Greg Campbell, 42, has been living on the streets on and off for a number of years. On a recent, frigid February night, under an Interstate Highway 35 bridge in Kansas City's Westside, he stood in line to pick up some cold weather supplies and a hot meal from the Uplift Organization, which serves unhoused people from a mobile unit across the metro.
Campbell said he’d tried to enter shelters in the past, but with a history of bouncing in and out of correctional facilities, he said he suffers from Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. He doesn’t do well in crowded or group settings.
“Being out there in these shelters, being around a bunch of people, it seems to trigger my C-PTSD,” he said, going on to explain it causes him to act out in anti-social ways.
Campbell represents a group of unhoused individuals who are frequently not allowed in shelters due to issues of mental health or addiction, criminal or behavioral records. But in accordance with the city’s Zero KC plan, designed to end homelessness and operated out of the recently-created Office of Unhoused Solutions, the city has partnered with several agencies to make beds accessible to anyone during the coldest months of the year. The city recently announced that on March 1, it would begin working with four partner agencies to expand access to these so-called low barrier shelters all year long. The greater access will make 160 additional beds available by summer 2025.
Greater need
Kansas City has seen a rise in homelessness in the last few years while shelter space has not kept pace. In a report prepared by the Greater Kansas City Coalition to End Homelessness, using data collected by the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development's Point-in-Time count, the number of unsheltered individuals rose from just over 800 in 2022 to 876 in 2023. Those already living in shelters rose even more.
The city's Houseless Prevention Coordinator, Josh Henges, said the office saw a 78% increase this year over last year in the number of unhoused individuals who took advantage of the additional low-barrier resources made available through Zero KC.
“We want to make it a space that is easy to get in and hard to get kicked out of,” he said.
Henges said some shelters demand guests to enroll in programs or meet requirements that make it impossible for them to stay.
“It's often a really difficult first step for folks who have been living outside a long time," Henges said. "They're not ready to make that commitment.”
The 160 additional beds will be divided up among four agencies: Heartland Center for Behavioral Change, Open Door, True Light and ReStart.
ReStart Inc., at 918 East 9th Street, already operates as a year-round low barrier shelter. CEO Stephanie Boyer welcomes the additional 30 beds the expansion is providing.
“We’re pretty much at capacity 365 days a year, including the winter months, despite not being a part of the cold weather emergency shelter network.”
Boyer has said the new beds at ReStart Inc. will be specifically for women. Serving the growing number of women in need of shelter is part of the agency's strategic plan.
“Since the pandemic, really, we have seen a significant increase in single elderly women experiencing homelessness”, said Boyer. “One of our teams went to one of the cold weather places last night that is serving women to start trying to gather some information to see who we need to be targeting."
Slow process
The city is touting the expansion as a win in their strategy to reduce the number of Kansas City’s unhoused people. For the past three years, the city has been partnering with shelters to provide a place for those living on the streets to be inside during the coldest months of the year. The collaboration has allowed partners to standardize intake and care protocols as well as collect data, laying the groundwork for a more efficient process as they move to year-round, low-barrier access.
“These low-barrier bed spaces available to all, regardless of circumstances, will establish a sustainable system and pathway to permanent housing for those most vulnerable in our community,” Mayor Quinton Lucas said.
But on KCUR’s Up To Date in January, the mayor alluded to challenges the city has faced as it has worked to provide more services for those experiencing homelessness.
“We ran into very strong neighborhood opposition," Lucas said. "We are proceeding with our plan to build a low-barrier shelter and to probably have that open later this year.”
Last week’s announcement may be a compromise in the city’s effort to create one 24/7, low-barrier shelter, a partnership with the federal government the city discussed with residents in Historic Northeast Kansas City earlier this year. The idea was not well received. Residents said they felt left out of the planning process.
The city’s homelessness coordinator Josh Henges is not deterred.
“It's sometimes tough to get people to understand the difference between what a low-barrier shelter is and what current shelter offerings exist," he said. "Part of ending homelessness, and I would say the hardest part, is getting people to understand what it really takes to do it.”
