After a month-long wait, a new emergency winter shelter near 21st and Grove will open Friday night to people experiencing homelessness.
The shelter will be open 24/7 and will offer three meals a day. It has beds for 250 men and women and can hold more if necessary.
“We’re incredibly blessed to see it all come to fruition, and we’re going to be saving lives, so we’re ready to get to work,” said LaTasha St. Arnault, HumanKind’s president and CEO.
HumanKind Ministries typically opens its winter shelter on Nov. 1. But the nonprofit had to work with the city to find a new location for it this year because the former shelter building couldn't hold enough people.
That delayed the opening date, though HumanKind did temporarily open its former shelter last weekend during the snowstorm.
“It took way too long, it should’ve never got to this point that it’s at now, but at least it’s open today,” said Kansas state Rep. Nick Hoheisel, who has been working with the city and county on homelessness solutions. “They have somewhere to go for the moment, while we work on longer-term solutions.”
The new shelter has a cafeteria and nursing stations, where medical staff will be present on some weeknights and Saturday mornings. Residents can charge their phones in community rooms and store belongings in a secure, locked location, St. Arnault said.
“People are allowed to bring in their belongings,” she said. “We actually do have dedicated storage space, so we’ll work with clients to make sure their belongings aren’t prohibiting them from entering shelter.”
About 15 nonprofit and government agencies will be on-site at the shelter, such as the city of Wichita’s housing department and Open Door’s rapid rehousing services.
Two security guards will be on-site all the time, in order to address neighbors’ concerns about security. The shelter is near a pre-school and after-school center.
Though the shelter will be open all the time, it does have specific “door times” when it prefers people arrive, St. Arnault said. Those are at 11 a.m., 3 p.m. and 6:30 to 9 p.m.
But St. Arnault said people should be able to come and go throughout the day and night, in case they need to work second- or third-shift jobs.
Bus route 28 will offer free transportation from downtown to the shelter. HumanKind also has some private shuttles available to take people to the shelter.
The shelter will close at the end of March. Elected officials from the city, county and state are working on a long-term plan after the winter shelter closes.
The city has plans to construct a new “one-stop shop” for unhoused people, with a shelter, affordable rental units and a social services center. But it still needs $22 million to build the shelter portion of the new multi-agency center, as the project is known. It’s unclear who will pay for the building’s operational costs in the long term.
