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Resident urges Douglas County to address downtown street homelessness, cites dashboard and per-participant spending
Summary
A Lawrence resident urged commissioners to act on street homelessness concerns, praised a new homeless dashboard while reporting public-safety incidents downtown and noting county homeless spending and per-participant calculations.
During general public comment at the May 14 Douglas County commissioners meeting, Lawrence resident John Imes described repeated "uncomfortable street encounters" and urged stronger county responses to downtown homelessness.
Imes praised the county's new homeless dashboard as a "big improvement" but said some parts "are broken" and called for outcome data on homeless services. He described downtown encounters by people begging on sidewalks and "individuals who are actually in the streets, in traffic," and said parents were avoiding bringing children to the public library because of aggressive behavior. "In the past 3 days, a group of 30 third graders visiting Watkins Museum were confronted and frightened by a man aggressively yelling expletives," Imes said.
Imes cited figures from the new dashboard and county budgeting in making a per-participant calculation: "At last count, there were 589 active homeless according to the new dashboard. With a 20,000,000 annual homeless budget, that works out to be $34,000 per active participant," he said. He urged the county to examine outcome data and to allocate dollars toward people "wandering the streets." No formal county action followed from the public comment period at that meeting.
