Reducing tax on Rich to close homeless shelters

A shelter for homeless families in southeastern Kansas will close its doors next week amid a funding shortfall.

The CHOICES Family Emergency Shelter houses approximately 350 homeless people every year, the majority of whom are children. There are currently nine families, including 26 children, living in the shelter. According to the AP, three other families were set to move in as well.

The closure is coming after an unexpected budget shortfall this year. The shelter depended on state funding to keep its doors open, but for 2014 it received less than half the approximately $200,000 it needed to continue operating. The Kansas Housing Resources Corporation, which distributes money to shelters across the state, changed its formula for doling out funding this year to send more money to western Kansas, though it’s not entirely clear why.

According to Steve Lohr, Executive Director of Southeast Kansas Community Action Partnership, which operates CHOICES, “this is the first time in our 48-year history” that it hadn’t received enough state funding to continue operating. “We were defunded 50 percent,” Lohr told ThinkProgress.

While the state isn’t offering enough money to keep all its homeless shelters open, it is doling out large new tax cuts to rich Kansans. Last year, Gov. Sam Brownback (R-KS) signed a package of nearly $1.1 billion of tax breaks that will predominantly go to the wealthy. It’s not just homeless shelters that are losing out. These tax breaks are also coming at the expense of funding for poor school districts, people who rely on food stamps to eat, and the state’s overall economic health.

Handy Andy wrote:Join the club Veya.  The tories here have been doing this for the past 4 years and this policy is embedded into their general political philosophy.

Freds Back wrote:

Handy Andy wrote:Join the club Veya.  The tories here have been doing this for the past 4 years and this policy is embedded into their general political philosophy.

The particular background to these closures is not comparable to the reductions in state expenditure in the UK. Wasn't it Labour who on their on admission spent everything and left the incoming administration with nothing but deficits and debt.

If you really tackled big government as we have you would see a considerable reduction in the state. Ironically that means that those who really do need it get it rather than 100s of thousands simply reliant on the state who can look after themselves.