Crowd of 1,300 believers seeks ‘Justice Together' for housing and homeless in Wichita

Yahoo

10-05-2025

When was the last time you saw 1,300 Wichita-area residents come together in one place to address the community's two most persistent problems — affordable housing and homelessness?
For me, it was Thursday night.
Justice Together has done the extraordinary, as demonstrated by its 'Nehemiah Assembly' that brought together faith communities of Christians, Jews, Bahais and others — and came close to filling the mammoth auditorium at the Wichita State University Hughes Metropolitan Complex.
Local leaders are listening. Three of the people on stage for the event were members of the Wichita City Council — Becky Tuttle, Mike Hoheisel and Maggie Ballard, along with Sedgwick County Commission Chairman Ryan Baty.
A fourth City Council member, Dalton Glasscock, was in the audience, but couldn't participate directly because that would have violated the Kansas Open Meetings Act.
To me, the most compelling part of the evening was testimonials from two women who have experienced homelessness as rents have risen and housing affordability has reached crisis proportions.
'In July 2024 I had to leave my rental home because it had become uninhabitable — no repairs, unsafe conditions and an electric bill over $1,500 due to poor insulation,' said Valerie Martens, a college graduate with a degree in applied sciences, now living with a disability.
'When I looked for a good place, I was met with rejection after rejection,' she said. 'Landlords want tenants to make three times the rent. That is an impossible standard for somebody on disability. I am now waiting for a housing voucher, but thousands are ahead of me. In the meantime, I took on $13,000 in debt to buy a cargo van to convert into a shelter just to avoid the streets.'
Despite having good jobs, they've struggled to find a place to live and been exploited by landlords.
'The rental market was brutal,' Porter said. 'Listings disappeared within hours. Applications cost money we didn't have to spare. And even when we found a home, the terms were often arbitrary and inflexible. We finally found a place listed at $1,500 a month. When it came time to sign the lease, it mysteriously jumped to $1,600. We were told if we didn't take it, there were 65 people behind us ready to sign.'
So they did. But it didn't last. The birth of their daughter and medical complications caused them to fall behind. They applied for rental assistance and were approved.
'Despite having a rental assistance pledge, our landlord still filed for eviction,' she said. 'We weren't behind months, simply that current month, it was a matter of a few hundred dollars and we had never missed our payment before. But in Kansas, the law doesn't lean towards the tenant. People like us, even with help, we were just still one signature away from losing everything.'
They were homeless for three weeks. Two weeks ago, they moved into a new place, where they're spending half their income in rent.
'(That's) more than we should, but it's a start, and we're hopeful, but we're tired,' she said. 'We're not unique, we're not anomalies. We're your neighbors. We're the people who answer your 911 calls and care for your pets. We are struggling. This is why affordable housing initiatives are not just important. They are urgent.'
Justice together has won some victories. They pushed for and got the city to establish a low-barrier municipal photo ID card, so homeless people without the wherewithal to obtain all the documents needed for regular ID can have something to use to access public services.
On Thursday, they got a commitment from Baty to try to take the concept countywide, although, he said, it will probably still have to run through Wichita, which maintains the master files on homeless individuals.
They also pressed Baty to commit to earmarking $500,000 of the county budget for operational costs at the Multi-Agency Center, a homeless shelter and social-service hub being developed in the former Park Elementary School building at 1025 N. Main.
Baty said he couldn't commit to that at present, because the county will be working on some more expensive initiatives.
'We are going to do more, and . . . we're working with the MAC board right now,' he said. 'And they have a different request from us in regards to what we're going to do, the mental health, substance use, housing components and some of the other things that we're doing in the medical components . . . They're going to have a different request coming to us. It's going to be surpassing $500,000, so I can't make that commitment.'
What makes Justice Together work is its definition of justice versus mercy.
Faith communities of Wichita have long been involved in dispensing mercy — things like feeding the hungry and providing shelter for the homeless when the weather makes it dangerous to sleep rough outside.
While those are good things to do and they continue, the justice movement looks for the underlying causes that create the need for mercy ministries, and addresses them with research and action. They've been doing that for more than a year and show no signs of stopping.
'People of faith are still here,' said the Rev. Kevass Harding, the United Methodist minister and former Wichita school board member who closed Thursday's meeting. 'We're still rising, and we still believe in a better Sedgwick County as a whole. Tell them that our shared justice ministry is not a one-time campaign. It is not a seasonal effort, but a permanent, lasting ministry. And tell them, this isn't the end, it's just the beginning.'