City Of Kansas City: Ready To Help The Unhoused As Winter Weather Approaches

Press release from the City of Kansas City:

11/29/2021 10:18 AM

With winter weather coming soon, City leaders and staff are finalizing preparations to help the unhoused, as well as adding more ways for the community to help. There are new ways for people to drop-off supplies and make donations to help those who are unhoused. A coalition of shelters, outreach workers and advocacy groups worked together to create a centralized drop-off location, hosted by City Union Mission at its Community Assistance Center. “Last winter we had so many wonderful people donate large amounts of blankets and clothes like boots, gloves, and socks,” said Fifth District Councilwoman Ryana Parks-Shaw. “With the season of giving starting again, we want people to have an easy way to help, knowing that the donations will go directly to help those who are unhoused.” “For 97 years we have supported the poor and homeless community to ensure our guests feel safe, secure, valued and respected,” said City Union Mission Chief Executive Officer Terry Megli. “We are now blessed to be providing space for storage of emergency supplies for the street homeless, as part of the city's Extreme Weather Initiative."

Drop-Off Location: 1700 East 8th Street, KCMO

Hours: Mon-Fri noon-6 pm, Sat 9 am- noon

Needed supplies (preferred size is L and XL in men's and women's sizes): New thermal tops & bottoms

New sweatshirts & sweatpants

New socks

New shoes/boots

New face coverings

New scarves

Hand & foot warmers

New sleeping bags/blankets, mylar blankets Like New: Tents, coats, gloves, stocking hats It helps to have the donations folded and organized and dropped off in boxes rather than bags. Do Not Donate: Please do not bring items that are in poor condition, dirty or smelly. Do not bring food or water. Food should be donated through other organizations that specialize in feeding the houseless community. No furniture will be accepted.

“Creative Innovative (CIE) has been fortunate enough to serve on the front line of the houselessness crisis. We are honored and excited that we have been entrusted with providing support for this collaboration. We know that we can go further if we all go together and we have assembled a team of advocates, organizations, and volunteers to do just that.” said Anton Washington, founder of Creative Innovative Entrepreneurs, who also serves on the Mayor’s Houseless Task Force. “Due to extreme weather conditions this is an especially challenging part of the year. With your donations we can attempt to keep our houseless population warm. Our new drop-off location is the hub for cold weather gear to distribute to our houseless population, with the ultimate goal of keeping people free from injuries or deaths. All monetary donations will 100% go towards needed gear.” Councilwoman Parks-Shaw worked with the United Way and the Greater Kansas City Community Foundation to facilitate creation of a special fund to collect monetary donations to help the unhoused. Funds donated to the Keep Caring Foundation will be used to buy blankets, clothes and other personal items. The foundation’s advisory board includes Marqueia Watson of the Greater Kansas City Coalition to End Homelessness, Marlene Nagel of MARC, the Mid-American Regional Council, and Sheriece L. Miller, with Dimas House of Kansas City. Shelter Bed Availability An online dashboard to track shelter bed availability is active on KCMO.gov, the city’s website. The dashboard will be updated daily with data shared by all service providers. This dashboard can be used by shelters, community groups, street outreach workers, and others to find available beds more quickly for those who need a place to stay overnight during winter weather. “When the worst of winter hits, we’ll be ready to help people find shelter space quickly, and make sure that all available space is being used,” said Parks-Shaw, chairwoman of the city’s Houseless Task Force. “This new tool is made possible by increased collaboration by the many shelters across the city.” Creation of the dashboard was promised last month as part of the City ‘s new plan to increase coordination of services for the unhoused. It was built by staff in the Data KC Office at no extra cost to the city. “Tracking shelter bed capacity will enable leaders and staff to see trends more clearly and be better prepared to help with additional resources during extreme weather.” said City Manager Brian Platt. “It will create new data that will help the city, as well as all the shelters, with both short and long-term planning and resource allocation.” This enhanced coordination will prioritize using all existing shelter beds and services each night and will better connect the shelters as they share daily bed count information to make sure people in need can find a bed faster and more easily. This will be especially important during very cold weather when we implement the Extreme Weather Activation Plan. This happens when the daytime high is below 32 degrees, or the overnight low is less than 20 degrees. The activation will include: KCMO Emergency Operations Center opens a hotline to coordinate shelter bed availability.

Ride KC offers free bus rides to shelters, and people can warm up on the heated buses.

When shelters are full, the City will open one or two temporary overflow locations, based on need. The City’s long-term focus to better serve the homeless community is to create more permanent supportive housing and to provide a better response with more resources to those in need. This includes: Allocating $12.5 million to the City’s first-ever affordable housing trust fund that will incentivize the creation of affordable housing units and other housing options within larger otherwise market-rate multifamily development projects

Distributing $14 million in emergency rental assistance funds to over 3,000 households in Kansas City. On average, households received $4,400 to help pay back rent and utilities. This new dashboard tracks our progress.

With community input, developing a “Vision for Housing” that outlines the plan to create 10,000 new affordable housing units by 2027

Establishing a new Housing and Community Development Department with the city’s first employees dedicated to homelessness prevention and support, tenant advocacy, and affordable housing creation and preservation

Converting the nearly 3,000 vacant lots and homes owned by the City’s Land Bank into affordable housing (a new RFP will be released for this shortly)

Turning two former hotels into permanent supportive housing and emergency transitional housing for those experiencing homelessness. This project will be discussed further at a City Council committee meeting in early December.

Constructing affordable housing on city-owned property in creative ways, such as the plan to incorporate affordable housing units into the reconstruction of the Barney Allis Parking Plaza Media questions may be directed to Maggie Green, Media Relations Manager, 816-379-6562.

This press release was produced by the City of Kansas City. The views expressed here are the author’s own.