Johnson County food pantry needs help after Aspen Place closure
Melissa Prins has served about 200 families per week since she opened The Hope Market’s food pantry in Gardner in 2020.
But that number jumped to 320 families per week in early May, when the city condemned Aspen Place Apartments, a 200-unit complex at 101 Aspen St. in southwest Johnson County.
“It’s been pretty surreal, I definitely didn’t think that … a property would’ve been condemned in this day and age, especially in Gardner,” Prins said. “You’d think for bigger cities like Chicago or Detroit, not Gardner.”
Gardner declared Aspen Place Apartments unfit for habitation because of the property’s deteriorating water infrastructure that often left people without enough water to use toilets, shower, or do laundry.
The city gave residents 48 hours to move out.
The Hope Market, located at 611 E. Main St., now needs more food donations and volunteers to keep up with the increased demand. To make a donation or sign up to volunteer, visit thehopemarket.org.
Aspen Place Apartments
Following the condemnation, local churches and organizations met to figure out how to best meet the needs of those who just lost their homes.
The Hope Market received about $160,000 in donations, which the team now allocates to help former Aspen tenants to pay first month’s rent, security deposits, housing application fees, or utility fees.
“Majority of folks live paycheck-to-paycheck, when they paid May rent they didn’t have the money for the cost of the transition,” Prins said.
As of May 16, The Hope Market helped 87 tenants get placed and provided $135,000 to help in initial housing costs.
“We’re going to be open this afternoon and that number will increase, we have another 10 applications pending for assistance,” Prins said on May 16. “A good percentage have been helped and moved out and found a permanent place.”
Heather McNeive, Johnson County’s housing services director, said that the county had three Section 8 households at Aspen Place. Section 8 is a federal rental assistance program to help very-low income families, the elderly, and the disabled with the cost of rent.
“We put out a request to our landlord network and had a great response. Over 130 units were immediately available,” McNeive said in a statement. “That list is being distributed to all the former Aspen Place tenants, not just our three Section 8 tenants.”
The county is using some funding from a grant it received to help with storage fees and security deposits.
“I just want to say that the community of Gardner is phenomenal,” McNeive said. “They have stepped up and raised a lot of money to help these impacted families.”
Additional needs
Once the $160,000 donation runs out, Prins said she doesn’t see The Hope Market continuing with rental assistance since the nonprofit relies on individual and church-based donations for its operations.
“I’m not sure that’s something we have the bandwidth to do in the future,” she said.
For now, Prins said she’d like to focus on maintaining her food pantry operations — which is in need of more donations and volunteer assistance since the Aspen Place closure increased demand.
“It’s hard to find extra grants and funding. We’re a Harvesters Agency. Their donations have decreased in recent months and that of course trickles down to pantries who rely on the assistance,” she said.
Harvesters, a Kansas City-based foodbank network helps allocate food and funding to local food pantries in the area, has seen federal funding cuts that have affected how much food and funding The Hope Market can receive from the organization.
“This time of year with school being out and kids being home, that means parents have more mouths to feed,” she said. The Hope Market is looking for anything that kids would eat like snacks, canned fruit, breakfast items, or cereal bars.
