New Wichita shelter for unhoused will offer more services under one roof
When it opens around the summer of 2027, Wichita’s newest supportive housing facility will offer something long missing from the city’s homelessness response: a single place where people can sleep safely, get medical care, meet with counselors, wash their clothes and even bathe their pets — all under one roof.
“Park Landing is the next iteration of the city’s work to not only give people a hand up, but also provide the resources they need to have a community,” Wichita Mayor Lily Wu said.
Wu, other city officials, and United Way and Second Light representatives broke ground on Park Landing, the third phase of the Second Light campus, near 10th and Main on Wednesday afternoon. Once completed, Park Landing will offer “wrap-around services” — comprehensive and collaboratively-sourced resources and amenities — in a year-round shelter facility.
The shelter-plus-services model is just one part of the city’s and nonprofit Second Light’s active effort to achieve functional zero homelessness, which means homelessness in Wichita is rare, brief and non-reoccurring as much as possible. It’s become a particular point of focus for the city as unhoused rates across the country continue to rise.
In January, United Way of the Plains and the Coalition to End Homelessness identified 736 people as unhoused in Wichita and Sedgwick County, an increase from the 691 tallied the year before.
“Homelessness is not just a statistic or a line item on a budget,” Wu said. “It is people, neighbors, veterans, young adults aging out of the foster care system, individuals with disabilities, survivors of domestic violence and families who never imagined they would be one missed paycheck away from losing everything.”
While speakers emphasized the human impact of homelessness, officials also clarified how the project is being financed.
Funding for Park Landing is not dependent upon the recently proposed one-percent sales tax increase. Instead, the $15 million project is funded through the sale of public-housing single-family homes, along with federal Community Development Block Grants and HOME-ARP funds, Director of Housing and Community Services Sally Stang said.
For the first two years of operation, the city will help subsidize operations. That’s in addition to an allocation of a little more than $4 million from the city’s budget.
After it opens, Park Landing will also be supported by the rent from its units.
Once construction is completed in the middle of 2027, the men and women’s facility will include:
- 25 non-congregate shelter units
- 50 supportive housing units
- Office space for staff members and service providers
- Community and lounge spaces
- Laundry facilities
- A dog wash station
- Designated pet relief areas
And, unlike most shelters, Park Landing will accommodate residents and their pets.
Park Landing won’t solve homelessness in Wichita on its own, officials said, but it will transform how the city serves its most vulnerable residents.
“The real measure of this work will be the people whose lives are changed,” Stang said. “The individuals who will sleep safely tonight and who will rebuild their future, the neighbors who we will finally feel supported instead of forgotten.”
This story was originally published December 11, 2025 at 3:03 PM.
