Does Kansas City REALLY Need 'Low-Barrier' Homeless Shelter?!? In Your Backyard?!?

The basic problem . . . 

Most KC residents would like the help the poor and provide services to even the most desperate souls.

However . . . Nobody wants to live next to a junkie warehouse.

Here's a local prog blog trying squeeze as much advocacy as possible into their reporting . . .

"Last year, the Kansas City Council set out to pass along $7.1 million in federal tax dollars for a low-barrier shelter — a last-resort way to get people off the streets by dropping the usual shelter rules like sobriety or job skills training. It’s a key part of the city’s Zero KC plan to end homelessness by the end of the decade.

"Hope Faith Homeless Assistance Campus landed a grant from the city in January to open a low-barrier shelter at Virginia Avenue and Admiral Boulevard.

"But pushback from residents in Northeast neighborhoods stalled that plan. They’re worried about the safety of a center that they fear would concentrate people with mental health or substance abuse issues to one place. That opposition prompted the City Council to retract its grant to Hope Faith for a low-barrier shelter. "

And thus begins another round of prog blog advocacy . . .

"Factions in the Northeast neighborhood lobbied to split the money among multiple, scattered shelters.

"But that money won’t stretch far enough for multiple shelters. So Hope Faith argues Kansas City needs at least one place that takes in people other shelters turn away — if it wants to make sure people aren’t forced to live under bridges or in encampments."

Actually, it wasn't "factions" it was just about every neighborhood group, association and stakeholder in the area . . . So much so that even council members mostly loyal to the mayor were eager to take a step back from the sketchy plan. 

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

Neighborhood blocks the low-barrier shelter pitched as key solution to Kansas City's homelessness problem

Kansas City is debating how to spend federal funds to shelter chronically homeless people. Residents say they want to see the funds spread between different agencies across the city. But professionals who work with homeless people say that Kansas City can't solve homelessness without a new low-barrier shelter.