photo by: City of Lawrence

Lawrence City Commission members, city staff and Lawrence Community Shelter board president Isabel Johnson discuss the city's funding agreement with the shelter as part of the commission's meeting Feb. 15, 2022.

Lawrence city leaders have delayed approving the annual city funding for the Lawrence Community Shelter, asking first for a more detailed funding agreement.

As part of its meeting Tuesday, the Lawrence City Commission voted unanimously to approve the 2022 funding allocations for its new Homeless and Housing Initiatives division, with the exception of a $290,000 funding agreement for the shelter. The shelter has been operating significantly below its capacity since 2019, and commissioners agreed that they wanted to delay approval so the agreement could be amended to specify that city funding should go to support emergency sheltering.

Commissioner Brad Finkeldei pulled the funding agreements off the commission’s consent agenda. Finkeldei said he was a little concerned that the shelter’s agreement lacked a detailed action plan, unlike the other agreements. He also said he’d like the agreement to specify that city funding should go toward providing emergency shelter, as opposed to the more general wording of the agreement.

“I just look at it compared to the other agreements, and I just want to be sure we’re getting what we are paying for there,” Finkeldei said.

The proposed agreement states only that city funding will go toward “shelter operations and essential services,” but it does not specify emergency shelter services. Finkeldei noted that the shelter provides multiple programs. The agreement requires the shelter to deliver a report to the commission outlining what was accomplished with the city funds by Feb. 15, 2023.

The shelter is permitted to serve 125 people most of the time and 140 people during the winter, and it originally reduced its capacity to 65 people in August 2019 amid budget issues and changes to its staffing model. It further reduced the number of people housed at its building in eastern Lawrence to a maximum of 40 during the COVID-19 pandemic so that it could space out guests in its dormitories and have room to quarantine guests as necessary. Another reason shelter leaders previously gave for maintaining the low capacity was the shelter’s recent focus on rapidly rehousing those experiencing homelessness.

Meanwhile, the city and volunteers have taken on the responsibility of emergency winter shelter services for the past few winters, which has included spending city funding for those services. Amid frigid temperatures earlier this month, approximately 50 people sought shelter at the temporary emergency shelter program the city has been running at the Community Building.

Vice Mayor Lisa Larsen also said she’d like to see the shelter provide more details about how it is spending city funding and agreed with Finkeldei that city dollars should be focused on emergency sheltering only.

In response to the commission’s comments, shelter board president Isabel Johnson indicated that she was open to making additions to the funding agreement.

“If there is anything that you would like to add in terms of how we report out and accountability measures, we welcome those and we welcome your feedback,” Johnson said.

The funding agreement with the shelter will come back to the commission for consideration next month. The other funding allocations and agreements were approved as part of the meeting Tuesday and are as follows, according to a city staff memo.

• Bert Nash Community Mental Health Center: $522,574 to continue to fund Bert Nash’s Homeless Outreach Team and to allocate additional program funding to add personnel and resources to the team.

• City of Lawrence Winter Emergency Shelter: $70,000 to provide operational support for Jan. 1 through March 14 of 2022, with additional funding set aside within that amount for the potential operations in December 2022.

• Neighborhood Association Support: $20,000 total, consisting of $5,000 per neighborhood, to provide communication and operations support for Brook Creek, East Lawrence, Pinkney and Schwegler neighborhoods.

• Safe Bar Training: $17,152 to provide bystander intervention and sexual violence prevention training to all on-site managers of businesses holding a city cereal malt beverage or alcoholic liquor license.

The total amount of funds for the Homeless and Housing Initiatives division included $391,000 in special alcohol funding and $748,000 in general funds for a total of about $1.14 million, according to the memo. Another $219,274 remains unallocated, and city staff will bring additional proposals to the commission for consideration once an ongoing Homeless Needs Assessment is completed in late spring.

In other business, the commission:

•Received an update on one of the five goal areas of its strategic plan, prosperity and economic security.

•Deferred adopting an update to the city’s right-of-way management program so city staff could make revisions to the update based on commission input. The update will come back for consideration at an upcoming meeting.

•Voted unanimously to execute a supplemental agreement to the city’s existing $2.48 million agreement with TREKK Design Group LLC for engineering services for a storm water system assessment and model creation program.

•Voted unanimously to approve revisions to the prioritization method for the city’s Capital Improvement Plan that scores one-time projects and purchases. The changes were made to align the method with the commission’s strategic plan.