During Tuesday's Wichita City Council meeting, several funding allocations were approved that will help families in crisis and the city's homeless.
Wichita receives funding from the federal government for housing needs. In 2020, the city received just over $3.3 million in CARES Act funding for its emergency solutions grant program, which provides funding to improve and operate homeless shelters and for other needs.
The Wichita Family Crisis Center plans to purchase a hotel property that will provide 22-24 emergency shelter rooms, as their current facility provides only eight. WFCC received $420 thousand in ESG-CARES funding Tuesday, reallocated from other sources. Last December, they received $800 thousand in funding from the city and WFCC will use the combined total to close on the property on or before February 1, 2022.
The council approved $125 thousand in ESG funding to HumanKind Ministries. The organization received $125 thousand from the Sedgwick County Commission a couple of weeks ago. HumanKind plans to address staffing issues and deferred maintenance items on their housing units and to operate their emergency winter shelter.
HumanKind also will receive around $34 thousand in ESG funding to purchase furniture, bedding and "move in" kits for its studio apartment complex that houses the homeless. The city will reallocate unspent CARES Act/ESG funding HumanKind received over the past 2 years to fund the project.