Although the few warming centers in Johnson County shut down after last weekend’s historic blizzard and the dangerously cold temperatures that followed, one shelter in Lenexa kept its doors open the whole time.
Last Saturday, as sleet and snow began falling, volunteers at Project 1020, Johnson County’s only emergency warming cold-weather shelter, made sure some of those without housing weren’t caught in the potentially life-threatening chill.
With public buildings like Johnson County Library branches shutting down, Project 1020 decided to remain open, increasing its normal, nightly operating hours of 6 p.m. to 8 a.m. to 24 hours for four straight days.
The shelter operates out of the Shawnee Mission Unitarian Universalist Church at 9400 Pflumm Rd., in Old Town Lenexa, its open season running from Dec. 1 through March 31. It has a maximum of 30 beds per night.
‘There was nowhere to go’
For co-founder Barb McEver — who started the shelter in 2015 in Olathe with the late Dean Askeland — and the shelter’s volunteers, she knew they had to step up and be there for people experiencing homelessness, because for some, it might be the difference between life and death.
“I don’t know where I’d be without them right now. I’d probably be froze to death,” said William Coleman, an Alabama native who has been homeless in Johnson County for about five months.
On Saturday night, as the weather worsened, McEver said she opened up the shelter’s doors and didn’t shut them until Tuesday.
“We did that because the libraries were closed. Everything (was closed),” she said. “There was nowhere to go.”
Even as the rain turned to sleet and the snow fell, volunteers for the shelter made sure to stockpile all the resources they needed to shelter and care for people for longer than usual.
“The people that volunteered to bring food … They fought that weather and they got the food here, so that was amazing,” said Kathleen Osbern, a volunteer.
Knowing that their guests were safe from the elements and getting at least some peace of mind for the night is Project 1020’s mission, McEver said.
“We love that we can do it, and that’s why we’re here,” she said. “We figure out a way to make everybody feel welcome and not forgotten and realize that we’re all human beings.”
Housing insecurity remains a hot topic in Johnson County
Even as the shelter prides itself in protecting people without housing in the area during the winter, there’s still the larger problem of addressing homelessness long term.
Johnson County lacks a permanent, year-round homeless shelter, a problem community leaders tried to tackle last year.
In September 2024, the Lenexa City Council denied a special use permit for a proposed Johnson County homeless shelter, also known as the Homeless Services Center, after several lengthy meetings.
That center would have been located at a currently-operating La Quinta Inn and Suites and an adjacent former Denny’s restaurant, a few blocks east of where Project 1020 operates.
Unlike Project 1020, the proposed shelter would have operated year-round and aimed to provide people with the resources they needed so they could get back on their feet and into the workforce.
As part of the city staff’s recommendation to deny the permit, they listed its proximity to Project 1020, about a mile away on the other side of I-35, as a reason, stating it could cause the area to become a “homeless services hub” for the county.
McEver found the process frustrating. She’s still hoping for a more permanent solution because, as she’s seen in the 10 years of operating Project 1020, the number of people in Johnson County without housing continues to grow.
“This is the tenth year for us, and I don’t feel like we’re any further, really, than we were 10 years ago,” she said.
“The county really did try to do something, and it failed,” she added. “But what was plan B? I hope there is a plan B.”
The shelter is seeing more people line up
On the shelter’s first night of this winter season on Dec. 1, McEver said its capacity was already met before its doors even opened.
Every night, McEver said she’s had to turn people away because they’re legally prohibited from housing more than 30 people. It’s a tough reality that she tries not to dwell on.
“It’s just horrible. It’s just something that you can’t get off of your mind,” she said.
In some of those cases, the shelter tries to do what it can for people they turn away, she added.
In November, the Johnson County commission allocated $137,654 of $6.35 million in federal funding — money originally slated to purchase the hotel for the proposed county homeless shelter — to Project 1020.
Since it opened, the shelter has spent about $10,000 of that funding on motel rooms for people it couldn’t accept because it was over capacity.
Even a motel is only a temporary reprieve for the people they serve.
“I wish they were going to that motel thinking, ‘Oh, I’m, I’m going to be OK for just a little bit.’ But they’re not,” she said. “They’re going to that motel thinking, ‘What am I going to do Wednesday at 11 when I have to check out?'”
‘We want people to feel like they matter’
While guests are at Project 1020, they’re given what they need to get through the night and beyond.
The shelter not only gives its guests meals, snacks and a place to sleep, but it also supplies them with essentials, from clothing to shoes and boots to over-the-counter medication and toiletries. Almost all of it comes from donations.
“People are great. They really are. We’ve got a ton of support,” McEver said.
This past Wednesday evening at the shelter following the snow storm, McEver was working without pause. Her phone rang constantly. In the roughly two-and-a-half hours after the shelter opened that night, she had received more than 40 phone calls.
Despite that, she takes time to meet with people at the shelter who are working through a problem, celebrating a job interview or needing a shoulder to cry on.
“We want people to feel like they matter and that this is a good, safe place to come and be treated with dignity and respect,” she said.
The shelter’s personal touch means everything, Coleman, the Alabama native, said.
“The people, the staff, they’re really caring and got good hearts,” he said. “You can see they go out of their way to help us make sure we have what we have, and if they don’t have it, they can get it or find someone who can.”
Before finding Project 1020, Coleman bounced between shelters in the Kansas City metro and sleeping on the streets. Sometimes, he said, the streets were kinder to him than the shelters, calling some of them “horrible.”
Dennis Richardson, a Virginia native who has been homeless off and on for about eight years, agreed.
“I’ve never been to one this good. They give you everything … If it wasn’t for Barb, I’d be dead,” Richardson said.
Guests have different reasons for homelessness
Each guest at the shelter the Post spoke with Wednesday night had a story about how they lost housing.
A 32-year-old, who wished to not have his name used, said he was injured in August after getting T-boned while driving a vehicle for Amazon.
After that, he lost his job and found himself without housing. He’s now hoping to get a worker’s compensation claim paid out to help him pay for a new place to live.
Other guests at the shelter, like Richardson and George Litwin, a longtime Johnson County resident, have been tripped up on their journey to find a job or housing because they need valid identification, which they struggle to obtain without a permanent address.
“It’s failure waiting to happen,” Richardson said, when asked what it’s like to apply for a job without an ID.
While Litwin has a job, his license expired in August, and he has no physical address to receive a new one. While he’s tried every avenue, from renting a P.O. box to trying to get it sent to an old shelter, he’s found no solution that’s worked.
“You don’t realize how bad you need a license until you don’t have one,” he said. “I can’t get a place to stay. I can’t do nothing.”
‘We’re like a brotherhood here’
Every guest at the shelter Wednesday who was willing to speak to the Post at Project 1020 has a goal for what they want to do when they get back on their feet.
Through tears, Leslie George, a Wyandotte County native, said he hopes to find stable housing and turn his struggles into inspiration.
“I just want my life to be good. I want to be a motivational speaker,” he said. “The Lord, he wants me to do that. That’s my calling.”
Once he gets a valid license, Litwin wants to find housing and get back in touch with his son, whom he tears up talking about.
Formerly a zTrip driver, Richardson wants to find a job that keeps him in one place, close to his friends at the shelter.
“We’re like a brotherhood here,” he said.
Project 1020 tries to help guests after they leave
While the shelter is happy to see people get jobs and go out on their own, McEver said they want to walk beside them through that process so they don’t end up back on the streets.
“We try to walk alongside that person because there’s a reason why they were in the situation that they were in,” she said. “If you don’t support them and help them, six months later, there’s a good chance that they come back here.”
In some cases, some people who previously got help at Project 1020 have returned to volunteer, which is the ultimate compliment, McEver said.
“People all the time want to come back and volunteer,” she said. “It’s just a neat thing. It’s not always possible, but I love the fact that that’s what they want to do.”
In the meantime, McEver and the other volunteers will do what they can to protect those people while they figure it out, no matter the weather.
“The people that are guests … they’re just thankful and thrilled,” she said. “Because we do act like this big, dysfunctional family. We’re all figuring it out together sometimes, and I think that’s a cool thing.”
This story was originally published by the Johnson County Post.
