• The shelter would be a non-congregate hotel-style shelter — meaning guests would each have their own private spaces — and it would be open all year, a service currently unavailable in Kansas’ most affluent county.

This comes as local advocates and religious leaders have called for the county to take more steps to address homelessness.

• Groups, including the Good Faith Network and Project 1020, which currently runs the county’s only cold-weather shelter open to single adults, have called on the county to create a year-round shelter and establish a homelessness coordinator position at the county level.

Zooming out: Consideration of a new year-round shelter comes as the latest in a number of steps Johnson County officials say they have taken to address homelessness, dating back to spring 2021 when a commission housing subcommittee began discussing the issue.

• Out of those meetings also came the recommendation to create a new county housing coordinator position — which the county is currently recruiting for and hopes to fill by the beginning of 2023, according to a county news release.

In October, the Board of County Commissioners approved the use of $60,000 in federal COVID-19 funding to go toward a feasibility study for a new county-run homeless shelter.

The money: At that same meeting, the board also approved a number of other allocations toward addressing housing needs, including:

• $800,000 for Johnson County’s 40 food pantries,
• $500,000 for cold weather response through a hotel voucher program,
• $250,000 to go towards utility assistance through the county’s Aging & Utility Assistance program,
• and $250,000 for Project 1020 in Lenexa, the only cold-weather shelter in Johnson County currently that serves single adults.

What else: On Nov. 17, the board also approved $75,000 for a program to connect individuals experiencing substance abuse and homelessness to access services and address underlying conditions.

• This allocation included $60,000 for Friends of Recovery Association’s Oxford Houses —a program out of Overland Park’s Saint Mark’s United Methodist Church that provides people experiencing homelessness or substance abuse recovery with transitional homes.

Bigger picture for homelessness in Johnson County

The BOCC’s consideration of funds for a new homeless shelter come as local advocates have called upon Johnson County to create a more comprehensive plan to address homelessness.

• Last week, outside the Project 1020 shelter, religious leaders from the Good Faith Network led a prayer rally calling on the county to take steps to effectively end homelessness in Johnson County.
• County Commissioner Becky Fast said the formation of a wider comprehensive plan to address homelessness could come next if the commission moves forward with plans for a new shelter.

In her own words: “(These federal funds) are not only for people who are homeless,” she said. “But also those at risk of homelessness, and other vulnerable populations.”