KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The Lenexa City Council voted Tuesday night to approve a request to increase the occupancy of a homeless shelter in the city from 30 to 50 people.
Council members voted 6-2 to approve the ordinance.
Project 1020, the group that runs the overnight shelter at Shawnee Mission Unitarian Universalist Church, asked the city for an increase in the number of people they can serve.
The shelter agreed to modify the number of staff and volunteers who must be in the shelter during its operating hours. The newly adopted ordinance also includes penalties for shelters that are found to go over capacity limits.
The Lenexa city members voted in September 2024 to turn down a special permit to convert the La Quinta Inn just off Interstate 35 and West 95th Street into a homeless shelter.
The shelter would have been run by reStart and motel converted to 50 non-congregate shelter units, 25 transitional housing units and would have offered support services.
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