The city of Wichita is moving forward with plans to open its emergency winter shelter in the former Park Elementary building around Thanksgiving.
The shelter will be part of Park’s planned multi-agency homeless services center.
The City Council is poised to approve two contracts for the center on Tuesday: one for more than $6.3 million in renovations to the building, and another to allow HumanKind to operate the emergency shelter this winter.
HumanKind, a nonprofit organization formerly known as Interfaith Ministries, has operated the emergency shelter for 20 years, the city said.
The shelter’s opening time depends on when certain renovation work will take place, in particular the installation of a new fire suppression system. The rest of the renovations will be done in phases while the shelter is open this winter.
“We’re trying to get this to a point where we save people’s lives and people actually have a place to go,” city housing director Sally Stang said.
This will be the first year that the shelter is operational 24/7. Last year the doors of the shelter were only open at 11 a.m., 3 p.m. and from 6:30 p.m. to 9 p.m.
“If they come in after the lights go out or before the lights come on, they should… be in a waiting area and they shouldn’t go in and disturb other people while they’re sleeping,” Stang said.
A 501(c)3, with its own board of directors, is being formed to continue operating the shelter after March 31, when the winter shelter closes and when the rest of the center is built out.
Other parts of the center include permanent shelters, spaces for agencies to collaborate, and low-income housing.
Stang said the remainder of the construction of these spaces is expected to take one to a year and a half.
“We’ll be lucky if it’s April 1, 2026 when all that construction is done,” she said.
