By Lacey Mills
Who Knew Reno County?
Last week, more than 20 people from Reno County packed their bags and headed to Overland Park for the Kansas Housing Conference.
We came from different organizations, businesses and corners of the community. We have different jobs, different responsibilities and, I’m sure, different opinions about how we should tackle housing.
But for three days, we learned together.
And by the end of the first day, I realized something: Reno County was standing out.
We had a presence in numbers. We were engaged. We were asking questions. We were curious. We were taking notes, talking between sessions and comparing what we were hearing to what we are experiencing here at home.
And, honestly, I was proud.
The Housing Initiative Fund of Hutchinson Community Foundation covered the cost for 10 participants, and another 10 paid their own way. This wasn’t simply a conference trip. It was an intentional shared learning experience to strengthen relationships across our housing ecosystem, expose ourselves to new ideas and approaches, and come home with more collective energy around what might be possible in Reno County.
One thing the conference confirmed for me is that answering the call for housing isn’t about one solution.
Housing is a continuum.
A new home built for someone who is ready to move up can free up their existing home for a first-time homeowner. That can free up a duplex for a family ready to move out of an apartment. One housing opportunity can create another, and another.
That’s the multiplier effect of housing.
We often talk about housing as simply adding houses. But the impact is much bigger than that. New housing creates jobs and supports the people who build, sell, finance and maintain those homes. And then families living in those homes spend their money locally at restaurants, grocery stores, retailers, health care providers and other businesses.
Housing is economic development. It is workforce development. It is community development.
But the conference also left me thinking about the gaps between having a need and knowing how to navigate it.
What happens when someone is ready to buy their first home, or is simply curious about whether homeownership is possible, but has no idea where to start?
How do we, as a community, make it easier for that person to find the information, resources and guidance to set them up for success?
And what about the small developer, the person right here in our community who wants to take a neglected house, invest in it and bring it back to life? Do they know where to start? Do we make it easy for them to understand the process and find the resources they need?
Or consider the homeowner who has lived in the same house for decades but can no longer afford the repairs it needs.
We have resources in our community. But do people know about them? And do those resources actually meet the need?
Those are the questions I came home asking.
Curious questions.
As part of the conference, we also celebrated the completion of the Meyer Landmark project on a statewide stage with a showing of the documentary hosted by developers Laura Meyer Dick and Justin Pregont. Throughout the conference, I heard people from across Kansas talking about the good things happening in Hutchinson and Reno County, and especially about the ways we are collaborating in new, creative and strengthened ways.
After the conference ended, our group gathered for a debrief. What did we learn? What challenged us? What should we bring home? What do we do next?
One of the final sessions, from the Kansas Leadership Center, offered a reminder that stuck with me: when the answer is technical, expertise matters. When the work is adaptive, leadership matters. Kansas needs both.
I think housing in Reno County needs both, too.
But it also needs us to keep asking: What would we have to do differently to actually change the trajectory of housing in our community?
What interventions would be bold enough to matter?
And what could happen if we stopped asking, “What can my organization do?” and started asking, “What can we do together?”
I don’t know all the answers yet.
But after three days with more than 20 Reno County people learning, questioning, challenging and dreaming together, I know this: I am incredibly proud of our community. And I’m even more excited about what might happen when we keep showing up and answering the call together.
Lacey Mills is the executive director of United Way of Reno County and can be reached at lmills@uwrenocounty.org.