Lawrence Community Shelter board members shared concerns Thursday that the emergency shelter’s funding — which could rely upon voters approving a sales tax increase — could be in jeopardy.
Meanwhile, the City of Lawrence is working on policies to limit homelessness services to people who have ties to Douglas County.
Board member Chuck Magerl said during Thursday’s meeting that the city’s planned property tax increase is “riling a lot of people up.”
“And I wouldn’t be surprised to find the sales tax vote to bear the brunt of taxpayers’ — the taxpayers don’t have the ability to vote on the property tax; they will have the ability to vote on a sales tax increase,” Magerl said.
The City of Lawrence’s budget process is underway. Some of the city’s funding for homelessness initiatives — including costs at LCS and the initial setup of the Pallet shelter village on North Michigan Street — came from ARPA, or federal COVID-19 relief funds. Those funds must be spent by the end of this year.
City Manager Craig Owens’ proposed budget would fill a hole of about $1.52 million in the Homeless Solutions Division by doubling the existing .05% affordable housing sales tax to 0.1% to generate about $1.25 million in additional revenue. The sales tax revenue would be split 50-50 between affordable housing projects and homelessness initiatives.
But Lawrence voters would have to vote in favor of increasing the sales tax. The tax is currently 5 cents on every $100 spent in the city; that would increase to 10 cents per $100 spent.
Lawrence city commissioners have not made any final budget decisions, but they did approve a maximum budget for 2025. The maximum property tax rate they approved would increase taxes citywide, but the rate was set largely with the intent of putting millions of dollars toward two new fire stations — not continuing to fund homelessness solutions.
Commissioners have a little more than a month to decide whether they want to ask voters to approve the sales tax increase. Monday, Sept. 2 is the deadline for a question to be placed on the Nov. 5 general election ballot.
In the past 10 years, Lawrence and Douglas County voters have narrowly rejected a sales tax increase to fund a new police headquarters and a jail expansion, respectively. But county voters approved a quarter-cent behavioral health sales tax, and city voters approved renewing sales taxes toward public transportation and infrastructure improvements. City residents voted 62% in favor of the .05% affordable housing sales tax in 2017. Voter turnout was about 23.5%.
Misty Bosch-Hastings, director of the city’s Homeless Solutions Division, said Thursday that it was too soon to know what would happen with the city budget and funding, and she “would imagine there’s a plan B, C and D.”
She said she, LCS Executive Director James Chiselom, and staff members of the city manager’s office have already been discussing what different levels of service could look like, such as potentially only serving guests breakfast and dinner, skipping lunch.
Magerl asked if there might be a way for LCS to contract with other communities to shelter people there for a price of $80 per day.
Bosch-Hastings said the city would not want to attempt to do that “because then we would just get flooded.”
Instead, she said, the city is working on policies about what to do when people are coming to Lawrence from out of the area.
“That’s basically just giving them three days’ respite, if they need it, and working with their community of origin and getting them back to where they’re going,” Bosch-Hastings said. “We’re not servicing individuals long term that cannot prove that they’re residents, and that’s going to start going into our contracts, because we just don’t have the bandwidth to do that already, so we definitely don’t want to encourage that.”
Chiselom said during a May interview that LCS is already doing that.
He also said LCS had twice found apartments for a guest who said she didn’t want to go. They found a third housing opportunity for her, and “she was all ready to do it until the last minute,” he said. That guest was exited from the shelter.
“Because that’s our job, is to provide emergency beds and then provide options that are viable to you,” Chiselom said.
The city’s Homeless Solutions Division’s budget for 2025, with an approved sales tax increase, would be $4.72 million, down from $5.26 million. Without the sales tax increase, its budget would be $3.52 million, and the city would have to determine whether to cut homelessness services or make cuts elsewhere to compensate. Lawrence city commissioners in December 2023 approved a $2.7 million agreement to fund LCS.
Funding is already tight for the shelter.
Chiselom and Lacee Roe, director of community engagement for the shelter, presented to board members about how they’re boosting their fundraising efforts. They said the funding from the city covers much of the shelter’s operational costs, including paying the staff members living wages, but donations help cover the costs of consumables, such as hygiene products and food.
In their latest fundraising email and letter, sent out Monday, Chiselom wrote that “Currently, we provide three meals daily for 50 people at the Village and 30 people in our Housing Program. However, we are running out of food for those receiving overnight services, and it is heartbreaking to see people go to bed on an empty stomach.”
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Mackenzie Clark (she/her), reporter/founder of The Lawrence Times, can be reached at mclark@lawrencekstimes.com. Read more of her work for the Times here. Check out her staff bio here.
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