mcre Media .......[Henry McClure Publisher]

Yes. There is a real literature on this, and the short version is: **generous housing and homeless services can help the people who receive them and still fail—or even worsen—the city’s overall problem.** The “magnet” story is only one piece. The more common backfire is a **stock-and-flow problem**: people keep falling into homelessness faster than expensive programs can house them, while Housing First-style units with no treatment requirements can become long-term, high-cost holding pens rather than exits. The evidence is mixed by *who* is moving and *what* is being offered. It is not a myth, and it is not a simple “they all hitchhiked here for free apartments” cartoon either. ## What the studies actually show **1. Families respond to generosity. Single adults, much less so.**   Economist Igor Popov’s work using federal Continuum of Care grant formulas (an old, quasi-random funding rule) is the cleanest U.S. evidence. Extra homeless-assistance money: ...

What is the City/County/JEDO policy about this spending  Kansas law will void a city or county contract in defined situations. It does not say that every time a contractor spends a dollar wrong, the whole agreement disappears by itself. The distinction matters. When Kansas law actually says “void” The rule is aimed at the government’s power to make the contract , not at every later mistake in performance. Kansas courts repeat the same points: A city or county cannot bind itself beyond its powers. A contract it had  no power to make  is ultra vires, void, and unenforceable. No further validity analysis is required. Anyone who contracts with a municipality is bound, at that party’s peril, to know the municipality’s authority. Contracts a municipality is not legally permitted to enter  cannot be ratified . Performance by the contractor, money spent in reliance, and benefits received by the city do not estop the government from saying the contract...

  Kansas law will void a city or county contract in defined situations. It does not say that every time a contractor spends a dollar wrong, the whole agreement disappears by itself. The distinction matters. When Kansas law actually says “void” The rule is aimed at the government’s power to make the contract , not at every later mistake in performance. Kansas courts repeat the same points: A city or county cannot bind itself beyond its powers. A contract it had no power to make is ultra vires, void, and unenforceable. No further validity analysis is required. Anyone who contracts with a municipality is bound, at that party’s peril, to know the municipality’s authority. Contracts a municipality is not legally permitted to enter cannot be ratified . Performance by the contractor, money spent in reliance, and benefits received by the city do not estop the government from saying the contract was void. Cash-basis law, K.S.A. 10-1119: any contract between a municipal governing b...

The December 3, 2024 GO Topeka Full Board minutes show how the 2025 public budget was locked in before JEDO voted. GO Topeka is the contractor. JEDO is the public board that appropriates half-cent sales-tax money to that contractor. On December 3 the contractor’s own board approved (1) the 2025 Budget and (2) the 2024–2025 cash carry-forward. JEDO took up those same items eight days later. Commissioner Kevin Cook is listed as a GO Topeka board attendee at that meeting. He also sits as a voting member of JEDO. The same person helped approve the contractor budget and later votes, as a public officer, on whether that budget may spend voter-pledged sales tax. Mayor Padilla was in the room for the GO Topeka vote as well. What the minutes do and do not show: They show a lump-sum 2025 budget and carry-forward passed on a simple motion. They do not attach a recipient list for “grants/sponsor/contrib/scholar.” They do not name banquet tables, church dinners, festival sponsorships,...

Rhiannon — Below is a law-only note you can copy into an email. No personal framing. It is written so a lawyer or JEDO member can answer the spending question on the statutes, the AG opinions, the ballot/interlocal, and the GO Topeka contract. The Shawnee County half-cent retailers’ sales tax is a special-purpose tax. K.S.A. 12-187(g)(1) requires the governing body to specify the purpose or purposes for which the revenue will be used and to put a statement of that purpose on the ballot. The 2014 extension language pledged the tax for economic development and named infrastructure/quality-of-life projects. Spending must stay inside that approved purpose. Kansas Attorney General Opinion 2001-014 holds that sales-tax proceeds may be used for economic development only if the electorate approved that use . A later contractor or board cannot expand the purpose because a dinner, banquet, or sponsorship “feels like vitality.” AG Opinion 2017-015, issued to the City of Topeka on this...