Visitors to downtown businesses may soon see fewer panhandlers on the sidewalks. The Lawrence Community Shelter will be moving to a new location in east Lawrence.

The LCS announced earlier this month that it would open a new facility in the former Don’s Steakhouse, 2176 E. 23rd St.

“A new emergency shelter location has been long overdue to Lawrence,” Loring Henderson, director of the LCS, said in a press release announcing the new shelter.

The current shelter, located near downtown Lawrence at 214 W. 10th St., previously had a city permit that allowed it to hold only 31 people overnight. It became the only overnight shelter in town when the Salvation Army’s shelter closed June 1.

In an effort to ease overcrowding, The Lawrence City Commission voted Aug. 4 to increase the allowable number of overnight occupants at the current location. LCS now holds a maximum of 76 during the shelter’s busiest months, October through March, and up to 53 overnight occupants from April through September.

When the shelter moves to its new location, it will be able to hold approximately 100 people overnight.

City Commissioners heard from several people who live or work near the current shelter and were concerned that allowing the downtown location to keep more guests would cause problems for the surrounding community. But Henderson said he believed that allowing more overnight occupants could actually help with these issues.

“When people are turned away from our place, they are forced to go somewhere else,” Henderson said. “When you see a guest on someone else’s property, it’s a sign that they can’t fit on our property.”

The LCS was founded in 2005 to help Lawrence’s homeless community, but has been searching for a location for a new shelter for two years. Shelter officials considered at least 60 different sites before finding a viable option.

Henderson said he was confident a new shelter could be completed in about a year if everything went as planned. The new space will allow the shelter to pursue plans for a medical clinic, an adjoining building for employment services and larger sleeping, dining and storage areas.

“So much of what we will do in the new shelter will be an enhancement of the services we already offer,” Henderson said. “But we will be able to do a lot more.”

Downtown Lawrence Inc., a group of downtown business owners, said it was pleased to hear that the shelter would be moving away from downtown, but wished the shelter would concentrate all its efforts on moving to the new site, not renovating the downtown location.

“We are delighted that the shelter has decided to find a new location outside of downtown Lawrence,” Jane Pennington, director of the group, said. “Our hope is that with more of them out of downtown, there will be less types of nuisance behavior, including panhandling.”

Henderson said that he did not expect all downtown panhandling to stop once the shelter had moved, but hoped that it would help eliminate some of the problems that downtown businesses had with the homeless community.

“Downtown is where all the lights and action are at,” Henderson said. “Some homeless people will continue to go downtown no matter where we put it.”

Jessica Clatterbuck, Topeka graduate student in the School of Social Welfare, worked at the shelter last year as a student intern. She said she supported the moves that the shelter was making, but believed that the homeless would continue to stay downtown for the resources available in that area, including the public library and churches that have social programs.

“They are human beings; they are going to want to be around other human beings regardless of whether they are homeless or not,” Clatterbuck said. “I do not think moving the shelter from downtown will really deter these people from going where the people are.”

Henderson has heard concerns from at least one business located near the proposed site of the new shelter, but said that he would do everything within his control to make sure that a new shelter could operate without harming the surrounding community.

“We know that a shelter has an impact on a community and a business district,” Henderson said, “We will make every effort to work with the neighbors so that they are as comfortable as possible.”

Henderson and Clatterbuck said the new shelter would certainly improve the services offered to Lawrence’s homeless community, but both agreed that there was still much work to be done.

“While more people will be served, there are still a large percentage of the homeless that will be sleeping outdoors,” Clatterbuck said.

— Edited by Sarah Kelly