Sedgwick County will give HumanKind $125,000 to operate emergency winter shelter

The Sedgwick County Commission has approved a one-time $125,000 funding request to HumanKind Ministries for the operation of their emergency homeless shelter after a contentious debate Wednesday.

Chairman Pete Meitzner cast the deciding vote, joining Democrats Lacey Cruse and Sarah Lopez in the majority. Meitzner’s fellow Republicans, Jim Howell and David Dennis, opposed the aid, arguing that it was the city of Wichita’s responsibility to address homelessness in the community.

HumanKind plans to request an additional $125,000 from the city of Wichita in the coming weeks. But commissioners Dennis and Howell questioned why the city isn’t shouldering more of the financial burden.

“City of Wichita has the homeless problem,” Dennis said. “I’ve got about 10 cities in my district alone that don’t have a homeless problem, and I’ll be the first to admit that some of those people are right here in Wichita, so I won’t deny that. But they are here in Wichita. They’re not in Bentley and Colwich and Andale and Viola.”

Cruse, who serves on HumanKind’s board of directors, said she has no financial stake in the nonprofit.

She argued that homelessness isn’t just a city problem and pointed to examples of counties around the country that have invested in homeless services, including Johnson County, Iowa, which runs a shelter house, and Steele County, Minnesota, which offers transitional housing.

HumanKind’s emergency shelter, which operates from November through March, is the only “no-barrier” shelter in the county, meaning no one is denied a bed in the cold of winter.

“Addicts, mentally ill, people with criminal records — there are no people left behind,” said Scott Eilert, vice chair of the HumanKind board of directors.

Eilert said the nonprofit has provided more than $1 million of services over the last 10 years.

The shelter has been funded through private donations since the early 2000s. But Eilert said the money they would have used to repair and upgrade facilities has been diverted in recent years to help provide the homeless services that people have come to rely on.

The HumanKind campus includes more than 150 low-income housing units, a year-round family shelter, and two emergency winter shelters on north Market Street — one for men and one for women.

Eilert said running the emergency shelters costs between $40,000 and $50,000 a month. Governmental assistance with these operating costs will allow HumanKind to spend their normal budget fixing heating and air conditioning units in their housing units and hiring more case managers.

According to HumanKind’s data, roughly 200 people use the emergency shelter every night during the winter. Seventy percent of people who use the facilities have substance abuse issues and approximately the same proportion have mental and behavioral health issues.

Cruse said these vulnerable people who might be turned away from other shelters are less likely to break the cycle of homelessness in their lives if no-barrier shelters like HumanKind don’t have the funds they need to provide services.

Commissioners sparred over whether it was appropriate to provide assistance for a winter overflow shelter without issuing a request for proposal, or RFP.

Meitzner introduced a substitute motion to expedite an RFP for $200,000 of services, but Dennis countered that it would be improper to treat it as an open bid process when the proposal was specifically tailored to match services provided by HumanKind.

“I think that the substitute motion will end up being illegal for the county to send out an RFP that only one organization can respond to,” Dennis said.

“This is a critical service. It’s a critical gap that’s got to be filled,” Eilert said. “It just so happens that there’s one agency right now that’s filling it. If somebody else wants to step up and say, ‘Yes, we will do that,’ again, we’ll pass the torch.”

Meitzner’s substitute motion failed without a second, leaving the chairman to decide whether the commission should give HumanKind the $125,000 they requested.

“Commission, you’ve put me in an incredible spot. HumanKind, you’ve put me in an incredible spot,” Meitzner said. “I am the swing vote on this. I don’t like it at all.

“I want the city to step up and write a check right now for $125,000 because they’re in charge. That mayor, that council is in charge of the homeless. With that, I will vote to approve this.”

The money will come from the county’s general fund.

Eilert said HumanKind is prepared to open their emergency shelter on Nov. 8.

This story was originally published November 4, 2021 at 12:00 AM.