Construction of an eight- to 10-unit apartment complex that was to be part of a behavioral health campus could start late this year or early in 2019, despite county voters’ recent rejection of Proposition 1, the executive director of the Lawrence-Douglas County Housing Authority said.
The apartment complex was to be the long-term housing piece on a continuum of residential care options for those with behavioral health issues to be included in the $11 million behavioral health campus. Last month, county voters rejected Proposition 1 and the countywide half-cent sales tax it would have created to fund a jail expansion, the behavioral health campus and $5.1 million in additional behavioral health services. What made the apartment complex different from the behavioral health crisis center and group home to be built in the proposed campus was that its construction wasn’t dependent on the half-cent sales tax that would have been authorized with the passage of Proposition 1. Instead, the Housing Authority always planned to pay for its construction with $2 million it had saved from efficiently managing past U.S. Housing and Urban Development grants.
(Read more: LJWorld.com / Lawrence, Kansas)