Lawrence Community Shelter, 3655 E. 25th St.

The financially struggling Lawrence Community Shelter has failed to follow a number of rules set out in a management plan approved by the city before the shelter moved to its south Lawrence location in 2013, residents said Wednesday during a closed meeting of shelter administrators and neighbors.

Lawrence City Commissioner Lisa Larsen said if the shelter followed the plan it might solve a number of the concerns that neighbors raised during the meeting.

“The citizens have strong concerns about the actions that have been occurring by what is perceived to be the guests of the community center,” Larsen said. The shelter guests “are trespassing on property, sleeping in the area; drugs are found in the streets and in the parks; one neighbor reported finding somebody in their backyard. I took their concerns very seriously.

“Between the parties we need to come to some agreement on how to address the issues,” she said.

Trey Meyer, the homeless shelter’s executive director, said he thought the meeting was constructive.

“I thought the Good Neighbor meeting was a great step in the process of coming together as a neighborhood and a community to have a dialogue and about our mission, successes and challenges,” Meyer said.

The Lawrence Journal-World was not permitted to attend the meeting.

Since the shelter moved three years ago from downtown to 3655 E. 25th St., next to the Douglas County Jail, it has reportedly had problems with its residents wandering into nearby neighborhoods. No stores are located near the shelter and the only mode of transportation for many is to walk, ride a bike or catch the bus. The bus stop is about a quarter of a mile from the shelter and a bus comes by every hour during the day.

A convenience store more than two miles away is a shorter walk by cutting through the Prairie Park subdivision.

Neighbors have said this foot traffic through their properties has led to some of the problems.

But even as shelter administrators attempt to repair relations with the neighbors, it also is struggling financially.

Last July, the Lawrence City Commission agreed to help the shelter with emergency aid in the amount of $50,000 after the shelter board told them the nonprofit agency was almost insolvent.

Douglas County provided another $50,000.

The City Commission asked that, in return, the shelter allow the city to audit the shelter’s finances and that it also provide the city with a strategic plan by Dec. 31 to help the shelter follow a path to remain financially viable.

In December, City Auditor Michael Eglinski told the commission he had found that the shelter had owed $37,000 in back payroll taxes to the Internal Revenue Service last spring and had paid the debt in September.

A board member, John Magnuson, said private funds and not the money that the city provided the shelter was used to pay the IRS, and he also explained the taxes were a mistake because someone “forgot to check a box when running payroll, and it got behind a little bit.”

As for the strategic plan that was due on Dec. 31, shelter administrators still have not given one to the city, the Journal-World learned recently.

Meyer, the executive director, said he was hoping to finish it Friday but had been extremely busy with other responsibilities, including hosting the neighborhood meeting on Wednesday, and had not been able to finish.

“I aspired to get that done earlier this week, but we had a number of important meetings that occurred this week, and I just didn’t have enough hours in the days,” Meyer said.

Larsen said city staff is looking into the delayed plan.

“We have staff working on that,” she said “We will definitely make sure we follow up. We need to get that done … definitely.”

Meyer said he initially — and it turns out incorrectly — thought the budget would suffice for a strategic plan.

That shelter budget has also been cut, the Journal-World recently learned.

In the shelter’s annual report submitted this month, Meyer wrote that the shelter cut almost $300,000 from its budget.

“This required us to eliminate or drastically scale back several positions,” Meyer wrote. “We have managed to accomplish this, but it has decreased our ability to engage in the more highly leveraged activities that lead to a person getting housed, such as one-on-one time with case managers.”

One of the complaints at the Wednesday meeting was that the shelter doesn’t have enough staff in the evening hours, Larsen said. The management plan considers adequate staffing during evening hours to be three people. But the shelter currently only has two, Larsen said.

“If this is what we promised the neighborhood, we need to make that plan work,” Larsen said. “It is our obligation.”

Rules require that at least two employees are on site at night at all times, she said. The third employee can take a resident who needs to be removed from the shelter to a designated place rather than leaving the person outside the front door to walk somewhere. City buses do not pick up from the shelter at night.

The plan also requires that the shelter host an annual meeting that is open to the public. Meyer said while that had not happened since the shelter opened, he planned to hold two public meetings this year.

Other management plan requirements:

• Ensure that no-trespassing signs on neighbors property are posted.

• Respond in person when neighbors report a shelter resident is “engaging in negative behaviors.”

• Provide semi-annual summary reports of complaints to the neighbors.

• Disseminate quarterly reports of shelter program activities and outcomes and responses to neighborhood complaints.

Meyer said that along with these issues, the entire Lawrence community should be concerned about the plight of the homeless and how to help them. He said he does not condone the use of alcohol or drugs, theft, littering and other problems described by neighbors at the Wednesday meeting.

Still Lawrence residents need to accept the challenge and do what they can for the homeless, he said.

“In a perfect world, there would be no homelessness, mental illness, alcoholism, drug addiction, unemployment, or lack of housing opportunities,” he said. “The reality, however, is that we live in a world full of challenges, limited resources and fallible people.”