LAWRENCE, Kan. — Like many cities across America, Lawrence is in an affordable housing crisis that largely contributes to family homelessness.
"Family homelessness has been on the rise, and clearly in Lawrence we're seeing the same trend," Family Promise of Lawrence Executive Director Dana Ortiz said.
Family Promise of Lawrence helps those families, who say they can't afford their rent or they lost their job about 40 percent of the time.
"I was living in different houses, on the ground, just on the floor. No electricity sometimes. No gas, no water. It was just really difficult," said Crystal Gilbert, who is now in permanent housing through Family Promise.
Gilbert named her newborn daughter Myracle because she was the wake-up call Gilbert needed to make some changes. She left her abusive partner and has been clean from drugs for nine months.
"We had a friend and I stayed in the friend's car for a week. I slept in a car until I got an appointment with Family Promise, so it was hard," said Jerry Dent, who is in Family Promise's transitional housing program.
Family Promise of Lawrence gets about 300 calls a year from homeless families like Gilbert and Dent. The majority of calls are from single mothers. Half of the children the organization serves are under 5 years old.
Many families are not from Lawrence, and they say housing opportunities are not ideal.
"The average cost of a two-bedroom apartment here would take two wage earners making minimum income [working] two and a half jobs apiece to afford it," Ortiz said.
In 2018, the city of Lawrence contracted a study that found the city lacks 5,200 affordable housing units. One in four homeowners and six out of 10 renters are considered burdened, meaning they spend more than 30 percent of their income a month on housing.
Around 700 families are homeless or close to being homeless.
Lawrence is a college town, so it might seem there would be an abundance of affordable housing. But that's actually part of the reason why people who are not students are having a hard time finding housing they can afford.
More than half of all housing in Lawrence is rental properties.
"Being a single mom, it’s really hard, and I feel like in a college town the prices for living go up," Gilbert said.
Around 20,000-plus students live in off-campus housing in Lawrence.
"And if they’re paying the tuition, the cost of living here and going to school here, that takes the affordable units away from a lot of people who are living on the margins," Ortiz said.
In 2015, the city created an Affordable Housing Advisory Board to help turn the situation around.
In 2018, voters approved a 1/20th-cent sales tax for an Affordable Housing Trust Fund that will go into effect in April.
Mayor Lisa Larsen said it will generate around $1 million a year to create more housing.
"Is it going to solve the problem? I don’t think there’s enough there yet to do that, but we can at least start maybe getting ahead of it," Larsen said.
Larsen said she is not sure yet how much the affordable housing units will cost, but it will be dictated by the market value and wraps in the Douglas County Housing Authority's voucher system.
In 2018, Family Promise launched a savings match program for people in transitional housing. Tenants can save up to 70 percent of what they make, and Family Promise will match up to $1,000. By the time they make it into permanent housing, the goal is for them to have any debt paid off and money saved to get a good start.
Family Promise plans to acquire more transitional housing units and expand on its landlord referral program that helps families stay housed.
"I cried when I found out that I got the housing voucher because it just seemed like everything played out like it was supposed to," Gilbert said.
