photo by: Austin Hornbostel/Journal-World

More than 50 folks gathered in North Lawrence Friday to give their feedback on a draft five-year plan tackling homelessness and housing issues in Douglas County.

More than 50 people gathered Friday in North Lawrence to give feedback on a proposed five-year plan for housing and homelessness issues, and they said it would take supportive services, addiction treatment and more to really address Douglas County’s homelessness problem.

As the Journal-World reported, that plan’s overall objective is to achieve “functional zero” homelessness by 2028 — in other words, making sure the number of folks experiencing homelessness never exceeds the community’s capacity to move them into permanent housing.

The full group at Friday’s meeting included community leaders and elected officials like Lawrence Mayor Lisa Larsen, Douglas County Commissioner Shannon Reid and Eudora’s interim city manager, Kevyn Gero. Most of the discussion about the plan took place among smaller groups, which were guided by City of Lawrence and county staff.

photo by: Austin Hornbostel/Journal-World

Lawrence Mayor Lisa Larsen listens as members of a breakout group discuss the elements they’d like to see reflected in a plan to tackle homelessness in Douglas County.

Many of them settled on the same key points, including that there’s a real need for more permanent affordable housing in Douglas County, and it should be designed with wraparound supportive services in mind. Multiple groups also expressed that addiction seemed to be a major driver of homelessness in the community, and they said they hoped that would be a focus in the final version of the plan.

A few groups also expressed a desire to plan for public education efforts that could help reduce the stigma around homelessness, which can be exacerbated by incidents involving the homeless population or by concerns from neighbors who live near areas of affordable housing development like the future site of the city’s Pallet Shelter village.

The county’s director of behavioral health projects, Bob Tryanski, helped lead discussion for one of the groups, and he said one of his group’s takeaways was that it would be worthwhile for the community as a whole to forge a better link with the student population at the University of Kansas. Tryanski said that’s been a frustration for a number of years.

“It’s a two-way street,” Tryanski said. “There is money and resources up there; there’s leadership and expertise up there. We’ve leveraged some of it, but we are missing what we could do — and what other communities have done — by mobilizing the student population. It’s not all the county and city’s responsibility to engage; we have to be met halfway.”

Some groups wondered about how much of the homeless population in Douglas County came from other communities. Other groups pushed back against the idea that much of the homeless population comes from outside of the county, calling it a misconception.

From here, Assistant Douglas County Administrator Jill Jolicoeur said the plan is to facilitate a few more listening sessions, including another in-person session from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. May 18 at the Lawrence Public Library, 707 Vermont St. In June, Jolicoeur said the group working on the plan would make sure it had been updated with the feedback being gathered now and then would present it to City of Lawrence and county leaders again, hopefully for their approval.

But even after a plan is approved, Jolicoeur said it’s important to think of it as constantly evolving.

“This plan stays a living document,” Jolicoeur said. “We want to make sure that we’re updating it as needed and it’s reflective of what’s happening on the ground, it’s realistic, it’s achievable.”

The full draft plan is posted on Douglas County’s website.