HumanKind Ministries Converting Downtown Resort Into New Shelter, Cost-effective Housing

A lodge in downtown Wichita is getting transformed into a housing complicated for inhabitants enduring homelessness.

The Wichita Town Council voted Tuesday to give HumanKind Ministries far more than $4 million in city resources and CARES Act cash to purchase the 316 Hotel on North Topeka and renovate it into a 56-unit inexpensive housing complex.

“Now I’m not naïve, and we shouldn’t be, that this undertaking won’t fix the problem of homelessness in our community,” stated HumanKind CEO Monthly bill Williams. “It isn’t the last response. It is, while, one particular piece of the puzzle.”

The challenge is predicted to be entire by future August. Throughout renovation, the making will be employed as a 24-hour women’s overflow shelter.

Wichita Housing Director Sally Stang informed the council the COVID-19 pandemic has “intensely” impacted the homeless populace and increased the want for non-congregate shelter.

“We have huge demand on our motel vouchers that we’re doing, and we surely see the require for additional shelter this winter season,” she stated.

The 316 Resort went up for sale before this year. The land the hotel sits on as very well as some empty parcels around it are owned by Ascension By means of Christi the organization will lease it to HumanKind for a greenback a year.

Robyn Chadwick, the head of Via Christi’s Behavioral Company Line, says in her job in overall health she’s found the influence that absence of secure housing has on a person’s physical and psychological wellbeing.

“This undertaking will go so considerably,” she said. “Fifty-6 customers a year, multiply that over a long time to appear prior to us, and assume about the variety of lives that we will effect.”