Editorial: Assisting shelter

The city and county did the right thing by giving the Lawrence Community Shelter $100,000.

Lawrence city and Douglas County commissioners made the right call this week in deciding to bail out the Lawrence Community Shelter with $100,000 in emergency assistance.

The shelter serves the city’s homeless population. For taxpayers, the $100,000 is a smart investment. Without the shelter and its staff, it likely would cost taxpayers far more to serve the needs of the homeless.

A number of factors have conspired to work against operation of the shelter. Most importantly, demand for services is on the rise. In January, a survey of the county’s homeless population counted 296 people, an increase of more than 25 percent since the previous survey was conducted in 2013. Leadership of the shelter also has been a problem. When current director Brian Blevins leaves July 20 for a new job in Kansas City, the shelter will be searching for its third director in the year since longtime director Loring Henderson retired.

It was Henderson who lead the fundraising to build the $3.2 million, 15,000-square-foot shelter near the Douglas County Jail. The new facility is nearly twice the size of the previous shelter.

But since that capital campaign, the shelter has struggled to raise funds consistently, John Tacha, vice president of the shelter’s board, told city and county officials last week. And while funds are down, operating expenses at the shelter have increased by about $300,000 since the shelter moved from a 75-bed facility downtown to the new shelter, which has a capacity of 125 beds.

Given the funding shortages, shelter leaders appeared before city and county commissioners seeking $200,000 to get through the end of the year without reducing staff.

Douglas County commissioners agreed to provide $50,000 in emergency funding on the condition that the city provide matching funds. On Tuesday, Lawrence city commissioners did just that, providing up to $50,000 in emergency aid for the homeless shelter, provided the shelter’s board can raise an equal amount from private donors. Commissioners also agreed to pay a little more than $1,100 for the shelter’s board to send out mail solicitations to raise that private money.

The emergency funding from the city and the county will ensure that the shelter’s doors stay open this year, and it was appropriate to require the shelter’s leadership to identify matching funds.

In the homeless survey released in June, one of the concerns was the rise in homeless families and in fact, some 80 children were counted in the survey. Given such numbers, it’s important that government officials do all they can to keep the Lawrence Community Shelter staffed and operating.