Lawrence, Kansas is the second meanest city in the country. When it comes to treatment of the homeless, this was the conclusion of the National Homeless Coalition last January. Little Rock, Arkansas was only one notch lower than Lawrence at third meanest, while Sarasota, Florida somehow outdid them all—even this tiny island of alleged progressivism in the heart of conservative Kansas. Nationally, Lawrence’s mistreatment of society’s most desperate seems sadly less and less uncommon: in Boston last summer a 17-year-old was arrested and accused of beating to death a homeless man; another couple teenagers face charges for the despicable act of setting on fire—and killing—a thirty year old homeless man in north Boston. While these grotesque acts attract attention, homelessness—by definition the final result of a long descent into desolation—is grossly ignored by much of this country. Additionally, millions of Americans are, at this moment, “precariously housed”—only one paycheck or catastrophe away from the streets.


Some Lawrencians were taken aback by the harsh label handed down by the Coalition. “This city is not an environment that is mean,” Loring Henderson, director of the Lawrence Open Shelter responded. “There are people who are outspoken about the issues, but I think it was an inappropriate finding.” Nonetheless, countered Michael Stoops, acting director of the Washington, D.C.-located coalition, “my challenge to Lawrence is that if it wants to continue to be known as a progressive city—which it is—it needs to quit criminalizing homelessness and arresting someone for camping, for sleeping, for sitting in the doorway.”

Along with homelessness, however, explains Kansas University Sociology Professor David Smith, Lawrence must begin exploring ways to alleviate an “affordable housing crisis” in the city. “The needs of the homeless are obvious. But,” he continues, “the housing needs of other poor and working families in Lawrence are also acute.” Smith cites statistics compiled in a 2004 research report by Professor Kirk McClure of the Graduate Program in Urban Planning at Kansas University.

This data indicates that a staggering 42% of Lawrence renters in 2000 (the last year for which data exists) suffered “housing cost hardship”—i.e. spending over 35% of their total income for housing. This exceeded the US average by ten percent. And even if—by a liberal estimation—40% of these folks are not students, that leaves over 1,500 non-student Lawrencians suffering from what the Federal Government calls “extreme poverty.” If homelessness is going to be alleviated, argues Smith, time and energy must also be devoted to these “invisible poor, who teeter on the edge of homelessness.”

In Lawrence—as is the case nationally—the burdens of precarious housing and homelessness fall disproportionately on the backs of single mothers with young children. Fully 72% of the families served by the Lawrence Housing Authority were, according to McClure’s report, members of this vulnerable demographic. Others are not much better off—like those, for instance, who wish to become homeowners but whose wages do not ever permit more than the most basic monthly bill payments.

According to the University of Michigan’s National Poverty Center, such destitution has risen steadily in each of the last four years nationwide. And, explains the Center, over 30% of those facing such poverty in the United States are members of single-mother families, with the next highest subgroup being other children generally, ranking at just over fifteen percent.

These figures—and the NHC’s second meanest city designation—have inspired movement city-wide. Activists like Smith are working feverishly to put together a conference at a local high school specifically focusing on affordable housing as an important way to combat the larger, systemic problem of poverty. If, as these activists suggest, a city can tackle affordable housing it will, in turn, be addressing a range of issues from homelessness to neighborhood and community development. Noble goals—but what would make this gathering, wonder some in the homeless community, any different from all the other talk over the years?

The difference, perhaps surprisingly, is stark. With support and funding from the city’s Housing Needs Taskforce, what’s being publicized as a Housing Needs Conference will, in Smith’s words, “aim is to bring together everyone we can -- the precariously housed, potential first-time homebuyers, service providers, developers, landlords, city and state officials, and others,” all toward the larger goal of beginning “the difficult task of resolving the Housing Needs crisis in the city of Lawrence.”

This, then, is the essential difference from lukewarm past efforts: present and face-to-face with each other at the symposium will be those on both ends of the spectrum—the homeless, for instance, talking with realtors, bankers and landlords. With break-out sessions planned to divide the larger gathering into smaller groupings, this conference will seek to inspire dialogue among people that are often—by either choice or circumstance—detached from each other and therefore unlikely to interact or, more importantly, problem solve.

This model, in fact, is something other cities—and even this country—ought to adopt as a means to address what the University of Michigan’s research reveal to be a disturbing and recent rise in poverty. While Bush dolls out tax cuts and tosses more and more dough into the guzzling gullet of the Pentagon, poor Americans—particularly those who are homeless or on the edge—suffer in this, the land of the free...market. Though the conference is, on the surface, purely talk, it also makes headway in a manner largely unprecedented—at least for Lawrence.

And there is work to be done: The Lawrence Journal-World estimates that there are between 150-200 homeless folks city-wide. McClure warns of 1,500 precariously housed individuals. There are, however, only around 850 housing units in the range of affordability for these people. Indeed, if strides are not made in this city, Lawrence will not likely fair much better when Michael Stoops and the National Homeless Coalition come around next year.