Barry Feaker, the executive director of the Topeka Rescue Mission, had a simple message for city commissioners who toured his homeless shelter Thursday.

“Don’t exclude God because he’s really interested in this issue,” said Feaker, who has been running the Christian-based homeless shelter for the past 20 years.

Feaker said that the Topeka faith community provides very well for the shelter, which includes 286 beds for homeless men, women and their children. The shelter collects about $1.7 million per year in cash donations, with about 95 percent of that total coming from Topeka churches, businesses and individuals. It also receives about $300,000 in food donations each year. The shelter receives no federal, state or local funding.

“I found all this to be very instructive,” City Commissioner Sue Hack said. “I think we do need to strongly look at his funding model. I think we have the type of community that would support helping other Lawrence people.”

Lawrence has two homeless shelters: Lawrence Community Shelter and Salvation Army. The city provides some funding for both organizations. The Salvation Army has launched a private fundraising campaign for a new East Lawrence shelter that will focus more on serving families. The Community Shelter has been looking for a new site to accommodate a larger shelter and to remove it from its current site at 10th and Kentucky streets, which is on the edge of a residential neighborhood.

Feaker said he thinks the Topeka community has supported the shelter because it appreciates that the shelter is working to give the homeless a hand-up instead of a hand-out. The shelter requires all residents to enroll in a series of programs or classes within three days of arriving at the shelter.

It also runs tests for both drug and alcohol use by its residents. It does prohibit people from staying at the shelter, depending on what the test results show.

The shelter also requires residents to work at the shelter if they don’t have a job out in the private sector. For example, Feaker has begun sending crews of homeless residents out seven days per week to empty trash cans in North Topeka because the city was having difficulty getting sanitation crews to the locations on a timely basis.

“We don’t let the guys just lay around in bed,” Feaker said.

The shelter also provides offices for mental health providers, teachers from the Topeka public schools and other social service agencies.

The Rescue Mission, which has been in operation since 1953, is the only homeless shelter that operates in Topeka.

“I think it is a good model,” said City Commissioner David Schauner. “I really like that they make people commit to several programs in order to stay there. His model seems to be a tough love approach.”