Nehemiah Leadership Gathering Report

Last night was powerful, and a truly transformational moment for our community. Our preliminary count indicates that 1,340 people of different faith backgrounds and walks of life showed up united to do justice together. The power of our unity made a big impact with major commitments achieved on our two priority areas:

Here’s what we achieved on mental health:
• KS Department of Aging and Disability Services (KDADS) Deputy Secretary Andy Brown and COMCARE Executive Director Joan Tammany agreed to work together to achieve fully staffed and operational 24/7/365 mobile crisis teams throughout Sedgwick County by October 1, 2024
• Deputy Secretary Brown also committed to working to secure enhanced funding for weekend on-call psychiatric services by January 1, 2025.
• Deputy Secretary Brown agreed to allocate $200,000 for expansion of the Substance Abuse Center of Kansas Intensive Care Coordination program which pairs caseworkers, peer support mentors, and a transportation voucher to people recovering from addiction and mental illness by June 29th, 2024. This expansion will grow the program from serving 15 people currently, to 300 people!
• Both COMCARE and KDADS agreed to meet with Justice Together the first week of the month between June and September to keep us abreast of their plan/goals/accomplishments in the pursuit of these agreements!
Here’s what we achieved on homelessness:
• Wichita Mayor Lily Wu, County Commissioner Ryan Baty, City Manager Robert Layton, and County Manager Tom Stolz agreed to work together to create a low barrier local ID program that is eligible for employment, housing, and local services to be implemented in 2025, and to agree to meet with Justice Together on a monthly basis during the first year of implementation in order to monitor progress.
• All officials present agreed to hold a meeting between representatives of the City of Wichita, Sedgwick County, COMCARE, KDADS, and Justice Together in the next 30 days to determine the funds necessary and work towards a sustainable budget plan using a braided funding approach to fill the gap in the budget for operations and supportive services for the Multi-Agency Center.
This is huge! A local ID and a one-stop-shop for housing and supportive services will change lives and bring us closer to ending homelessness in our community! A mental health crisis response system with 24-7 psychiatric care and a fully staffed mobile component to relieve police officers as first responders to mental health emergencies will save lives and help heal our struggling neighbors!

There is still much to be done to follow through on implementation of these proposals, and monitoring their progress. We also know that it will take much more than these changes to fix these broken systems. Still, we celebrate this step forward, and we ready ourselves to continue our shared work of doing justice together!

LOCAL COVERAGE OF THE 2024 JUSTICE TOGETHER NEHEMIAH ASSEMBLY
Click here for coverage from the Wichita Eagle
Click here for coverage from the Kansas Leadership Center
Click here for coverage from KMUW

RECAP OF THE NIGHT
1. Justice Together Co-President Pastor Ronda Kingwood of Heart of Christ United Methodist Church opened the meeting with a warm welcome and word of celebration of all those who helped build the Great Assembly for Justice!

2. Justice Together Co-President Rabbi Andrew Pepperstone of Ahavath Achim Congregation officially called our meeting to order so that we could get down to business!

3. Rev. Dr. Kalaba Chali, United Methodist District Superintendent of the Wichita area, grounded our event in the sacred call to do justice with a powerful prayer.

4. Justice Together Secretary Rev. Chad Langdon of Christ Lutheran prepared the Assembly for what to expect for the night and laid out three basic ground rules for the event:
1. No questions from the floor.
2. We commit to listen carefully and respectfully to the responses from our officials, even if we may disagree.
3. We can expect respect in return from our officials, and because they were briefed on our proposals in advance, we can rely on them for direct and straightforward answers.

5. Rabbi Pepperstone took to the mic again to introduce our special guests:
Deputy Secretary Andrew Brown of the Kansas Department of Aging and Disabilities Services.
Executive Director of COMCARE, Joan Tammany
Wichita Mayor Lily Wu
Chairman of the Board of Sedgwick County Commissioners Ryan Baty
City Manager Robert Layton of the City of Wichita
County Manager Tom Stoltz of Sedgwick County

6. Rev. Dr. Kevass J. Harding of Dellrose United Methodist Church set the tone for our negotiations by grounding us in the impact of the work that we are doing. He reminded us that mercy is important, but that mercy alone cannot fix the broken systems that create suffering in our community…for that we need to commit ourselves to the often difficult work of justice. As his words prepared us for negotiation, Pastor Harding set our intentions in reaching a breakthrough on important issues in our exchange with officials.

7 Here’s what happened during our mental health section of the program
Justice Together Mental Health Steering Committee member Carol Furrow of Calvary United Methodist Church moved the conversation to the need for a mental health system that provides crisis response treatment for anyone, anywhere, anytime. She also shared the success of the Substance Abuse Center of Kansas Intensive Care Coordination program which pairs caseworkers, peer support mentors, and a transportation voucher to people recovering from addiction and mental illness.

Scott Kitzenberger a member of the Justice Together Board of Directors and a member of Ahavath Achim Congregation shared his testimony of the difficulties that he and his colleagues face as officers with the Haysville Police Department when they are forced to respond to mental health crisis due to the lack of mobile crisis units.

Justice Together Mental Health Steering Committee member Bob Nelson presented our proposals and achieved the following commitments.
• KS Department of Aging and Disability Services (KDADS) Deputy Secretary Andy Brown and COMCARE Executive Director Joan Tammany agreed to work together to achieve fully staffed and operational 24/7/365 mobile crisis teams throughout Sedgwick County by October 1, 2024
• Deputy Secretary Brown also committed to working to secure enhanced funding for weekend on-call psychiatric services by January 1, 2025.
• Deputy Secretary Brown agreed to allocate $200,000 for expansion of the Substance Abuse Center of Kansas Intensive Care Coordination program which pairs caseworkers, peer support mentors, and a transportation voucher to people recovering from addiction and mental illness by June 29th, 2024. This expansion will grow the program from serving 15 people currently, to 300 people!
• Both COMCARE and KDADS agreed to meet with Justice Together the first week of the month between June and September to keep us abreast of their plan/goals/accomplishments in the pursuit of these agreements!
8. Here is what happened during the homelessness portion of the program:
Justice Together Homelessness Research Committee Co-Chair The Rev. Lory Mills of St. Bartholomew’s and St. Andrew’s Episcopal Churches made the case for why the barriers to gaining valid photo identification makes it nearly impossible to secure housing, employment, and benefits needed to escape homelessness. She shared the success of 36 other communities in establishing local, low barrier IDs that have helped people get out of homelessness and secure a more stable life.

Dave Williams of the Alliance of Overlooked Neighbors shared his story that described how a hospitalization due to a mental health episode left him with only the clothes on his back and how difficult it was to get himself reestablished due constant hurdles to obtaining identification.

Deacon Lory went on to present our proposals for ID and achieved the following:
• Wichita Mayor Lily Wu, County Commissioner Ryan Baty, City Manager Robert Layton, and County Manager Tom Stolz agreed to work together to create a low barrier local ID program that is eligible for employment, housing, and local services to be implemented in 2025, and to agree to meet with Justice Together on a monthly basis during the first year of implementation in order to monitor progress.
Justice Together Homelessness Steering Committee Member Min. Valerie Black of Dellrose United Methodist made the case for why a housing first approach that seeks to first establish people in stable housing in addition to comprehensive supportive services is essential to ending homelessness in Sedgwick County. She highlighted the importance of the proposed Multi-Agency Center (MAC) as a key component to a housing first model in Sedgwick County.

Justice Together At-Large Officer Rev. Deann Smith of United Methodist Open Door shared her decades long story of attempting to navigate a fractured system of housing and supportive services for her homeless clients in Sedgwick County and the dire need for a fully funded and operational MAC

Min. Valerie Black went on to present our proposals and achieved the following:
• All officials present agreed to hold a meeting between representatives of the City of Wichita, Sedgwick County, COMCARE, KDADS, and Justice Together in the next 30 days to determine the funds necessary and work towards a sustainable budget plan using a braided funding approach to fill the gap in the budget for operations and supportive services for the Multi-Agency Center.
9. Rev. Chad Langdon provided a recap of the commitments that we received from officials, and invited people attending to indicate how they would like to get involved in the future. He also invited all attending to lift up a card with the name of someone they carry in their hearts that will benefit from the breakthroughs that we achieved in our assembly.

10. Rabbi Pepperstone closed us out in prayer and adjourned the assembly.

Whew! What a night it was!

Onward,

Louis Goseland
Justice Together Lead Organizer
www.dojusticetogether.org

louis@thedartcenter.org
Cell: 316.204.4315
Click here to schedule a conversation