On a lazy Sunday morning in July, the heat is creeping into the 90s before the clock hits noon. Danielle Lenz sits on her front porch in a lawn chair, keeping an eye on her mischievous six-year old. Two years ago, she didn’t know that this sunflower yellow rental home near downtown was where her family would end up. Lenz and her four kids were living in public housing in west Wichita when the news hit in 2022 that the city planned to sell their home – and the 351 other single-family public housing units scattered throughout town. Initially, she wanted to buy the house herself, but she says she later changed her mind due to its poor condition. Instead, last winter she found a private landlord to accept the housing voucher the city gave her as a form of rental assistance to replace public housing. “It’s probably a good thing that we moved from over there. Because they would only fix things … if it had to be fixed,” Lenz said. “Other than that, they didn’t fix it because they didn’t have the funding to do so. Renting to a regular landlord I think is a little bit better.” As of last December, 110 of the city’s single-family public housing units were occupied. By the end of June, about 60 of those households had been impacted by the city’s sale of public housing, according to the city of Wichita. Each had the option to receive a voucher to help with rent, and a city contractor recommends an available housing unit to tenants and also pays for moving assistance. “Our relocation coordinator is constantly working to reach out, stop by the house if they haven’t been able to make contact,” Sarah Gooding, who oversees public housing for Wichita, said in a presentation about the city’s Affordable Housing Fund. “And so it is designed to be a very warm handoff process. Tenants have the right to not engage, but nobody should find themselves homeless, if they engage in the process.”
Source: KLC Journal
