Post updated at 10:29 a.m. Wednesday, Aug. 19:
Lawrence’s Human Relations Commission met Monday, for the first time since December, and agreed to take steps to understand whether local unhoused people face discrimination in social services due to their housing status.
The group has previously discussed developing an Unhoused Bill of Rights or designating unhoused people as a protected class in previous meetings.
Commission Chair Irving Kuo said that he had caught Misty Bosch-Hastings after another meeting earlier Monday to see if she thought unhoused people in Lawrence face discrimination. Bosch-Hastings is the city’s director of homeless solutions.
Kuo was surprised by her answer.
“She didn’t have a sense that they were being discriminated against at this point,” Kuo said.
Bosch-Hastings said via email Wednesday that there was more nuance to the conversation, which was focused on how folks exiting homelessness secure housing.
She said that landlords have a competitive rental market and will typically make the business-minded decision to accept an application from someone with a “stronger rental history, employment, and higher or more stable income.”
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“I do believe that creates a discriminatory barrier for people exiting homelessness,” Bosch-Hastings said. “At the same time, I told Irving that I understand some of the issue from the landlord’s business perspective. We have very few landlords in Lawrence willing to work with us.”
She said some landlords have rented to people whose supportive services ended when they secured housing, and many had financial losses surrounding COVID.
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“Those experiences have contributed to reluctance among some landlords to take the perceived financial risk,” she said.
Kuo also noted during the meeting that Bosch-Hastings told him “the number of people who are out on the street unhoused has gone from over 200 down to about 20 within the past year.”
Bosch-Hastings posted a similar statistic to a public Facebook group in early February, writing that there were fewer than 20 unhoused people sleeping outside around that time.
In late March, the Lawrence Times submitted a Kansas Open Records Act request to understand where the number had come from.
Sherri Riedemann, the city clerk, wrote that there was no single document or report showing there were fewer than 20 people sleeping outside in the city.
“The statement was based on ongoing, real-time operational knowledge developed through daily Homeless Response Team (HRT) coordination, including routine team meetings where staff review individuals known to be unsheltered, their locations, and their engagement status,” Riedemann wrote. “This information is informed by consistent, in-field outreach and end-of-day debriefing processes used to track active engagement.
There are 438 “actively homeless” people in the county, not just the city, according to Douglas County Homelessness Dashboard. Fifty-two people in the county are unsheltered, per that page, but these numbers only reflect children and adults enrolled in outreach services in the previous 90 days.
“Data may not capture all individuals experiencing homelessness, particularly those never in contact with any service providers,” the dashboard reads.
After hearing Kuo’s reflections on his conversation with Bosch-Hastings, commission member Kevin Elliott said there were two sides to the story. He said he has worked with unhoused people and heard firsthand accounts of discrimination in the services they received.
“Being unhoused is a problem that is greater amongst Indigenous populations, Latinx populations and people with disabilities,” Elliott. “There are problems with cultural barriers that have been identified. Misty may not be directly aware of them, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist.”
Farris Muhammad, director of equity and inclusion for the city, asked if unhoused people were being primarily discriminated against for protected statuses such as having a disability. Elliott said he believed they were facing discrimination based on protected classes and also based on being unhoused.
Elliott also referenced the city’s residency policy, which limits homelessness services to unhoused people who can prove Douglas County residency.
“We deny services based on people who have traveled to the community, and I want to know if that is infringing on their inherent right to travel,” he said.
On July 1, the Kansas Housing Resources Corporation denied the city’s application for federal Emergency Solutions Grant funding. The application was specifically to support the Douglas County Housing Stabilization Collaborative, the Lawrence Community Shelter and the Willow Domestic Violence Shelter.
Historically, the grants have funded emergency shelter operations, rapid rehousing, homelessness prevention and street outreach, according to a report in Tuesday’s city commission agenda.
Doug Wallace, a program manager with KHRC, wrote that the organization denied Lawrence’s funding request in part because of the city’s residency requirements.
“While some limited services may be offered to those who were not prior residents of Lawrence, the review committee felt the residency requirement would exclude eligible individuals and families from accessing ESG funded services,” Wallace wrote.
Elliott and the rest of the commission agreed to conduct research on what discrimination issues unhoused people may face, and potential solutions. Elliott plans to reach out to members of Lawrence’s Affordable Housing Advisory Board for input. Group members also discussed potentially hearing testimony from people who are unhoused, and from advocates.
In other news
• The group discussed an April meeting some commissioners and city staff had with eight or nine members of the Landlords of Lawrence.
“They wanted to have a better sense of … what might discrimination look like for them as landlords,” Muhammad said.
Kuo said Zach Fridell, senior assistant city attorney, struggled to understand what the landlords meant by “discrimination,” but directed them to avenues such as law enforcement if they felt actively threatened.
Muhammad said they discussed the differences between discrimination and perceived “bad treatment” by tenants.
• The commission discussed a letter from Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach demanding that three cities, including Lawrence, rescind bans they have against conversion therapy. Commissioners said that conversion therapy was scientifically proven to be ineffective, and all four volunteer members went on the record saying they wanted the city to protect queer and trans people by upholding the ban.
Muhammad said the city attorney’s office is taking the issue under legal review and that other departments are doing community engagement “to better engage the community who might be disproportionately impacted by this right here.”
He added that they’re considering protections “to make sure that we’re centering people’s humanity and dignity, and Lawrence is trying to be as striving to be as welcoming as possible while being in proper compliance with the law.”
• The Human Relations Commission is accepting applications for new members. Muhammad wasn’t sure what the timeline is for recruitment, but member Aaron Norris said it took more than a year to get a response to her application, whereas it took three months for Joseph Mastrosimone to join.
People can submit applications at this link. Board members are volunteers appointed by the Lawrence City Commission.
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Wulfe Wulfemeyer (they/them), reporter and news editor, has worked with The Lawrence Times since May 2025. They can be reached at [email protected].
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Jacob Rice (he/him), photo editor, has worked with The Lawrence Times since March 2026. He can be reached at [email protected].
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