Lawrence homeless shelter workers seeking an 85% pay raise, to $30 an hour, among other demands

photo by: Shawn Valverde
The Lawrence Community Shelter, 3655 E. 25th St., is pictured on Thursday, Nov. 9, 2023.
Recently unionized workers at the Lawrence Community Shelter have publicly announced their bargaining demands, including that they be paid $30 an hour, which represents about an 85% pay raise.
Currently, the pay rate for hourly workers is $16.25 for day and evening staff and $17.25 for overnight staff, Bella Kurtz, a union member, told the Journal-World Monday.
The workers say their demands will help improve services at the shelter and support the homeless community, for whom they are also demanding a higher standard of living, according to a news release from the union.
The workers have named their recently formed union Lawrence Community Shelter Workers United. The union is part of Communications Workers of America Local 6400, which also represents various public and private sector employees in the area, including hourly staff in the Lawrence school district.
In addition to being paid $30 an hour, the shelter workers are seeking job security, paid time off and ceremonial time off for Indigenous employees, as well as health care, dental and vision insurance.
“An increase to our wages and improvements to our benefits will mean that we can provide even better care and support to community members experiencing homelessness,” said Jacob Schmill, a direct service advocate at the shelter.
Dean Robinson, another shelter worker, said that staff was currently being paid “significantly less than the city pays the workers at Camp New Beginnings and in other homeless service programs.” Camp New Beginnings is the city-supported campsite near the Kansas River in North Lawrence. The Journal-World reached out to the city Monday afternoon regarding what city workers are paid, but did not receive an immediate response.
“Many of our staff struggle to pay bills and we’re frequently burnt out from the work we already do,” Robinson said. “If we’re supposed to be helping significantly more people we need higher pay.”
For the shelter occupants the staff is also demanding a higher standard of living for each resident that will include “adequate and nutritional food, funding for access to programs for residents outside of the shelter, on-call 24/7 crisis counselors, adequate medical care, and an increase in safety measures.”
Shelter staff also want more employees to be hired to keep up with an increase in shelter capacity, including kitchen staff for food and prep, the release said, but it did not specify how many new employees would be sought.
Hannah Allison-Natale, president of CWA Local 6400, said the union has requested bargaining dates starting in mid-January. Allison-Natale said the shelter union currently included around 35 members.
As the Journal-World reported, the City of Lawrence, Douglas County and the Lawrence Community Shelter have moved to a shared governance model for the shelter, and the shelter will be receiving more funding from the city as part of the deal.
The Lawrence Community Shelter Board of Directors is still working toward finalizing a proposed funding agreement with the City of Lawrence. That amount had not been publicized as of this writing, but was expected to be discussed at Tuesday’s City Commission meeting.
According to the meeting agenda, the proposed agreement will “substantially increase staffing and city funding for LCS to support expanded emergency sheltering capacity and operations of The Village,” the community of 64-square-foot Pallet cabins that was recently constructed at 256 N. Michigan St.
The shift to the new governance model came about two months after LCS Interim Executive Director Melanie Valdez sent an “urgent appeal” to supporters via email asking for support to sustain the shelter’s services. A week later, Valdez told the Journal-World that the shelter’s funds were well short of the roughly $1.6 million per year it needs to keep running and the shelter was “just barely getting by.”
The shelter board is currently in the process of hiring a permanent executive director, as the Journal-World has reported.