KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Kansas City City Councilmembers Melissa Robinson and Melissa Patterson Hazley say they’ll attempt to stop the city from awarding $7,137,610 in federal grant money to Hope Faith Homeless Assistance Campus.
The money is intended to allow Hope Faith renovate its existing facility so that it can become a low barrier shelter that takes in people experiencing homelessness overnight.
Right now they only care for people during the day, except in the winter.
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A low barrier shelter allows people to stay there in almost any condition so that they can also access other services that might help them find more permanent housing solutions.
“The big thing about this is it’s not about shelter,” said Hope Faith Executive Director Doug Langner. “Yes, that’s what brings people in but it’s about setting up partnerships and setting up programs to move people beyond that.”
Last week, Mayor Quinton Lucas introduced an ordinance that would award the money. That ordinance was referred to the Finance, Governance, and Public Safety Committee and, if approved by that committee, could be sent back to the full council later this month.
But, people who live near Hope Faith say they feel like the process happened without them and that they’re carrying too much of the weight of caring for the city’s homeless population.
“They could have talked to [Community Improvement Districts], they could have talked to neighborhoods just to understand what the street level for us is and that was not done,” said Paseo West Neighborhood Association President Evie Craig.
That’s why Craig and dozens of her neighbors packed into a meeting room Wednesday night to tell City Manager Brian Platt that they wished the process had gone differently and they want low barrier shelters spread throughout the city.
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Langner said he agrees with the sentiment that low barrier options should be spread throughout the city, but that his plan to renovate his building is a good first step.
“It’s going to take a much bigger investment to do that in multiple places,” Langner said. “This is an option, this is a solution we can start with. It isn’t the end and I would agree with people: not one places can handle this and I think we need to get going.”
Instead Councilmembers Robinson and Patterson Hazley say they want to find ways to add to that federal money and create low barrier options in multiple places.
“We need multiple sites,” Robinson said. “The federal government allocation isn’t adequate enough, so we’re going to have to invest.”
“We need to be involving our neighbors as the thought leaders that they are so they are informing our projects,” Hazley said.
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The ordinance could be passed by the end of January if Council approves it despite Robinson and Patternson Hazley’s objections. Platt says what happens next is ultimately up to the elected officials.
“Potentially, though, the answer is that we find funding from other places and move forward with multiple responses to the RFP’s and maybe do multiple RFP’s,” Platt said. “There could be a lot of different answers here.”
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