KC lacks key type of homeless shelter. How city staff get people out of camps into housing

Nick Allen steps on broken ceramic pieces along a wooded path into a clearing.

The burnt umber fragments clank aloud, announcing his presence.

“Outreach, it’s Nick,” Allen calls out.

His colleague Kevin Morgan explains that the shards are common at the entrance of homeless encampments and serve as an alarm system.

The two are members of a City of Kansas City team working to end homelessness. Allen has been employed by the city for about a year-and-a-half. Morgan started about a month ago. They both have “lived experience” of homelessness, which gives them deeper insights into the challenges — and solutions.

Josh Henges, the city’s houseless prevention coordinator, said outreach workers are special because they can “connect with people facing unimaginable hardship.”

Henges’ team of five has two of these outreach workers.

“Outreach workers navigate dangerous and emotionally taxing environments, offering not just resources but hope and dignity to those who are often unseen and unheard,” Henges said. “Their commitment goes beyond providing immediate needs, they build trust and serve as lifelines for people who may have lost faith in the system.”

The city unveiled a plan to end homelessness in 2022 and has invested in initiatives like affordable housing . But it still does not have a permanent low-barrier shelter, making it an outlier among similar-sized cities. Such shelters accept people without requiring participation in things like religious programs or substance use treatment.

It’s considered a key step in reducing the population of people living outside.

The Kansas City area has the highest percentage of people experiencing chronic homelessness living unsheltered of any major U.S. city, according to a report by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development . Of 280 individuals experiencing chronic homelessness in the area, nearly 96% were living outside.

On a bright fall day earlier this month, Allen and Morgan visited several enclaves, including encampments in wooded areas, a group of mostly younger people living in a vacant lot in the middle of a residential area and another group gathered under a bridge. One person they talked to needed help getting his Social Security checks. Another needed help filling out an apartment application. They searched for a third person, stopping at a few places he is known to frequent, but he wasn’t there.

Allen continued driving around. Sometimes, he said, he feels like half of his job is just finding people. Most of them do not have cell phones and if they do, service doesn’t last long.

Suddenly Allen exclaimed, “That’s him!”

He turned his SUV around at the BP gas station across from Kauffman Stadium and parked at a pump.

“Eugene!” he called out to a man wearing a gray hoodie and red sweatpants, who was standing near his dog and belongings.

Eugene Wallace, 35, approached as Allen got out of the vehicle and told him he had good news: He is getting housing.

“Are you serious?” Wallace said with a big smile. “Thank you.”

His eyes well up.

Wallace said he has slept outside most of his life. He wants to be somewhere warm and “sleep in peace.”

They agree to meet at noon the next day at the same location for the next steps.

A solution for encampments?

The success of Wallace’s story was borne out of three philosophies Allen puts into practice. The first is called “progressive engagement.” It means simply that he shows up. Again and again. He said he spends the vast majority of his time, about 35 hours every week, in the field.

Wallace credited keeping in touch with Allen with being able to secure him housing.

Sometimes, Allen said, he has to be strategic and pick one person to build a relationship with. Sometimes it means building rapport with people who are engaged in things like sex or drug trafficking. And sometimes, Allen said, he feels like he’s on a hamster wheel because he sees the same people over and over, who refuse services like rehab. At times, he blames himself, even though he knows it’s a system problem.

“People die because you don’t have answers for them,” he said.

But it’s apparent that Allen has become trusted by many of the homeless people he has come to know. At a rougher encampment, known for widespread fentanyl use, he gives a fist bump to a man who is guarding the stairs and enters the site. At another, a woman discloses she had recently been hit by someone she knows.

The second concept of outreach is what Allen divides into Type 1 and Type 2. The Type 1s hand out items like meals and propane. As a Type 2 outreach worker, Allen said he is “housing-focused.” He doesn’t give out goods, he wants to solve homelessness. Along with that comes connecting people to services such as substance use treatment or mental health services.

The third approach Allen uses is “clearance and closure with support.”

The city is aware of encampments through its outreach work, 311 calls and the police department. Encampments that become dangerous can be de-commisssioned on short notice, or cleared using a longer process aimed at getting people into housing. Sometimes city departments disagree about which sites should be targeted. Allen said he was going to try to protect one that is relatively stable that came onto the police’s radar recently.

Once he identifies a site, the “clearance and closure with support” process takes about a month. Allen said he visits the sites daily to troubleshoot housing options and to connect people with different services.

It’s resource-intensive work. One closure involved two dozen social workers, Allen said.

He credited Wallace for being willing to work with him during one of those closure processes along 40 Highway, where about 26 people were living. The month-long process took place in September and included about a dozen organizations and a handful of public agencies, from park rangers to public works and public health. The agencies also factored in safety considerations like the presence of fentanyl, needles and firearms.

By the end of the month, they had directly helped 71 times. That included support to get documents like IDs or connecting people with legal services and mental health programs or finding them shelter. Seven people got into transitional housing.

For Wallace, the process included a vulnerability assessment and a housing referral. The referrals go through the Greater Kansas City Coalition to End Homelessness, which has a network of housing options.

No permanent low-barrier shelter

Still, the benefits of “clearance and closure with support” for encampments are limited because the city does not have a permanent low-barrier shelter where people can go. Those who decline services just restart an encampment somewhere else. Sometimes they end up returning to the cleared location.

Allen said the hardest part of his job is that there is a lack of immediate solutions for people staying outside.

“A low-barrier shelter would cure that for me,” he said.

Kansas City is one of the only major cities that does not have a permanent low-barrier shelter, though a temporary one does operate during the winter months.

The City Council rejected a proposal for a permanent shelter earlier this year after some residents in the Northeast neighborhood voiced opposition to the project.

In August, it approved negotiating new proposals with two nonprofits using $7.1 million of federal funding. Those plans will need to be approved by HUD. The timeline and number of beds remains unclear.

Allen said more funding for services and staff would also help. But he tries to stay out of the politics.

He said he’s focused on what he can do day-to-day to get one more person housed.

Last Friday, Wallace was not at the gas station at noon.

Allen drove around to three different areas before locating him. They got paperwork squared away for the housing voucher program. As they were filling out the forms, Allen began to worry about the next steps to ensure Wallace was successful. He later said Wallace will get enrolled in case management and other support services.

Wallace signed the lease. He was able to text his mom about his housing. She replied that she loved him and was proud of him.

A photo of Wallace shows him grinning as he holds up a house key.

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