Category: News

Rebecca Buford executive director of Tenants to Homeowners, the Lawrence Community Housing Trust Program, believes people who own their own homes have a better life in almost every area. But NOT, she said, if they are housing burdened.

Paying more than 30% of one’s income for housing is called housing burdened and causes families to neglect other parts of their lives such as medical care, to deprive children, and just lower the general quality of life.

“According to the latest economic data,” Buford said “average Lawrence income is the lowest of any metro area in the state and the cost of living is the highest. This means that many hardworking families, especially young families,  cannot afford to buy their own homes.

“Affordable housing sustains communities and Tenants to Homeowners is creating affordable homeownership opportunities for the Lawrence workforce.”

The group offers subsidies for first time buyers to create a starter market.  For those who are income eligible and complete other requirements, they provide homes in trust. There are currently  75  such homes all over Lawrence.

“I work for the next generation,” Buford said. “If we had more affordable housing we wouldn’t need so many social services.”

Since 1992 Tenants to Homeowners has acquired, built or rehabbed over 400 units of affordable housing. in Lawrence.

They are also committed to senior housing. Cedarwood Senior Cottages will be 14 units and the first rental project designed to address the fastest growing adult population—seniors aged 62 or older—to be completed by the end of 2016.

“There are 20 million retirees  in the nation today and the number will keep growing,” Buford said. “We need to help them too.

Trey Meyer , executive director of the Lawrence Community Shelter, says he believes in telling stories. He tells the story of his own battle with alcoholism to encourage others and he wants to tell the Community Shelter’s story  to the local community.

“People hear the negatives about the shelter,” he told Central Rotarians on Feb. 17. “Our job is to tell them what we’re doing, how we’re doing it and the results. When they hear all about us, they’re happy to give us money.

“We’re solution oriented,” he said. “Our ultimate goal is to get people in here and then return them to society in better shape then they were.”

Meyer, started at the shelter as a driver, said changing mindsets is critical. People who are worried about surviving aren’t  going to aspire to much else.

“At the end of the day everything we do is to give someone the reason to get up in the morning and go forward.”

Financial dislocations such as lost jobs bring people to the shelter. People come to because they’ve exhausted all other resources and they’re in crisis.

”We deal with mental health issues, occasional physical health issues. Alcohol is always a problem We work hard to make this a dry  shelter for alcoholics. “

The shelter has 125 beds but houses many more in cold weather. “We have 35 or 40 in the family program and average 22 children, which is only about 25% of the homeless children in Douglas County.”  In 2015 the shelter served 775 individuals with the help of local agencies such as Bert Nash, LMH.

In 2016 Meyer said he wants the shelter, which operates on a $900,000 budget,  to do a better job with health resources and coaching to get people ready to leave, and to work to provide transitional housing for people ready to re enter society.

Drew vonEhrenkrook, director of  employment and vocational rehabilitation at the shelter accompanied Meyer and talked to Rotarians after the meeting about his role in sharing skills and techniques that improve clients’ employability teaching life skills that are necessary to be successful in all aspects of independent living, finding employment opportunities, and helping clients who are employed maintain their jobs and morale.

If you are interested in helping the Lawrence Community Shelter by getting involved or would like to donate you can get more information on their website at http://www.lawrenceshelter.org.

Doug Bonney, Chief Council and Legislative Director of The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Kansas, spoke on the organization’s history, mission and current activities.  The ACLU was founded in the early 1920’s in reaction to government repression of war dissenters who were often harassed and imprisoned.  Through legal action, lobbying and education the ACLU set out to define the meaning of the Bill of Rights and the Constitution as it applied to all people.  The ACLU has a history of taking on unpopular and precedent setting cases including the Scopes Monkey Trial, mandatory school prayer, the Skokie, Illinois Nazi march, and Roe vs. Wade.

The ACLU of Kansas is a local nonprofit, nonpartisan chapter with the goal of defending the rights and civil liberties of persons regardless of race, creed, color, gender or class.  The organization has two full time and two part time staff and a 13 member board.  The ACLU often advocates for the most marginalized members of society for voter rights, criminal justice reform, free speech, privacy, reproductive freedom, LGBT equality, women’s rights, racial justice, immigrant rights and religious freedom.   The Kansas chapter has recently achieved some notable victories in court.  Doug Bonney argued successfully for marriage equality, describing it as the “civil rights issue of our time.”  Another victory was scored when the court struck down the “two tiered” portion of the Kansas voter registration law that was ruled to be an unlawful requirement.  The speaker indicated that the current state legislative session would be particularly challenging for supporters of civil liberties.  Learn more about the ACLU of Kansas and their program for 2016 by visiting ACLUKansas.org.

As a Douglas County Commissioner for the second district, Nancy Thellman has been working with people studying the problems of gaps in mental health services for almost two years.

But she said it was a “jaw dropping moment” when she realized that many in the community don’t realize  that jail reorganization and expansion are part of the solutions to these gaps and that issues of mental health and jail improvement are interwoven.

Six thousand people pass through the jail every year and it is estimated that 25%, one fourth of them, have mental health problems. With female prisoners the percentage is 31%.

“While we can’t control decreasing state and federal funding for mental health issues, Douglas County does provide more and better services than many counties,” she said. “But because of the size of the jail  we spend $90,000 a month to house prisoners elsewhere. And that’s in places where they don’t get Lawrence’s good services which include counseling and training.”

In Lawrence, she said, the jail design needs more natural light, more beds, and different living spaces because, occasionally, people arrested for lighter violations have to share space with murderers.

Thellman said the community also needs a Crisis Stabilization Center, where people in crisis can go, be safe, get evaluated and receive care.  She said this is necessary by itself and should not be part of the jail. “We need to create a special court within the court system, overseen by a judge to deal with mental health issues.”

“Mental health seems to be a more popular issue in the county than jail expansion,” she said “but  improvement cannot succeed  for one without the other.”