photo by: Rochelle Valverde/Journal-World

A city-run campsite for people experiencing homelessness is pictured on Sept. 30, 2022.

UPDATED 3:40 P.M. OCT. 18, 2022

Many of downtown’s most prominent business owners are formally asking the city and county to consider taking over operations of Lawrence’s nonprofit homeless shelter to address what they call a “shelter and housing emergency” in the community.

“We are seeing the numbers in the transient population really increase, and as a community, we haven’t mobilized enough,” Chuck Magerl, an owner of Free State Brewing Company and Wheatfields Bakery and an organizer of the letter, said. “It has created a sense of uncertainty about where the leadership is on this issue.”

The letter has nearly 80 signatures, most of them from downtown business owners or managers. The letter states businesses are concerned about the safety of guests and employees on a daily basis in downtown. It asks the city and county to take multiple actions, including rescinding an ordinance that allows people to camp on various public rights of way in the community.

But one of its more far-reaching requests involves the Lawrence Community Shelter, the nonprofit homeless shelter that operates on the eastern edge of Lawrence.

photo by: Mike Yoder

The Lawrence Community Shelter, 3655 E. 25th St., is pictured in this file photo from 2015.

As the Journal-World has reported, the shelter consistently has been operating at far less than the 125-person capacity that it operated at under previous administrations. City code still allows the building to shelter that number of individuals — more during cold weather events — but the shelter has been capping occupancy levels near 50 people, the letter contends. In February, we reported the shelter was working on a plan to increase its capacity by 45 to 60 beds over a three-year period, and the shelter was seeking federal pandemic funds to assist in that effort. Attempts to reach multiple representatives from the shelter for further details weren’t immediately successful.

The letter asks the city to work with the Lawrence Community Shelter to get its occupancy levels up to the 125-person level, and said it would be appropriate for the city and county to make further investments to facilitate that increase.

The shelter is operating below its previous capacity at a time when the city has begun spending public dollars to build homeless encampments around town, with the largest near the Kansas River in North Lawrence. The letter acknowledges campsites may be needed to accommodate the growing number of homeless in the community, but it said the current approach is badly flawed.

“Putting resources towards temporary tent encampments that must house many individuals with severe needs while our community shelter is operating at less than 50% of capacity is unacceptable,” the letter states.

The letter goes on to say if the leadership at the nonprofit Lawrence Community Shelter is “unable or unwilling to raise occupancy, the city, county or other safety net organizations should enter into negotiations to take over operations at the shelter.”

Asked whether that means the city and/or county would start running day-to-day operations at the shelter, one organizer said there would be details to work out but the group felt it was important to raise the possibility.

“It is accurate to say that excuses are no longer tolerated,” Brady Flannery, an executive at Weavers Department Store, said. “We have been spinning our wheels and that puts our community at great risks if we don’t seek different alternatives.”

Lawrence City Commissioner Lisa Larsen told me that she believes the letter raises some valid concerns, but that some of the solutions are far from straightforward. For example, she said the city doesn’t have any legal authority to simply take over the operations of the Lawrence Community Shelter.

“It would be no different than saying we are going to come in and take over someone’s business,” she said.

The limitations to that approach seem clear, but the letter raised the possibility of negotiating an agreement to change operations at the shelter. The city is a major funder of the Lawrence Community Shelter. I asked Larsen whether she felt it would be appropriate to use that city funding as leverage to convince the Community Shelter to increase its occupancy.

“To me that sounds like a threat,” Larsen said. “I’m not sure that is the most prudent stance to take, but that doesn’t mean we can’t set some criteria.”

Larsen said city staff members currently are in the process of negotiating an agreement with the shelter regarding the city’s funding and its uses. Larsen said she fully expects the issue of the shelter’s occupancy number to be part of those negotiations.

Douglas County also is a significant funder of the Lawrence Community Shelter. County Commissioner Karen Willey echoed Larsen’s comments that the county was not in a position to unilaterally make changes at the shelter. She said tying the county’s funding to the shelter’s capacity was an option for the future, but she believes more information is warranted about what the shelter thinks it needs to increase capacity. She has asked county staff to provide a public update on homeless matters as part of an upcoming County Commission meeting, she said.

The question I most frequently get from community members who are following the homeless situation is why the city is first devoting resources — like staffing — to establishing campsites instead of offering to devote resources — like staffing — to first ensure that all of the beds at the shelter building are filled. After that, or simultaneously, the city then could devote resources to the campgrounds to serve the population that is in excess of the shelter’s capacity.

It is not clear whether the current shelter leadership, for example, would agree to increase the occupancy level at the shelter if the city or county provided additional staffing for the facility. At various times shelter leaders previously have said staffing shortages are a hurdle to increasing occupancy at the shelter, as are the wages that they can afford to pay staff. Leaders there also, during the height of the pandemic, expressed a desire to keep occupancies lower to prevent the spread of COVID.

Some letter writers said they would like to hear more discussion about why the city or county hasn’t first pursued the path of devoting resources to the already-constructed shelter building rather than building campsites from scratch.

“I have not heard any reference from the city or the county why that hasn’t been prioritized,” Magerl said. “I think that is a very important question.”

It is not clear to me whether the city or county offered to provide staffing for the shelter. I did ask Larsen how she responds to residents who believe it is illogical for the city to spend resources on the campsites without first trying to devote resources to getting the shelter building at full occupancy.

“That is definitely an honest point of view, and I appreciate that,” Larsen said. “With the complex nature of the homeless situation, though, I don’t think you can address it on just one front.”

photo by: City of Lawrence

A portable trailer that provides restrooms and showers is pictured when at place at Woody Park, 201 Maine St. in this 2021 file photo.

Another question I’ve been getting is why the city hasn’t been able to come up with a plan to use three portable trailers the city owns that provide bathrooms, showers and laundry facilities. The city spent about $190,000 in federal pandemic funds to buy the trailers, and did use them early in the pandemic when it created a campsite near Lawrence Memorial Hospital.

But none of the trailers is being used at the new campsite that is behind Johnny’s Tavern in North Lawrence near the Kansas River, Journal-World reporter Rochelle Valverde reported earlier this month. City officials told her that the campsite location had no electricity and limited water access, which prevented the trailers’ use.

I asked Larsen why the city hasn’t been able to come up with a plan to use those trailers in some fashion as the community routinely has more than 100 people camping outdoors at various locations.

“That is a good question, and I don’t have a straightforward answer for you on why we aren’t using them,” she said.

Larsen did say that the city is looking for other campsite locations that might have better infrastructure to accommodate the trailers.

Finding better-suited campsite locations is one of the specific items the letter asks the city and county to undertake. Other issues raised in the letter include:

• A proclamation from the city and county declaring a “sheltering and housing emergency” in the community.

• Expanding access to a homeless database kept by the city to all agencies involved in the community’s homeless services system.

• Sending “cease and desist” letters to communities believed to be transporting their homeless populations to Lawrence.

I asked both Flannery and Larsen what evidence there was of specific communities engaging in that practice. At the moment, it seems to be based on interviews the city is conducting with homeless individuals who clearly are from other communities. Larsen said she wasn’t certain that the city had evidence that there were organized efforts in other communities to send homeless populations to Lawrence.

“But somehow people have decided to come here,” Larsen said. “They have heard it from someone that this is a place they would like to come. The goal is to get people back to where they came from.”

Larsen did say that city staff members received calls from leaders in other communities earlier this month after the Journal-World published an article about the opening of the city-operated campsite for the homeless. Leaders from other communities called to ask whether they could send individuals to the camp. City officials, Larsen said, told them that was not possible, but that Lawrence officials could provide advice and guidance on how their communities could create their own campsites.

The letter writers have put their letter to the city and the county on change.org, which gives other people a chance to sign their name in support of the letter. People can find the petition/letter at www.change.org/p/crisis-in-and-around-downtown-lawrence-business-district.