WICHITA, Kan. (KSNW)—In just one week, Wichita's winter homeless shelter will transition into a multi-agency center (MAC). The facility will switch from mainly providing temporary shelter to becoming a year-round one-stop shop that connects people to a wide range of services. There is some heal thcare at the temporary shelter, but it's not enough to avoid calling emergency services. When a patient is uninsured, the county foots the bill for the ambulance. Expanding healthcare services at the MAC comes with a price. Two nonprofits are providing healthcare services at the temporary winter shelter. Hunter Health has a nurse there two days a week for a few hours in the morning. ICT Street Team provides physical and mental healthcare and prescriptions to people without homes. The organization has a staff member and a paramedic there two days a week. "Our hope is to be able to get more people there to cover most of the hours of the day," said paramedic and ICT Street Team clinical care coordinator Jonathan Piper. Both providers hope to expand as the shelter transitions into the MAC. ICT food pantry open since 1975 set to close in July Part of the motivation is cutting down on emergency calls. "A lot of what the healthcare providers who have been going to the MAC are seeing is related to the flu symptoms, the cold symptoms," said Hunter Health CEO Amy Feimer. "There's a solid majority of the (emergency) calls that could probably have been handled (on site) just if the resources were available," Piper said. Both organizations' services are currently funded through existing grants. The ICT Street Team ideally wants $500,000 to fund a care team Monday through Friday, but that's not an easy number to hit in the current environment. "Healthcare funding, federal funding for grants -- there's a lot of uncertainty around that," Feimer said. The MAC board will take over the winter shelter in April. The board sent KSN the following statement: We are honored to work alongside the City of Wichita and caring service providers to make this innovative one-stop resource a reality as we work toward achieving functional-zero homelessness as a community. We look forward to keeping the community updated as plans take shape and move forward in the coming weeks. An important reminder is with this new agreement, the emergency shelter will transition to a year-round shelter starting April 1 -- while we are completing the other phases of the service model. This in and of itself is a huge accomplishment for this community in caring for our neighbors who are experiencing homelessness. We look forward to providing more updates soon. A collaborative health care solution is one of the top priorities and planning is underway for every phase of the construction of the MAC. Those conversations about how to best deliver the best, most efficient health care solutions for multiple situations are taking place with stakeholders across the community from health care, behavioral health, substance use and emergency services. The commitment of these partners to find a collaborative solution is exciting for the community - and the Board is eager to draw from the best practices that have been established from across the community and pair them with the unique one-stop-shop model of coordinated service the MAC will be able to provide." MAC Board For more Kansas news, click here. Keep up with the latest breaking news by downloading our mobile app and signing up for our news email alerts. Sign up for our Storm Track 3 Weather app by clicking here. ...read more read less