How Wichita Discovered Success in Distributing Emergency Housing Vouchers

On the grocery retailer, choose up barbecue sauce, a jar of spaghetti sauce, elbow noodles, and a rooster breast—with out the bone. 

Whenever you get house, boil water for noodles and add some barbecue sauce to the pot, for taste. Fry your rooster. 

Pour the noodles right into a bowl. Add rooster. Add spaghetti sauce. 

Voila! Joseph “J.W.” Harris Jr.’s particular recipe for Southern-style barbecue rooster spaghetti. It’s one of many many dishes he’s been crafting since shifting into his house in The Studios. The low-income housing residence complicated in Wichita, Kansas, is run by HumanKind Ministries for individuals transitioning out of homelessness. The flexibility to make his personal meals is among the greatest components about his new residence, Harris mentioned.

“You’ll be able to cook dinner your personal stuff,” he mentioned. “You’re extra unbiased right here.” 

Harris, 46, moved into The Studios final fall utilizing an emergency housing voucher. These present rental help funded by the federal authorities for individuals experiencing homelessness or fleeing home violence. However the vouchers, which have been meant to offer reduction in the course of the pandemic, are vastly underutilized. As of March 15, solely 20% nationwide are getting used to lease flats. 

Challenges, together with a tight housing market and skyrocketing rents, have made it troublesome for many who obtain vouchers to search out housing. Plus, the emergency voucher program has “added complexity,” in response to Brian Handshy, regional public affairs officer for the U.S. Division of Housing and City Growth. That’s as a result of it requires shut collaboration between authorities and nongovernmental organizations, like nonprofits. 

Wichita, although, stands out with its success within the voucher program. About 70% of the 142 emergency vouchers Wichita acquired are at the moment used to assist residents hire flats, in response to federal information as of March 15. This offers Wichita the second-highest utilization price among the many 50 largest cities nationwide at utilizing emergency housing vouchers. 

The Resolution

Hurricane Katrina hit Harris’ hometown of Meridian, Mississippi, in 2005. 

The storm’s path of destruction left him homeless. His work within the oil fields dried up in its aftermath.

“After Hurricane Katrina hit, lots of Mississippi individuals and Louisiana individuals, lots of people from down there, began shifting up this manner,” Harris mentioned. 

He got here to Kansas in 2010, figuring out nobody. Since then, Harris has been out and in of everlasting housing, co-workers’ houses, and shelters. Final summer season, he reached the 30-day restrict of a shelter the place he was staying. He moved downtown and stayed at The Inn, a shelter run by HumanKind Ministries. 

Across the identical time, the Wichita Housing Authority was making ready to distribute its emergency housing vouchers, which grew to become out there on July 1, 2021. The company wished to distribute them as shortly as doable—and the housing authority had two methods up its sleeve, in response to Sally Stang, director of Wichita’s Housing and Group Companies Division.

The primary one?

“We have been two years forward,” Stang mentioned.

The emergency housing voucher program requires companies that work with individuals experiencing homelessness or fleeing home violence, like HumanKind, to refer potential voucher recipients to the housing authority, which then approves that particular person for an emergency voucher.

The initiative requires coordination between nonprofits and the housing authority—one thing Wichita had in place previous to the emergency voucher program. In 2020, the Wichita Housing Authority established the homeless choice program. This enables homeless service suppliers to refer homeless individuals to town’s already-existing housing selection voucher program and be popped to the highest of the listing. The town receives 3,047 housing vouchers which might be separate from the emergency housing vouchers.

When the Wichita Housing Authority acquired the emergency vouchers in 2021, nonprofits already had infrastructure in place to speak with town about who was homeless and in want.

“I sort of snicker about it, as a result of we arrange what we name our homeless choice program, and it really works very comparable” to the emergency voucher program, Stang mentioned. 

Then, there was The Studios, the place Harris lives now. This challenge crammed in a significant a part of the puzzle—as soon as somebody will get a voucher, the place do they go?

“For us, it wasn’t a problem, as a result of the power [The Studios] was proper there, actually prepared and ready for individuals,” mentioned Emily Lohfink, advertising and communications supervisor with HumanKind.

The Studios, an residence complicated for individuals transitioning out of homelessness, was renovated from a former resort final summer season. Photograph by Alex Unruh/The Beacon

The town determined in December 2020 to make use of practically $4 million of federal COVID reduction funds to purchase a former resort and renovate the power into everlasting housing, now referred to as The Studios. The residence complicated on North Topeka Avenue particularly targets serving to these experiencing homelessness. Rents don’t exceed $550.

The Studios opened on Oct. 4, 2021. Harris moved in the identical day. Twenty-seven of the 54 items are crammed with residents utilizing emergency housing vouchers, Stang mentioned. 

“It’s a must to hold all of your conferences. It’s a must to do the suitable factor. You actually received to need this for your self,” Harris mentioned. “It comes all the way down to that, as a homeless particular person. You actually gotta need to do it.” 

“Non-public Landlords Sort of Shy Away”

When Harris discovered in late August that he was getting an emergency housing voucher, he frolicked calling residence complexes that he heard is perhaps a match. 

However outdoors of The Studios, he had no success. One complicated he known as wouldn’t settle for his emergency voucher. 

“That sort of put a activate me,” Harris mentioned. “You solely received a certain quantity of days.”

The emergency housing voucher comes with a deadline—for those who don’t discover housing inside 120 days of receiving it, you lose it. Businesses that labored with purchasers who acquired the vouchers mentioned it was a problem to search out landlords who would settle for them.

“Early on, lots of landlords and residence complexes didn’t actually know what this was,” mentioned Keri McGregor, program director at Harbor Home, which works with home violence survivors. “And I believe they have been hesitant to just accept one thing when the participant isn’t in a position to pay for it on their very own. I believe personal landlords sort of draw back from that.”

Stang mentioned constructing The Studios was one a part of the answer to this downside. So is an incentive program that gives landlords with assist when leasing to tenants who skilled homelessness. 

Regardless that discovering housing could possibly be a problem, McGregor mentioned she didn’t know of anybody whose voucher expired as a result of they couldn’t discover housing. Neither did Tracey Homosexual, director of shopper providers for the Wichita Household Disaster Heart.

This success might have been helped by Wichita’s housing market. Common hire in Wichita is lower than half the nationwide common as of October 2021. And in response to iPropertyManagement, Wichita’s rental emptiness price is 9.7%—about 62% greater than the nationwide emptiness price. This emptiness price is greater than what’s thought of wholesome, in response to Kirk McClure, a professor emeritus on the College of Kansas who research housing.

Joseph “J.W.” Harris Jr. and Jennifer Hartley, his case supervisor at HumanKind, in his residence at The Studios. Photograph by Alex Unruh/The Beacon

What Lies Forward

After years of rotating between dwelling conditions, Harris mentioned he plans to remain at The Studios for the foreseeable future.

The emergency housing vouchers enable this, Stang mentioned. Tenants can use them via 2030.

“We’ve had discussions about—what will we do in 2030?” Stang mentioned.

However in the interim, Harris has lots of objectives he’s working towards. And he’s beginning with educating cooking courses at The Studios. He desires to share how he makes meals with only a microwave, toaster oven, and electrical skillet.

Southern-style barbecue rooster spaghetti is only the start.

This story was initially revealed in the Wichita Beacon and is republished right here as a part of the SoJo Change from the Options Journalism Community, a nonprofit group devoted to rigorous reporting about responses to social issues.