Will Wichita commit funding to homeless shelter? Here’s what we know

The city of Wichita will offer one-time funding of $5 million to continue operations at Second Light, newly released budget documents show.

The funding, if approved by the Wichita City Council next month, would end uncertainty about whether the homeless shelter would be able to continue to operate after a failed 1% sales tax vote earlier this year.

The sales tax would have set up an endowment to fund the shelter, among other things.

“The proposed $5 million allocation to Second Light would allow Second Light to continue to serve our most vulnerable neighbors,” Second Light Executive Director Dan Clifford said in a statement to the Eagle.

The funding would come from the city’s stabilization reserve, or rainy day, fund.

Second Light had previously asked the city for the $5 million to help continue operations for the next three years, especially as American Rescue Plan Act funds the shelter is using end in the fall, before it converts to the emergency winter shelter.

“We will be able to comment further after the funding is debated and determined,” Clifford said.

Additional details about the funding are limited. City Manager Dennis Marstall has yet to release his full recommended budget.

Instead, a “Budget in Brief” document has been published on the city’s website with some highlights of the manager’s proposal set to be heard by the council on Tuesday.

At a city workshop meeting last month, some council members discussed approving only the $5 million in funding, with the caveat that the shelter would have to increase its number of beds so the city can enforce its anti-camping ordinance.

The ordinance requires that shelter beds be available before law enforcement can ticket someone for camping or disband an encampment.

“I want a contingent on our ability to enforce our anti-camping ordinance. Our role as government is not charity. Our goal is enforcement of laws and law enforcement,” council member Dalton Glasscock said during the meeting.

Of the 130 beds at the shelter, 100 are set aside for people in Second Light’s Shelter+Services program, which offers a bed and services to eventually transition them into housing.

The remaining 30 beds are night-by-night beds, with six of those held for people who are dropped off by law enforcement.

The rest of the beds quickly fill up, often half an hour after the shelter opens its doors for the night, The Journal reported last week.

During the council’s workshop meeting, Clifford would not commit to expanding the number of shelter beds.

“I think we can agree in principle that we want to all move the needle on homelessness, but how we get there, there’s a lot of different philosophies, a lot of views,” Clifford said. “We just want to be clear about what those are and how we’re going to work well together effectively to move the needle on this issue, and if that means reducing unsheltered homelessness, I think Second Life can have a role there.”

In the statement, Clifford said the shelter has served more than 1,300 people and housed 130 people since December 2025.

Other entities have pledged funding to the shelter, including a $1 million matching grant over the next three years from the United Way of the Plains and a $100,000 donation from Ascension Via Christi to help coordinate medical services for people staying there.

The city will give final approval of the budget on Aug. 25.