Earlier this year, the county and the city set an ambitious goal to end chronic homelessness in Lawrence in three years through the use of a Built for Zero model. While we recognize this is a large, multifaceted issue, we are hopeful that the efforts of the city, county and our community partners will help us achieve this noteworthy goal.

Ending homelessness in our community will require a paradigm shift. Our community must address the underlying systemic issues that perpetuate homelessness while addressing the emergency needs of our neighbors. Our community has a long history of successful individual programs to address community needs, but ending homelessness will require us to take a systems- and community-level approach.

The city and county are working collaboratively with community partners to ensure that we have the physical and human infrastructure to address the complex circumstances that perpetuate homelessness. This includes a robust behavioral health service system, integrated access to service delivery, rapid low barrier access to housing, permanent supportive housing for the community’s most vulnerable, a crisis response system to help people quickly exit homelessness, goal setting and accountability measures at the community level, and economic development that includes all community members so that homelessness is rare and brief, if it occurs.

What does this look like in the day-to-day work of the city and county? Since early June 2021, Douglas County and the City of Lawrence have convened biweekly meetings of area housing and homelessness stakeholders to support the city and county’s efforts to develop a short- and long-term strategy and planning framework to address homelessness in our community. This group includes seasoned leaders and professionals from agencies providing emergency sheltering, transitional and permanent supportive housing, and therapeutic services (behavioral and physical health) for homeless individuals and families. The Lawrence Community Shelter, Bert Nash, Tenants to Homeowners, Family Promise, Catholic Charities, DCCCA, the Lawrence Douglas County Housing Authority, the Willow Domestic Violence Center, Douglas County Sheriff’s Reentry Program, Artists Helping the Homeless, and Habitat for Humanity are all a part of these regular meetings. We also have robust community engagement through the participation of Justice Matters. A representative from the Continuum of Care (CoC) and the City of Lawrence’s Housing Initiatives Team participate to provide a system-spanning subject matter expertise related to federal programs and funding.

This level of collaboration takes significant work and buy-in from community advocates; professionals from nonprofits, health care, government, and public safety, and from elected leaders. This level of collaboration also ensures that we’re working toward a common goal and taking advantage of all available local, state and federal resources to solve homelessness. These collaborations are key as we prepare to invest federal American Rescue Plan Act funds received by the city and county.

As we move forward with future ARPA investments, both the city and county commissions will consider recommendations from this broad stakeholder group. To inform local strategies, this stakeholder group will also consider research and data. Douglas County is working in close collaboration with the City of Lawrence to support a comprehensive homelessness needs assessment with the University of Kansas Center for Public Partnerships and Research. CPPR’s work will assist our community leaders in exploring a vision for the future and programs, services and resources needed most to prevent and end homelessness. The assessment gathers insights from key stakeholders, including individuals experiencing homelessness or who have a history of homelessness, to inform steps by the City of Lawrence and Douglas County to impact the future state of homelessness in our community. This work began in September and has a goal of completing with a set of final recommendations by May 2022. However, CPPR will provide initial findings and recommendations to the city and county in early January to provide some initial guidance for capital investments with ARPA funding. Ultimately, the city and county will be using the findings of this needs assessment to provide a short- and long-term playbook for investments and programming with one-time and ongoing resources.

Ending homelessness in Lawrence and Douglas County requires collaboration across governments and across sectors. We are incredibly grateful for the community partners working with the city and county governments to end chronic homelessness in our community in three years. We will continue to convene stakeholders across our community and advocate for the resources necessary to support the most vulnerable in our community.

— Brad Finkeldei is mayor of Lawrence; Shannon Portillo is the chair of the Douglas County Commission.