Latest news with #JusticeTogether
Yahoo
10-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Crowd of 1,300 believers seeks ‘Justice Together' for housing and homeless in Wichita
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.'
Yahoo
08-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Justice Together offers solutions to help the community
WICHITA, Kan. (KSNW) – Justice Together is a Wichita nonprofit organization that focuses on serving the community and works to bring significant changes and solutions to social issues. 'What keeps you awake at night when you think about what's going on in Sedgwick County,' said Rev Lory Mills, St. Bartholomew's Episcopal Church. The group uses research to form goals. 'Put it together, and that's how we kind of land on a solution,' Mills said. AgapéCare Cradle aids grieving parents after child loss A solution to tackle issues like mental health and homelessness. 'Last year, 70 people, 70 people, unhoused people died on the streets of Wichita,' Mills said. The nonprofit is built from 39 congregations of all faiths. 'Sometimes it just means getting in the right crew and gathering of people with the right ideas to make that just next step,' said Rev. Wade Miller, Hillside Christian Church. Once a year, Justice Together hosts a Nehemiah Assembly to present their ideas to city and county officials. 'We try to get as many people here as we can because our power is in numbers,' Mills said. Youth Horizons provides safe homes for Kansas foster youth The hope is that those leaders put plans into action, like Wichita's new low-barrier photo IDs. 'For people who are living on the streets and have trouble getting an ID because they don't have the documents and paperwork that they need to do that,' Mills said. A testimony to the power of numbers. 'We're able to go with options and possibilities instead of saying, well, that's too big a problem for us to handle. There's nothing we can do about it, because everyone of us can do something,' Mills said. This year's Nememiah Assembly is tonight at 6 p.m. at WSU's Hughes Metroplex. It is free to attend. If you would like to nominate a nonprofit for our Here For You Spotlight, fill out our online contact form. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
19-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Free Wichita ID card gets unanimous approval from City Council. Here are details
The Wichita City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to create a free municipal ID — the City of Wichita ID — in an effort to lower barriers for Wichitans who lack standard documentation for a state-issued ID, such as people who are homeless. IDs will be issued at City Hall and the Multi-Agency Center, where services for the homeless are being consolidated. The ID will display a person's name, photo, address, date of birth and ID number, making it I-9 compliant to verify an individual's identity for employment. Three changes were made to the draft ordinance during council discussion: waiving application fees entirely, adding 'not valid for voting' along 'not valid for state ID' on the card's face and changing the name from Air Capital Card to the City of Wichita ID. Distribution is expected to start in the spring, but no exact timeline is available yet, according to city spokesperson Megan Lovely. Rollout will depend on equipment arrival and staff training. All Wichita residents 14 and above can apply for the card. The municipal ID card doesn't grant status or authorization to work, according to assistant city attorney Nate Johnson. 'The idea of this ID is to establish proof of identity. It does not, on its own, provide any authorization to be able to work in this country. As a municipal government, we can't provide that kind of authorization that the federal government can,' he said during the meeting. Wichita considers issuing municipal IDs to people who don't have state ID cards. Here's why Lacking ID prevents many homeless people from establishing residency and applying for jobs or housing. It is also harder to apply for benefits, fill prescriptions or cash checks without any photo identification. 'This is really the intention from the get-go, that individuals who are facing homelessness have an opportunity to have a municipal ID and be able to connect to a resource or a job,' Mayor Lily Wu said. Startup costs (including a specialized printer) won't exceed $20,000, with funding already included in this year's budget. No one opposed the proposal during public comment. One woman, Sara Price, who's experienced homelessness on and off for several years, thanked the city for their research and action. 'We would have a lot less homeless if more homeless people could get jobs. More people would have places to live if they could obtain places to live. Those IDs right now are our barriers,' she said. The city worked with the Homelessness Task Force to determine the types of documents necessary for the application, such as an immigration visa, a homeless ID from another municipality, or department of corrections release paperwork. Officials committed last May to establishing a municipal ID after Justice Together, a grassroots coalition of interfaith communities in Sedgwick County, lobbied city and county officials on homelessness policies. Lory Mills, co-chair of the Justice Together Steering Committee on Homelessness, said the group hopes to expand the ID program to cover all of Sedgwick County, a goal she said county officials agreed to in last year's public assembly. 'I'm not sure why that hasn't happened. We're really excited for what the city is doing and feel like that's a big step forward, but we really want the county to come through on their promise to have a county wide ID,' she said. Sedgwick County Commissioner Ryan Baty and Tom Stolz, the county manager, were present at last year's Justice Together meeting, with Baty throwing his support behind a municipal ID program. Baty said that he's been in discussions regarding the program and that county staff has worked with the city on the infrastructure necessary to deploy a program. 'The city has taken the lead due to their relationship with the MAC, but once the program is outlined the county will look at opportunities and gaps,' he said. 'Our challenge, which has been shared publicly, is that county government doesn't have infrastructure and staffing outside of the footprint of the city of Wichita. We feel that the appropriate first step is with the city.' At council member Becky Tuttle's suggestion, the city will prepare a report after the program's first year evaluating progress and challenges. This story is shared from The Journal through the Wichita Journalism Collaborative, a coalition of newsrooms and community groups, including The Wichita Eagle.
Yahoo
19-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Wichita may soon have its own ID cards
WICHITA, Kan. (KSNW)—The City of Wichita could soon have its own form of identification. The City Council is slated to vote on whether to create a municipal ID program. The municipal ID would be available to anyone. However, it's more targeted toward the unhoused. It would allow them to access more services, and City Council members say it could also help prevent them from being lost in the system. A municipal ID card would help people who lack easy access to documents like birth certificates or social security cards. 'We've been working on it in the city council for about three years, and we heard need in our community that people need access to IDs,' Tuttle said. Justice Together is a coalition of nonprofits in Wichita that advocates for municipal IDs, specifically to benefit the unhoused. 'That will allow folks to have the identification to get services in the community in their city and be I-9 eligible for work,' Deann Smith, a member of Justice Together, said. It can also help ensure that people who are homeless have proper access to housing and wraparound services from the city. 'It's gonna help us be able to track and just make sure everyone is doing what they need to do as far as the work plans that we set up to get them back on their feet,' District 3 Wichita City Council Member Mike Hoheisel said. He says that includes ensuring unhoused people make it to therapy and doctor's appointments. Municipal IDs would only be recognized within Wichita city limits. They would not be state IDs, so they cannot be used as voter IDs. Justice Together says they hope the county takes on a similar form of identification, but that hasn't been discussed. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
