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A new life at Lotus Care House

A former Days Inn hotel has been transformed into a unique sanctuary for Kansas City's unhoused population. Plus: A Missouri town offers a case study for what happens when rural hospitals close and jeopardize access to critical health care.

Lotus Care House, near 31st Street and Linwood Boulevard, provides shelter and services for people experiencing homelessness. As KCUR’s Lawrence Brooks IV reports, it’s Kansas City’s only “housing-first” option to guide chronically homeless people back to permanent housing.

In many rural towns, local hospitals are community fixtures. When they close, the entire community feels the ripple effects, and access to critical health care is put in jeopardy. For the Midwest Newsroom, Sebastián Martínez Valdivia reports on how this is playing out in one rural Missouri town.

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Kansas City Today is hosted by Nomin Ujiyediin. It is produced by Byron Love and KCUR Studios and edited by Gabe Rosenberg and Lisa Rodriguez.

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As a newscaster and a host of a daily news podcast, I want to deliver the most important and interesting news of the day in an engaging and easily understandable way. No matter where you live in the metro or what you’re interested in, I want you to learn something from each newscast or podcast – and maybe even give you something to talk about at the dinner table.
As an on-demand producer, I am focused on using my skills and experiences across multiple digital applications, platforms and media fields to create community focused audio, video and on-demand products for KCUR Studios. The media that I produce aims to inform, entertain and connect with the Kansas City metro area as we continue to learn from each other. Email me at byronlove@kcur.org.
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