Homeless Crackdown Won't Help Kansas City Endorsed Po'Folk Camping

We'll talk more about this in the future but here's the deal . . .

KANSAS CITY HAS BEEN EXCEPTIONALLY PERMISSIVE TO HOMELESS CAMPERS SINCE THE PANDEMIC!!!

Like it or not . . . 

Homeless camping season is starting again in KCMO. 

Here's the Missouri effort to push back against the trend that probably won't work without local buy-in and cooperation . . . Check-it . . .

Modeled on legislation pushed in states across the country by a conservative nonprofit from Texas called the Cicero Institute, the Missouri bill sought to ban people from sleeping on state-owned land and allow Missouri’s attorney general to sue local governments that don’t enforce the ban.

But like other rural communities, Bolivar – 30 miles north of Springfield – doesn’t have a shelter, so the only choice many people have is to camp out in public lands, said Titterington, the executive director of Community Outreach Ministries in Bolivar.

 “Unless additional support (both logistical and monetary) is given to small, rural communities for creating shelters and solutions, you just create a stick without a carrot – which is just abusive,” Titterington said in his written testimony to a Missouri House committee in March.

Read more via www.TonysKansasCity.com link . . .

Missouri bill banning unauthorized camping raises concerns about criminalizing homelessness

State Sen. Holly Rehder, R-Sikeston, listens to a question as she presents a bill in committee. // Rudi Keller/Missouri Independent Micah Titterington was among hundreds of organization leaders who opposed a measure in the Missouri legislature this year that they argue would criminalize homelessness statewide.