Good Faith Network

Homeless Services Center: Recap

For several months, all eyes have been on Lenexa as the City Council weighed in on the project’s Special Use Permit. Here’s the latest…

September 17th

At 6 PM on the night of the vote, the Good Faith Network hosted a prayer vigil outside of Lenexa City Hall. We rallied, said a prayer for clarity of vision for our leaders and compassion for our entire community. We garnered a lot of media attention and passed out signs so that our support would be visible in the room.

Many GFN members sat faithfully in the city council meeting until the wee hours of the morning. After over 2 hours of public comments, the majority of which were in favor of the HSC, the council voted 5-2 against the permit.

Read about the 2 brave council members who stepped out in leadership HERE.

September 19th

That week, the Board of County Commissioners terminated the project’s contracts, as they were dependent on Lenexa’s approval of the permit.

With ~$6.3M of funds now unencumbered, the board directed staff to develop options for spending this federal COVID relief money with “emphasis on housing services and programs.” (Now’s the time for affordable housing!)

We anticipate that county staff will be presenting the board with those options in late October, and we will report out to our network at the Community Problems Assembly on November 3rd.

We Keep Going.

Despite the deep disappointment, we are still fighting for Functional Zero by 2029! And we won’t get there by accident… All of our campaigns need us to keep up the heat and keep building people power to be a voice so big it won’t be ignored.