As homeless numbers grow in Johnson County and housing costs continue to climb, county elected leaders find themselves increasingly at odds with one of the most prominent local organizations pushing for affordable housing solutions.
The growing rift comes down to the idea of a housing trust fund creating a dedicated source of ongoing funding for such efforts.Â
The Good Faith Network, a faith-based advocacy group, has for the past couple of years pressed the Board of County Commissioners to take steps to establish an affordable housing trust fund, arguing that it would be a bold answer to one of the county’s most intractable problems.Â
County commissioners, on the other hand, have affirmed their commitment to developing a variety of other solutions — including last year’s ultimately failed attempt to establish the county’s first year-round homeless shelter — while saying a lot more work needs to be done to make a housing trust fund more feasible.
The disagreement came to a head earlier this month at the Good Faith Network’s annual gathering, the Nehemiah Summit, attended by roughly 1,500 people inside the Church of the Resurrection’s cavernous sanctuary in Leawood.Â
At the May 6 event, Good Faith Network leaders urged the county once again to establish a trust fund and proposed a funding mechanism: swapping out an existing quarter-cent county public safety sales tax for a new one that would bolster an affordable housing trust fund.
County Chair Mike Kelly, in attendance at the gathering, rejected the idea outright, saying housing affordability and homelessness must be addressed but that county leaders wanted to keep the public safety tax in place to meet other vital needs for the county’s growing population.
“Our public has spoken clearly: The fundamental feeling and importance of vital safety services in Johnson County is the priority of the people of Johnson County,” he said to the gathering.
A few days later, the county commission voted to put the public safety sales tax renewal on the ballot.Â
At the summit, Kelly defended the county’s approach, saying housing affordability won’t be solved by a single policy or remedy. Furthermore, he said it will require buy-in from cities whose zoning laws govern what housing projects can be built and where.
“We need to identify partners … to come together to the table to make sure that we have outcomes — not just funding, but outcomes — and then regulation, governance. And that’s the piece I’m going to talk about with an affordable housing trust fund,” Kelly said. “Yes, it’s a tool that was identified within various studies or toolkits in the past, [but] it wasn’t prioritized number one and said, ‘This is something we must do.'”
What is an affordable housing trust fund?
An affordable housing trust fund would be an ongoing source of dedicated public funding that supports the creation and preservation of attainable housing.
Cities like Kansas City, Missouri, Lawrence and Topeka have had such housing trust funds in place for years. In February, the Wyandotte County Board of Commissioners approved the creation of the Kansas City, Kansas Affordable Housing Trust Fund.
Money for a trust fund can come from a variety of sources.
Federal COVID-19 relief money jumpstarted the trust fund in 2021 in Kansas City, Missouri. Voters the following year approved a $50 million bond to continue to fund it. An additional 3% local tax on recreational marijuana passed by voters in 2023 helps funding for related housing policy issues but doesn’t directly go into Kansas City’s housing trust fund, according to Johnson County documents.
Lawrence pays for its housing trust fund through special sales taxes for public transportation, infrastructure and equipment, and affordable housing. As of fall 2023, the fund had paid for $5.7 million in affordable housing projects, creating more than 650 new units.
The Topeka City Council approved a housing trust fund in 2019 but didn’t fund it until 2021 when the city allocated $250,000 and stipulated that the money can only be used as match dollars for non-city contributions to the fund.
About Topeka’s fund, Johnson County’s trust fund report said, “Today, [Topeka] city staff are seeking sustainable funding and restructuring the governance. No projects have been funded.”
Currently, the city’s housing trust fund website says the fund is “currently going through some changes. Please check back later for more information.”
Johnson County studied housing trust funds in 2023
In October 2023, the Johnson County Planning, Housing and Community Development Department released a Housing Trust Fund Report that evaluated the feasibility of a housing trust fund in Johnson County. It outlined the benefits and brought policy questions for further research and discussion.
While county staff noted the positive effects of a trust fund, it also cautioned that a trust fund was not “a singular solution to the complex attainable housing challenge.”
The report also concluded that a housing trust fund should target specific community needs to maximize impact and that it would require sustainable funding.
Since the county released the report, members of the Good Faith Network have expressed frustration with the county commission and what they see as a lack of action to establish a housing trust fund and funding sources to support it.
Unchanged: “It seems like [at] every Nehemiah Summit when we ask an official for a commitment about what they will do in the future, they’ve directed us to the county’s webpage to look at a list of what they’ve done in the past,” Carla Oppenheimer, a Good Faith Network leader, said at this month’s Nehemiah Summit. “They always say to us, ‘Look how much we’ve done for homelessness.’ What no one can say is, ‘Look how close we are to ending homelessness.'”
Following this month’s meeting, Commissioner Janeé Hanzlick said in an email to the Johnson County Post that she takes exception to the commission being called out like that by the Good Faith Network.
“It is frustrating that, by focusing only on one potential tool, an affordable housing trust fund, the [Good Faith Network] has led some people to mistakenly believe that the Board of County Commissioners is doing nothing to address housing issues,” Hanzlick said in the email.
The Good Faith Network advocated for a tax swap
In the meantime, Good Faith Network leaders came up with a way they say a housing trust fund could be funded in Johnson County.
The group suggested swapping the existing public safety sales for a new sales tax specifically dedicated to an affordable housing trust fund.
“We are not advocating a tax increase. This is just swapping out an old tax for a new one that could be directed towards solutions for affordable housing,” said Pastor Tim Suttle, the lead pastor at Redemption Church in Olathe. “If we could just set aside $15 million a year from that, we could build 11,000 affordable homes over the next decade.”
A document by the United Community Services of Johnson County, provided by the Good Faith Network, outlined what constitutes affordable housing, but didn’t specify a price range.
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Open in new tab At this month’s Nehemiah Summit, Kelly refused to commit to that idea and pointed out potential problems with the idea. He defended the current public safety sales tax, saying it’s needed for emergency services.
“When you pick up the phone and call 911, somebody answers the phone and you talk to a human being within 15 seconds. That doesn’t happen everywhere in the metro region. That doesn’t happen everywhere in America,” he said. “As Johnson County continues to grow, it is crucial that we can maintain those safety services.”
At the Board of County Commissioners meeting on May 8, Hanzlick also noted that even if the county approved a tax swap, they would still encounter roadblocks with the Kansas Legislature.
State law requires counties wanting to raise sales taxes to get the legislature’s approval. (A renewal of an existing tax does not need legislative clearance.)
“Doing an affordable housing trust fund sales tax would require getting permission from the Kansas Legislature, which, frankly, will not happen,” Hanzlick said. “I can guarantee you they would not support that.”
Additionally, housing solutions in Johnson County will have to come from a variety of sources, Kelly said, including private and public funding, financial incentives and collaboration with cities to make sure affordable housing can be built on their land.
“Municipalities make determinations on things like zoning and land use,” he said. “That’s so important that we have cities at the table to be able to zone accordingly so that we can bring affordable housing online.”
Ultimately, the county commission voted 6-1 at its May 8 meeting in favor of putting the public safety sales tax question on November’s ballot, with Commissioner Michael Ashcraft against it. (Ashcraft said he preferred to let the tax sunset without renewing it, citing its intended purpose to fund a new county courthouse, which has been built.)
“I think this board has proven that we are committed to addressing [homelessness],” Hanzlick said. “Over the course of the last several months, this board has had a lot of conversations [and] information that a sales tax is not the best way to fund the solutions to housing. Believe me, if it were, I would be the first one to be supporting it.”
Lives of people are in the balance
In attendance at this month’s Nehemiah Summit was Barb McEver, co-founder of Lenexa-based emergency shelter Project 1020, and a group of people currently experiencing homelessness.
The group included Brian, a former delivery driver who found himself homeless after he was injured in a crash and couldn’t find a job to pay rent. Brian asked that only his first name be used for privacy reasons.
After the meeting, Brian and several other people who said they would be back on the streets that night talked with Kelly, asking him to take bold actions to address housing and homelessness in Johnson County.
“I looked at him … I said, ‘What would you want if this is you in this position — or if your friend, your loved one, anyone you care about — what would you want for them in this scenario of life? What would you want done?'” Brian said. “I feel it’s a very valid question that we need to address. How would you feel … if this was your loved one?”
Later that night, he said he emailed Kelly, thanking him for his time and expressing a need for everyone to come together.
“We’re all in this together. I don’t want us to be like, ‘There’s a line, you’re over here and I’m over here.’ No, we get rid of that line … Let’s work together,” Brian said.
Both sides agree that more work needs to be done
For his part, Kelly said the conversation on homelessness and affordable housing in Johnson County is not over.
“We have a real need and an opportunity to make sure that we can provide great public service to a growing community with growing demands,” he said. “[We can benefit] our entire community by partnering with cities and responding to the challenges of today, but also preparing for tomorrow, and then, also work [on] homelessness in Johnson County. I stand ready, willing and able to work with anybody who wants to do that.”
Good Faith Network leaders said their work advocating for people experiencing homelessness will continue.
“We’ve noticed that [the] FIFA [World Cup] gets a lot of countdown attention here: ‘500 days till the World Cup … 463 days.’ It’s kind of laser-focused,” Suttle said. “To be clear, we are going to be just as laser-focused on this housing crisis, and we will count down the days and the months and years until Johnson County will get serious about choosing real safety for all of our community and our networks.”
