart CEO Stephanie Boyer said the proposal had made it through more than nine meetings and three rounds of comments without city staffers raising any of the concerns they did in this latest report or during the hearing.

“[Staffers’] prejudice against Johnson County residents experiencing homelessness was very disappointing,” Boyer said.

The planning commission’s rejection seriously puts into question the future of the shelter at this site, after months of work by the county to move the project forward on a tight timeline.

‘Just not an appropriate location’

Lenexa city manager Beccy Yocham said that the proposed shelter would be located near some of Lenexa’s businesses with the highest tax rates. She suggested that the presence of the temporary shelter nearby could concentrate behaviors associated with substance use and addiction.

“Staff came to the conclusion that this is just not an appropriate location for this proposed use,” Yocham said.

Lenexa community development director Scott McCullough said that the city anticipated hiring three new law enforcement officers if the shelter was approved, at a total cost just under $457,000 annually.

“It is not a crime to be homeless in Lenexa, but every time someone dials 911 in Lenexa, the police respond,” Yocham said.

Former reStart staffer Aleesa Lennon challenged city staff’s opposition, saying that a shelter within walking distance of Orchard Corners Mall would be especially helpful to residents trying to get back on their feet.

“You are taking folks off the street and literally putting them in a place where they can access jobs — at the mall, at Hawaiian Bros, in places that need folks to work in those jobs, and they can rebuild their lives,” she said. “It’s huge.”

But critics at the hearing Monday raised safety concerns about the proposed shelter’s proximity to schools and parks. The highwayside lot sits within a one-mile radius of four schools, two day care centers, one nursing home and six public parks.

“This isn’t about caring for people, because if it was, you wouldn’t put them there,” said resident Tim McCabe, addressing the planning commission. “This thing is a Trojan horse and it’s heading right toward us.”

Weston Mills, who lives in Rosehill, about a mile from the proposed site, with his three children, said he would not feel safe with the shelter being built in his “very public” neighborhood, where children often walk to and from Rosehill Elementary School alone.

“I know there are a lot of folks that would use this proposed facility that are good folks who ended up in bad situations,” Mills said. “But I think we can all acknowledge that there are also bad folks who end up in bad situations.”

‘A once in a generation opportunity’

While spirited, the viewpoints of Monday night’s more than 70 speakers were fairly evenly split, with supporters including both Lenexa residents and representatives from local nonprofits, and opponents mostly residents who lived nearby.

Proponents described the proposed shelter as a workable step toward permanently addressing homelessness in Johnson County, as well as an opportunity to practice empathy.

“Most homeless people are homeless only for a few weeks or months,” Lenexa resident David Eland said. “With help, they regain stable housing. What we can do is avoid these people being in the situation of years of homelessness by providing the assistance they need.”

Most supporters also believed that reStart’s plan was well-formed. Some questioned the research behind staffers’ concerns about law enforcement needs and potential overcrowding in and around the shelter.

“The worry that there won’t be enough rooms seems like a bad reason to have zero rooms,” said Lenexa resident Lori Slettehaugh, to laughter. “This is a once-in- a-generation opportunity to address a serious problem in Johnson County…if we can’t find solutions, what we’re saying is we’re unwilling and unable to address homelessness in Johnson County.”

Melissa Guinto-Jehle, speaking on behalf of the interfaith coalition Good Faith Network, referred to city staffers’ recommendation as an instance of redlining, a historic practice restricting who could access home loans or live in a specific community, often along racial and economic lines.

“Those past practices are echoed here tonight in this room,” Guinto-Jehle said. “Here we are looking at a commercial property across from an interstate and using coded language about the neighborhood and fear about resource scarcity, all to shut people out once again.”

Lenexa resident Josphat Njao, who was previously homeless in the aftermath of his divorce, said that unhoused residents are often fleeing domestic violence or other dangerous circumstances.

“When we think of homeless people, we usually think of people on the street, but I’d like to say that the homeless are us,” Njao said.

Meanwhile, opponents questioned the cost of operating the shelter and wondered whether prioritizing high-need individuals would deprioritize Lenexa residents. According to Boyer, the $1.7 million needed annually to run the shelter would be funded mostly by grants and private donations, as well as revenue generated from services. But to get it off the ground, Johnson County and reStart are asking each city in the county to contribute a combined $500,000 in its first five years.

Other opponents raised concerns about noise violations and general vagrancy. Several asked what would happen if unhoused residents were dropped off outside the shelter without being admitted.

“Supporters of the shelter can talk until they’re blue in the face that chaos isn’t in the offering,” said Lenexa resident Jim Eskridge. “But the people in homeless shelters, whether it be from bad luck or bad choices or both are by definition in a highly chaotic situation, and it just stands to reason that chaos will from time to time seep into the community.”

What’s next for the shelter plan?

The Lenexa City Council will consider the request next and take a final vote, which is expected at its Sept. 17 meeting. The council could either approve the permit, with or without amendments, remand it back to the planning commission with directions on what should be reconsidered, or deny it.

If the council denies the special use permit, the same application cannot be resubmitted for one year, unless that rule is waived, according to the city.

Denial of the application would at least push back the county’s ambitious timeline for closing on the sale and opening the shelter as early as next year. But if the city is unable to adjust its application and try again in time, it could kill plans for opening the shelter at this site.

Part of the timeline hinges on the county’s deadline to spend federal COVID-19 relief funds, the money officials have dedicated to getting the project done.

Lenexa added homeless shelters as an allowable use in its city code a few years ago, which made it possible to operate the temporary winter shelter out of a church, plus laid out regulations for a potential permanent shelter.

City officials made the move after Shawnee Mission Unitarian Universalist Church sued the city and won for its right to house the winter shelter.

Under city code, applicants seeking special use permits for homeless shelters must provide the city with plans for the building’s layout, security, staffing, transportation, rules of conduct for guests and services provided. The applicant must also verify that it complies with all building and fire codes.

Meanwhile, cities across Johnson County are voting on whether they will contribute annual funding to help run the shelter in its first five years, which those leading the project say would position it to obtain larger grants to keep it running beyond that.