photo by: Shawn Valverde

The Lawrence Community Shelter, 3655 E. 25th St., is pictured on Thursday, Nov. 9, 2023.

The Lawrence Community Shelter Board of Directors on Monday approved a $680,050 addendum to its funding agreement with the City of Lawrence, along with a $141,000 contract for engineering services for a set of shelter improvements and the installation of Pallet cabins outside the main shelter building.

The board had called a special meeting for Monday in order to expedite the process of getting both of those items in front of the Lawrence City Commission and the Lawrence-Douglas County Planning Commission as shelter improvements look to get underway.

With the board’s approval, and the subsequent approval of the City Commission at an upcoming meeting, work will begin to bring online a set of 64-square-foot Pallet cabins — referred to at Monday’s meeting as “Pallet 32” — for use by overnight shelter guests behind the main shelter building at 3655 E. 25th St.

photo by: Austin Hornbostel/Journal-World

James Chiselom, the executive director at the Lawrence Community Shelter, stands at the edge of a parking lot behind the shelter on May 7, 2024, where a group of around 30 Pallet cabins could eventually be installed for additional emergency sheltering space.

LCS also manages the existing community of 50 Pallet cabins at The Village, 256 N. Michigan St. The cabins that would be installed as part of the Pallet 32 project are from the stock left over after cabins were installed at The Village. The City of Lawrence in 2023 purchased 75 cabins, and more were donated to the city from a Kansas City nonprofit.

The shelter’s engineering contract will be with Professional Engineering Consultants, the same contractor that installed the Pallet cabins at The Village. As the Journal-World has reported, the improvements at the main shelter building will include adding increased restroom capacity and additional interior storage space.

The additional city funds would also cover cost-of-living raises for shelter employees, a result of a new collective bargaining agreement for a group of unionized shelter workers that, in part, raises all employees’ pay to at least $20 an hour.

Before approving the funding agreement addendum and engineering agreement, board members voiced some concern about approving any contracts without ensuring they’ll have city funding first. Misty Bosch-Hastings, the city’s director of homeless solutions, told board members that the funding agreement addendum will appear on a City Commission agenda as soon as possible, likely in July.

“I don’t love the sequence, but I also feel pretty confident that this is what the city wants us to do,” board vice-president Shannon Oury said. “And if what we need to do to get it moving is to agree to do this and then go ask the city, I doubt that they won’t give us the money, because I think that they’re sitting on Pallets that they’ve purchased and can’t use unless we agree to participate.”

LCS Executive Director James Chiselom told board members that from here, the timeline for the project will be to complete engineering work in time to appear on a City Commission agenda in August; the agreement with Professional Engineering Consultants states that the process of completing construction documents should take approximately three months.