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Justice Together prays, plans and still pushes on Wichita homeless restrictions

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Justice Together prays, plans and still pushes on Wichita homeless restrictions

By Russell Arben Fox
Justice Together prays, plans and still pushes on Wichita homeless restrictions
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Greg Brown pauses near a doorway of the historic McCormick Harvester Building Dec. 15, 2024, in downtown Wichita. Brown, a Wichita native, said he hadn't worked in at least four years. (Max McCoy/Kansas Reflector)

Before Christmas, the Wichita City Council voted 4-3 to follow the path that other cities across the country have taken, making it easier for law enforcement to treat homeless individuals as criminals who can be forcibly relocated and whose possessions can be destroyed or captured by the government.

Despite more than two hours of public comment, with nearly every speaker strongly opposing the proposed changes to city ordinances, the new enforcement options — which the U.S. Supreme Court ruled constitutional in its City of Grants Pass v. Johnson decision — were just too appealing to the majority on the council. This was re-affirmed just last week, when at the second reading of the proposed changes, the same four-person majority pushed ahead, finding concerns voiced by the three other members of the council unpersuasive.

These changes, as the Kansas Reflector has documented, will likely do little to address the historical root causes of homelessness in Wichita. Thankfully, not all of the proposed changes were enacted, and one of the primary reasons for that is Justice Together. Though group’s only partial success in fighting these changes presents questions for the kind of organizing they have demonstrated.

An association of volunteers from nearly 40 Wichita-area congregations, synagogues, and other religious bodies, Justice Together made local history in 2024 when, at a major public assembly, they pressed and received commitments from various elected leaders in the city and county that certain positive steps would be taken to assist the homeless population of Wichita. Their well-researched calls for free bus passes for those with mental health needs, a sustainable budget plan for completing a planned multi-agency center that will bring together resources for homeless individuals, and a free municipal ID program, all remains on the table.

Still, the group recognized that these proposed changes threatened to derail the compassionate efforts which they and other municipal organizations (Wichita’s Coalition to End Homelessness deserves much credit here as well), have long pushed for.

The Justice Together group holds a prayer meeting before the city council chambers on the morning of Dec. 17, 2025.
The Justice Together group holds a prayer meeting before the city council chambers on the morning of Dec. 17, 2025. From left: pastor Chad Langdon of Christ Lutheran Church, deacon Lory Mills of St. Bartholomew’s and St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, Justice Together co-president Rabbi Andrew Pepperstone of Ahavath Achim Congregation, and Rev. Karen Robu of Plymouth Congregational Church. (Russell Arben Fox)

As someone associated with Justice Together since its beginning in early 2023, I received word of a prayer meeting planned for the day the city council meeting was set to vote on the proposed ordinances. Multiple faith leaders set the tone for the dozens who gathered at the meeting. They emphasized that pushing back, in whatever peaceful way we can, against adding burdens to the lives of those suffering from poverty, trauma, mental illness, drug or alcohol addiction, or any other cause that had left them without permanent shelter was a shared religious demand.

As I’ve written before, Justice Together is not a radical organization. Rather, it is a serious, careful, realistic group of believers, who work in the tradition of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., in researching and proposing responsible plans premised upon compassion and justice, and then presenting those plans to elected leaders in ways that create tension, thereby hopefully forcing action and progress.

Hence the meeting began with a summary of the proposed changes handed out, along with an action plan laying out Justice Together’s primary concerns, particularly in light of city leaders such as Wichita Mayor Lily Wu (who was part of the majority that endorsed the changes) having previously committed to our focus on compassion for the unhoused.

Topping the list of those concerns was that the city, in the wake of Grants Pass, intended to “remove a requirement that a shelter bed be available for anyone displaced by an encampment removal” — in other words, to no longer oblige law enforcement to confirm that there are beds available at public shelters before enforcing anti-“camping” rules against the unhoused.

This central issue was highlighted by Rabbi Andrew Pepperstone, the co-president of Justice Together, when he stood to speak before the city council. Two other speakers, Revs. Travis Smith McKee of the Disciples of Christ and Jacob L. Poindexter of the United Church of Christ, later underscored Rabbi Pepperstone’s demand. The “removal of bed space verification” from those faced with the often-ugly task of disrupting the attempts of homeless people to find a secure corner or underpass somewhere in public space has, in his words, “no compassionate rationale that I can conceive of.”

Pepperstone directly challenged the city council to strip that policy change from the proposal, which resulted in some city leaders playing hot potato, suggesting that those decisions were really just an issue of police protocol, not actual city policy. This was untrue, which was pointed out to them. The result, thankfully, was a positive one. The council ended up preserving this restriction, thus making it at least slightly difficult for those experiencing homelessness to be forced to move and abandon their possessions like herd animals.

Justice Together also successfully opposed, along with other groups, expanding the number of city workers who could wield that kind of police power against the homeless. Unfortunately, their other priority — opposing “a change to shorten the notice to vacate period before an encampment is removed, from 72 hours to 48 hours, and in some cases, allow removal without notice” — went through.

Perhaps that’s unsurprising. City staff made it clear in their presentation to the council that there were only two elements of the proposed changes that they considered genuinely substantive: getting rid of the bed requirement, and allowing for the immediate removal of homeless persons and the cleanup of their sleeping locations.

Despite all the complaints and concerns that citizens voiced — many of which went far beyond religious motivations; libertarian speakers challenged the proposed changes on the basis of human rights, and conservative speakers focused on the additional police costs — Wichita will soon join the host of American cities responding to the increase of the homeless population with more criminalization. This is a loss for Wichita and Justice Together, even if the council did conjoin policy changes with some additional compassion (financial penalties attached to Wichita’s longstanding anti-“camping” ordinances were lessened slightly).

Now, those who have dedicated so much to Justice Together must consider their next steps. Do they accept this defeat and continue to focus on pushing elected leaders on those social justice issues that they have not foreclosed? That seems most likely; what Justice Together’s volunteers are best at is speaking practically about policy options and researching how other cities have funded programs or dealt with changes in the legal landscape.

But there is also the possibility of reconsidering what kind of tension they can productively generate, perhaps while looking towards this year’s municipal elections, with the aim of changing one of those four “yes” votes. Becoming an interest group that promotes or opposes candidates would give Justice Together a more contentious vibe, yet political challenges are part of the toolkit of any successful advocacy organization, whether used or not.

Sometimes, simply the knowledge that an organization could organize their forces is enough.

Justice Together has worked through the religious faith of thousands of Wichitans over the past two years to advance the conversation about social justice in our city. As a supporter, I am curious to see how its leadership will continue to try to advance our shared ideals, even as opposition pushes back. As in other ways, 2025 will be a very telling year.

Russell Arben Fox teaches politics at Friends University in Wichita. Through its opinion section, the Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information, including how to submit your own commentary, here.