Wichita’s $5.5 million proposal calls for homeless shelter, housing, services hub

A campus with a homeless shelter, affordable housing units and a social services hub for people experiencing housing insecurity will be considered by the Wichita City Council on Tuesday.

The campus would be paid for with $5.5 million in federal funding.

“We really looked at this as our opportunity to do a deep dive into the homeless systems here in Wichita,” Housing Director Sally Stang said at a council workshop in late September.

If the council green-lights the proposal, it will go to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development for final approval through the HOME-ARP program.

“The City will seek a developer/general contractor partner, management partner to operate the affordable housing units, and operator partner to operate the non-congregate shelter,” the plan states. City staff would operate the social services hub.

No property has been purchased for the campus, and it is unclear where it would be located.

Wichita contracted with St. Louis-based Development Strategies, which solicited feedback from more than 20 local service providers to develop a needs assessment of the homeless ecosystem.

“There are no low-barrier facilities for women experiencing any element of housing instability or homelessness,” Development Strategies principal Andy Pfister said at the same council workshop.

The Union Rescue Mission only provides overnight shelter for men.

“Because there’s no safe place or very limited safe places, [women] could be in the motels or coupled up where there’s more trauma added to an already traumatic situation,” Pfister said.

Non-congregate shelters like the one the city is proposing to build can have shared kitchens but must have private bathrooms, meaning it can serve men, women and families.

The campus would also include affordable housing units for people who have secured housing vouchers from the city but are unable to find landlords willing to rent to them.

“There’s about 130 vouchers approved for people who are still homeless because they can’t find units to go into,” Pfister said.

All 54 affordable housing studio apartment units at The Studios at HumanKind in Wichita are occupied.

The social services hub would likely provide case management, homelessness prevention services, housing counseling, life skills training and job readiness training.