Lawrence Community Shelter has some new rules for the homeless men and women using its services:

¢ No more loitering in front of the building – it’s OK to be on the porch but not on the front lawn and not for hours at a time.

¢ Dogs are not to be left tethered to nearby trees, parking meters or railings.

¢ No more sitting or lying down in the alley.

¢ No more “extended parking” of seldom-used or broken-down vehicles.

Enacted last week, the rules stem from the latest effort to improve relations between the shelter at 944 Ky. and the surrounding neighborhood.

“We’re doing what we can,” said shelter director Loring Henderson.

Henderson and other advocates for the homeless will be at the Lawrence City Commission meeting Tuesday to unveil plans for additional improvements.

Tyler Jones, 19, Wichita, who is temporarily homeless, smokes a cigarette in the back porch area of the Lawrence Community Shelter Friday afternoon. Officials at the homeless shelter are encouraging visitors to congregate in the back of the shelter in an effort to address neighborhood concerns about loitering in front of the shelter.

The plans are in response to the commission in March agreeing to extend the shelter’s use permit for one year – rather than the requested five years – on the condition that advocates come up with a way to improve relations.

“It’s important to remember that permits have conditions and special uses that are to be met,” said Mayor Mike Amyx.

“We want the neighborhood’s concerns addressed,” he said. “We want to see the right thing happen.”

Input from neighbors

Aside from the new rules, much of the plan calls for regular meetings with police, neighborhood forums and encouraging neighbors to call, write or e-mail Henderson with their concerns.

“What we’re mostly asking from the neighbors is communication – that they call us when they see something,” Henderson said.

Many times, he said, neighborhood complaints reach the city commission or police before they’re brought to the shelter’s attention.

“It doesn’t help to save these things up,” Henderson said.

Plans call for much of the outreach effort being guided by the 15-member Community Cooperation Committee, a group recently assembled by the city’s 11-member Community Commission on Homelessness.

The committee’s chairwoman, Sara Taliaferro, warned that while discussions are expected to focus on the shelter, the challenges are considerably broader and more complex than what goes on in front of the building.

Community plan needed

“At some point, we’re going to have to look at coming up with a community plan rather than just a neighborhood plan,” Taliaferro said.

It’s unreasonable, she said, to expect the shelter to respond to incidents – panhandling downtown, for example – that may happen several blocks away and may or may not involve someone who’s homeless.

“It’s convenient to blame the shelter,” she said, “when, really, the issues go beyond what the shelter can take on.”

But Phil Hemphill, who lives across the street from the shelter, is tired of talking.

“That’s all this is, more talking,” he said of the plans for improving relations. “I’m very disappointed.”

Hemphill has argued not enough has been done to penalize the homeless for anti-social behavior – trespassing, public drunkenness and aggressive panhandling.

“We’re at the point where we really need to do something to address what’s going on,” he said. “That’s not what this (plan) does.”

Taliaferro did not dispute Hemphill’s criticism.

“What he says is legitimate,” she said. “We can’t let one person’s quality of life go down in hopes that someone else’s will go up.”