Depending on where you look, the price tag of the City of Lawrence and Douglas County’s joint plan to eliminate chronic homelessness gets a lot more daunting.
“Home is the nicest word there is.”
A dusty sign bearing her simple words sits outside the replica of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s little house on the prairie near Independence. Experiencing swarms of grasshoppers, brutal blizzards and frequent moves during her lifetime, Laura understood the necessity and captured the beauty of home.
In my role leading Kansas Housing Resources Corporation, the state’s housing finance agency, I see the value of home everywhere, from the little girl proudly showing off the vivid purple walls of her new bedroom at a Habitat for Humanity dedication to the heartwarming note from the senior homeowner expressing that her home is comfortable in the winter for the first time thanks to our weatherization services. Like you, I treasure my own home and the stories and memories it holds. While KHRC administers housing programs and funds development, we ultimately “unlock home” for those we serve.