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Kansas City helps homeless youth with new grants for transitional housing and services

Synergy Services provides crisis and transitional housing, along with emotional support and wraparound services, until youth experiencing homelessness have a safe place to return to.
Synergy Services
Synergy Services provides crisis and transitional housing, along with emotional support and wraparound services, until youth experiencing homelessness have a safe place to return to.

Kansas City awarded $800,000 in grants to three nonprofits that serve homeless youth— an effort to protect the metro's at-risk residents and prevent adult homelessness.

Kansas City’s Housing and Community Development Department recently awarded $800,000 total in grants to three local nonprofits that serve youth experiencing homelessness.

The grants are part of Zero KC, a city initiative to make homelessness rare, brief and non-recurring.

The recipients were Synergy Services Inc., reStart Inc. and Artists Helping the Homeless.

According to Synergy executive director Robin Winner, that $300,000 will help it expand support services for homeless youth, including a 30-day crisis housing and 18-month transitional housing programs and physical and mental health support services.

Without this intervention, “homeless kids become homeless adults,” according to Kansas City houseless prevention coordinator Josh Henges. “You're investing in the citizens that are going to be incredible and valuable to your city.”

In 2024, Winner says, Kansas City’s homeless services rejected over 1,200 young people who requested housing due to limited resources. At particular risk of experiencing homelessness, she noted, are LGBTQ+ youth and those experiencing community or domestic violence.

Under an executive order from the Trump administration, federal grant proposals must be free of words that may suggest “equity initiatives,” such as “women” or “victims” — common language in grant requests for homelessness support services. Henges said that the local grants are a way for the city to support nonprofits while they adjust to the federal restrictions.

After youth voluntarily enter the program, Synergy Services provides support and communicates with their families to return them to a safe environment.

“We can help them change their lives, and that the return on investment is major,” said Winner.

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When I host Up To Date each morning at 9, my aim is to engage the community in conversations about the Kansas City area’s challenges, hopes and opportunities. I try to ask the questions that listeners want answered about the day’s most pressing issues and provide a place for residents to engage directly with newsmakers. Reach me at steve@kcur.org or on Twitter @stevekraske.
Georgia Kerrigan is the 2025 summer intern for Up To Date. Email her at gkerrigan@kcur.org
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