The Pallet cabins planned to be built behind the Lawrence Community Shelter will operate very differently this winter from the Pallet village on North Michigan Street.
Plans call for two people to be assigned randomly to each unit for overnight shelter on a night-by-night basis for the 24 new Pallet shelters to be built on a paved area behind the shelter’s main building at 3655 E. 25th St.
Pallet shelters get their name from the Washington-based company that produces them — they are not made of pallets. They are tiny, cabin-like emergency shelters. Each unit has an HVAC unit, so they should stay warm to be used through the winter.
LCS also operates the Village, aka Pallet shelter village — the community of 50 Pallet shelters that have been in use since mid-March at 256 N. Michigan St.
The Village is intended to serve guests for longer-term stays — a goal of three to six months or so — as they transition out of homelessness. It provides each guest their own lockable space where they can store some belongings. As of last week, nine people had moved from the village into permanent housing or a long-term care facility.
The City of Lawrence and LCS have been planning to build 24 additional Pallets, which the city already paid for, behind the shelter’s main building.
Plans filed with the city call for 24 Pallet shelters, one office unit and two double bathroom units to be built south of LCS’ main building. The shelter still must get a special use permit approved.
Lacee Roe, director of community engagement for LCS, said she expects the permit to be on the Lawrence-Douglas County Planning Commission’s agenda for its meeting in late October, but “we are still on track to have the cabins ready in time for winter shelter,” she said.
James Chiselom, executive director of LCS, said the Pallets will be used for the shelter’s night-by-night program, meaning it will serve guests who check in during evening hours to stay the night and leave by 7 a.m.
Asked if he knows yet how it will be determined who will stay together in a Pallet cabin, Chiselom responded that “NBN (Night-by-night) bed assignments are made randomly.”
Chiselom and Roe did not respond to a follow-up email asking if LCS had any concerns about the plan to have guests bunking with someone assigned at random in the 8-by-8 cabins.
Misty Bosch-Hastings, director of the city’s homeless solutions division, also did not respond to an email Friday seeking her perspective on the plans.
Jenn Wolsey, former homeless programs coordinator for the City of Lawrence, has stayed in touch with many local people experiencing homelessness and has continued to monitor the city’s work on the issues.
She voiced concerns about the plans to potentially bunk two strangers together in each Pallet.
The main LCS building is primarily congregate shelter, meaning large numbers of people sleep in the same expansive space. But there are monitors throughout the night to ensure that people stay safe. They’re separated into men’s and women’s dorms.
Wolsey said the same plan — assigning two strangers to a single space — led to a lot of problems, including sexual assault, a few years ago when the city was using hotel rooms to provide emergency winter shelter. The added complications of the COVID-19 pandemic made congregate sheltering concerning for the potential for the virus to spread quickly, so hotel rooms were used as a temporary solution.
“You’re putting two individuals that don’t know each other in a small space and expecting them to not only get along but then restfully sleep,” she said.
Each 64-square-foot Pallet cabin can be “optimized for one or two people,” according to an archived page of the company’s website.
”Just because you have them doesn’t mean you have to use them that way,” Wolsey said. “If a partner couple comes in, sure. But not just sticking two unconnected individuals together in that small space.”
“That would have been like me sticking two unconnected people at a time in a tent,” she said, referencing the North Lawrence campsite the city opened in fall of 2022 and operated through March of this year.
Meanwhile, the city has been planning to close the camp where people are living behind the Amtrak station in East Lawrence by Oct. 15. Bosch-Hastings said last month that there were about 25 people living there; Karlin, a resident of the camp, told city commissioners earlier this month that there were about 50.
The city announced in August that the plan is with the goal to “help each person living at the camp exit unsheltered homelessness” by that date, and that “Investments in the multi-disciplinary Homeless Response Team, which allowed team members to begin forming relationships and understanding the needs of these individuals, and expanded shelter capacity make this effort possible.”
“The city is moving toward a plan to eliminate camping to try to push folks into shelter, but at what cost?” Wolsey said. “Our unhoused neighbors are being forced to choose between unsafe shelter or criminalization. When did Lawrence start accepting such undignified treatment of their citizens? Is this what we want to be known for?”
Monarch Village to reopen
Monarch Village, a group of 12 tiny-home-like units behind the shelter, predates Pallet. The units first opened to guests in 2021.
The units were constructed from shipping containers, and their airtightness led to moisture and mold issues. They had to be temporarily closed in April because they weren’t safe for guests.
“People staying here did not wreck them,” Roe said in a previous interview.
Two of the units will no longer be in use because of water damage from burst pipes, Roe said Thursday. But LCS has completed mold remediation and is in the process of rehabbing the other 10 units, she said.
The shelter anticipates that those 10 Monarch Village units will reopen this winter.
Monarch Village was previously used for guests in the shelter’s 90-day housing program, Roe said. Chiselom said they will be used for guests with higher needs and respite care beds.
Extreme weather sheltering capacity
Altogether, Chiselom said, LCS expects to have the capacity for 173 people onsite this winter. That includes up to 24 people in Monarch Village units, up to 101 people inside the main shelter building and up to 48 people in the 24 Pallet shelters.
That is an expansion above last year’s max of 140 people.
The most recent point-in-time count for Douglas County, conducted in January, found 414 total people experiencing homelessness. That total included 142 people (34.2%) who were unsheltered, 272 (65.7%) who were sheltered. Of those 272, 136 (32.8% of the 414 total) were staying in emergency shelter, and 137 (33% of the total) in transitional housing.
The PIT count is imperfect and difficult to compare year-to-year because data collection methods vary, but it is a snapshot of people experiencing homelessness in a community on one day.
During a meeting last week to discuss extreme weather emergency sheltering plans, Bosch-Hastings said the city hopes to secure enough beds to be prepared to shelter up to the 414 total people included in the PIT count. If LCS maxes out capacity at 173 people, that would leave 241 beds to secure.
The city does not plan to open facilities it has previously used for winter sheltering, such as the downtown Community Building or the Amtrak station in East Lawrence. Instead, it’s asking churches and community organizations to offer their spaces, and the city will provide a staff member to work at each location. Read more about that plan in this article.
As of last week, four churches so far had agreed to help with the need.
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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.
More coverage of housing and homelessness:
Molly Adams / Lawrence Times
Molly Adams / Lawrence Times
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Nathan Kramer / Lawrence Times
