For the next month, local organizations can apply for approximately $630,000 in federal Community Development Block Grant and HOME Investment Partnerships Program funding through the City of Lawrence. Late last week, the city announced in a news release that it will be accepting applications for both grant programs, which are facilitated by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, as part of ...
It's a chilly, damp morning, and just over half a dozen advocates are combing the wooded areas in northeastern Lawrence, looking for people who are living outside. Mostly on foot, they've been searching since before sunrise — near the Kansas River and the railroad tracks, behind the Amtrak station, then farther east — as part of the annual point-in-time homeless count. Some patches of snow are on the ...
The federally mandated annual count of individuals experiencing homelessness in Lawrence and Douglas County took place Thursday, with volunteer teams having wrapped up the bulk of their survey work by midafternoon. The point-in-time count is conducted each year by state agencies as mandated by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and it’s intended to give a picture of how many sheltered and ...
In his first few weeks on the job, James Chiselom — the new executive director at the Lawrence Community Shelter — has hit the ground running. It’s been less than a month since Chiselom’s first day in the role, and he has already had to contend with a spell of freezing temperatures that kept the shelter packed with an influx of visitors. He gave the LCS Board of Directors an update on how the shelter ...
The historic Turnhalle building near downtown Lawrence is now in the running for a set of economic incentives that will help fund a project to convert the building into an event space and restaurant. On Wednesday, the city’s Public Incentives Review Committee unanimously approved an incentives package that would aid Turnhalle LLC — owned by Lawrence residents Zarif and Mamie Haque — in revitalizing the ...
A request from Lawrence’s Family Promise organization to convert a longtime day care building into a shelter for homeless families was met with resounding support at Wednesday’s Lawrence-Douglas County Planning Commission meeting. The Planning Commission voted unanimously to approve a special use permit for temporary shelter use at 200 Mount Hope Court, where Family Promise hopes to open the shelter later ...