Council - Regular Meeting

Welcome to business session. Our first item is approval of minutes from business session of 03/05/2026. Is there a motion?

So moved. Second.

Moved and seconded that we approve the minutes for business session of 03/05/2026. All in favor, indicate by saying aye. Aye. All opposed? Motion passes. The item for discussion today is the housing gateway program. Board Board of of

Directors

Hi. Good afternoon. To

Directors Board the Board

we're going Directors. Number program in February. We are going to to be be providing you some updates regarding the housing gateway program. And we have Mandy Chapman Simple today to discuss with you more details about the program that have been developed since the inception of the ordinance. So the housing gateway program, we have some updates to share with all of you.

Since February, the initial $1,000,000 that was appropriated to the housing gateway program, We have obtained an additional $3,000,000 $1,000,000 of that was through our the appropriation that this council passed in our budget process. And we've also identified $2,000,000 in home funds that we plan to use for tenant based rental assistance, and that is subject to HUD approval, but that's an additional $2,000,000 that we plan to put towards the housing gateway program. In addition to funding changes, we have also through the business community's generosity retained Mandy Chapman Simple, who is a housing expert from Houston to advise the city on our homeless strategy and our housing gateway program. And in addition to that, we've obtained the KC Chamber of Commerce endorsement for the program, which Kevin will be discussing with you momentarily. And we would like to invite all of you to our program tomorrow where Mandy will be presenting on the housing gateway program to members of our business community, foundations and city leadership.

So that will be tomorrow at eight a. M. Very briefly, I did want to discuss what was in our ordinance regarding our evaluation of the homeless response system. As part of the housing gateway program, we are directed the housing department is directed to perform an evaluation of our homeless system and make recommendations on how to improve that system. We did want to share with you all that there have been resignations from the from the board of directors for the continuum of care.

The executive committee, the president, vice president, and secretary have resigned from those positions. We have a upcoming NOFO coming on June 1, which creates some concerns from from us regarding how the city will be applying for and receiving HUD funding. And we've made a recommendation

to first

And we've

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Great. Well, thank you. It's a pleasure to be here, and I'm excited to share with you the work that we've been doing with the Citi team and in partnership with the business community to really reimagine the way homelessness is responded to in this community, recognizing that there's incredible work that's being done by service providers today, but that some of that work is not necessarily reaching some all of the individuals that are finding themselves outside. And so we're excited to really think about how to be strategic partners in this process with the city and with the business community to create a collective impact structure that can really respond and meet the moment of homelessness as it is today. I'm part of an organization called Clutch Consulting.

We're a small consulting firm based in Houston, and we were really born out of work that was led by the Houston mayor's office that resulted in a 60% reduction in homelessness in Houston in about four years. And so from that work, we really found ourselves committed to a formula that tackled unsheltered homelessness in a very direct way and but also required not just planning and consideration, but real support to implement. And so we formed Clutch Consulting so that we could work from boardrooms to encampments all the way, you know, to stand beside our outreach workers in the field and help communities respond differently to this issue and get real results in real time. This new formula, you know, was something born out of Houston, but one that we wanted to test in cities across the country and certainly recognize that there have been shifting conditions around homelessness for some time, especially since

we've made in with made COVID-nineteen. Past.

And

a very foundation have. So

strong forward, creating proof for that investment in homelessness response can produce real remedy and real relief to the individuals experiencing homelessness, but also to the broader community itself who are experiencing homelessness as it plays out on the streets. Clutch has worked in more than 12 communities to transform those their their street response. We've closed, you know, hundreds of encampments. We've closed four whole zones, downtown zones in cities across the country and directly supported the resolution of over 6,000 individuals from unsheltered homelessness. That's given way to a process that attempts to kind of quite rapidly respond to this issue.

It starts with coming on-site in partnership with the city and with Continuum of Care partners and looking at the data, understanding what are the drivers of homeless homelessness in your community, what are the conditions around homelessness, what's the current performance, and then creating a more targeted strategy to leverage all of your current capacities and to expand or amplify in a strategic way the ability to address both those pain points that are in front of us, but also to prevent those pain points from returning by really anticipating who will be flowing into homelessness in the future and how do we intervene early to avoid some of the long term complexities that we see playing out on our streets today. We did that in December and have quickly now moved into galvanizing public and private partnerships so that we can get to ground as quickly as possible. I just want to appreciate that this is not an elongated planning process, but really a process to get to action as quickly as we can. So without further ado and without going into all the details on this slide, I wanted to give you a snapshot of what we learned from that system modeling so that we're all starting from the same place and understanding the issue.

There are about seventeen fifty single adults that will flow into homelessness each year in the Kansas City region. What's so interesting is about 87 the to the to to be

excited

of

streets. They're often the individuals that are languishing and living in encampments.

And What we also know to be true is that the current shelter capacity is pretty limited and doesn't always align with that particular demand. The other thing we know is that because you have 300 individuals that are experiencing long term homelessness, very naturally, your service providers become quite oriented around those complex cases and working to care for and resolve for those individuals. And the unintended consequence of that is that we're missing the opportunity to intervene for that other 87% who are flowing into homelessness, and this is a new experience and we could just intervene and avoid an elongated stay within the shelter system. We the the very in progress in a year without having to make a single additional investment in the expansion of a shelter bed. And so excuse me.

I'm gonna interrupt you for one second. Councilman Willard is trying to get online and needs to be let in, please. Thank you.

Go ahead. Great. So these are the this is the kind of strategic thinking that went into understanding what are the drivers and then what are the targeted ways in which we can start to pivot and leverage your existing make make we that are make that The first is to eliminate encampments and prevent new street sleeping using new space management practices and enforcement. The second is to focus on immediate interventions and rapid resolution for newcomers that are entering homelessness. The third is to target any remaining individuals experiencing long term homelessness with urgent deep interventions.

We know that not everyone who's experiencing long term homelessness is in an encampment outside, so we want to be mindful that we're factoring in when those individuals are languishing in shelter that we have the resources to be responsive. And finally, the fourth is to prevent long term homelessness going forward. And so we see some modest And going our our and the ability able to for the system financial to respond to all of that annual demand in the most efficient way possible. And that's how we ultimately prevent unsheltered homelessness in the future. So we can conceive an optimized system, but we can't necessarily get there all at once overnight.

And so we broke this down into a ramp up plan or a multi phased strategy. And so in year one, we identified two primary activities. The first is we can begin to permanently decommission encampments and prevent street sleeping in downtown and the entertainment corridors. In order to garner additional

we

deliver

value made

we are past. And these zones progress of downtown, the power and light, the jazz district and the plaza, these are zones that are frequented by many individuals, both who live in those areas, but also own we're

individuals should

not to have to do sleep outside and And we're going going to to be provide remedy for that for those individuals. And we can also maintain safety and maintain health in those communities by preventing individuals from returning to those areas and instead redirecting them to where we've resourced the resolutions and we can be accountable for producing those resolutions from those places. And that really goes to the second activity, which is we then must activate those places of resolution and produce those rapid remedies. And so in addition to the 200 unsheltered individuals over the first year that we intend to respond with a deep intervention, we equally intend to respond to 400 individuals who find themselves new to homelessness, finding themselves outside or without shelter, and we want to immediately redirect them into those environments and begin practicing the ability to deliver those rapid resolutions from low barrier shelter and from within targeted day centers. I think it's helpful to evaluate this through the lens of what's different in this plan from the status quo today, and I think there are a few things.

First, while the city is doing incredible work at being responsive to encampments, this plan takes us one step further to not just be responsive, but to produce complete resolution and to permanently close location by location by location and to maintain closure. Of course, that happens through active partnerships with management districts, law enforcement, private property owners, private security, council districts. You know, it takes the village in in many cases to support our neighborhoods, and now we want to connect our homelessness response activities to then a maintenance strategy that continuously redirects individuals from sleeping outside into those other environments. This also effectively expands partnerships to both respond to nighttime activities to sleeping, but also daytime activities. Many times, there are a lot of things playing out that get tangled with individuals that are experiencing homelessness, and it makes it very difficult to manage our public spaces effectively.

And so by coming into partnership and providing a guarantee that vulnerable individuals are getting the help and remedy that they need, it repositions the entire partnership to also then ensure that bad actors are are being managed accordingly and that we're able to be highly responsive to any safety concerns that may exist for everyone involved. The third is that by default, unfortunately, many of our homeless response systems have become waiting rooms, not by design, but but just by having a lack of resource focused on the ability to produce those immediate interventions. And so we want to go in and be supportive in equipping a culture shift from waiting to rapid resolutions. So we don't want to invite folks in to sit and wait on a list for something to happen. We want to produce that immediate result.

We want to functionally increase shelter capacity through modest expansion and reduced lengths of stay and reduced returns to homelessness. So we want everyone to begin to move through this system absolutely as quickly as possible, what we call to springboard back into stability, and we want the shelter system to become that springboard rather than that waiting room. And the last thing that's different is that it's often difficult to tease apart the need for an emergency rehousing response from the complexity of the affordability crisis that's playing out in front of us. And so we want to appreciate that the continued investment in the expansion of affordable housing is a critical element. But the right now solution for individuals who are experiencing the slide.

Slide. To And to

next

a transition plan ongoing. And so one of the the ways one of the differences in this program is we no longer ask the actual individuals experiencing homelessness or even the social workers that are their case managers to go and of

number businesses have we businesses

businesses are get us into the the market. Market and give us access to quality units where individuals can stabilize, gain rental history and then effectively transition from that point forward. And so that is a really exciting new dimension to this work. So finally, we have put a budget around all of this and started to indicate exactly the likely split between public and private investments. We know that the public investments are particularly critical for the rental assistance, for example, but we need some flexible dollars from the private sector in order to create incentives in the market to buy furniture kits and move in kits.

And so you can see from this budget, we are anticipating about a $10,000,000 year one strategy. And we're really excited to demonstrate that the city has already made a commitment of about $4,000,000 as Mary reported. And there's been early activation on the part of the private sector to contribute toward these costs, you know, with that socialization happening in real time over the next couple of days. And so with that, I'll turn it over to Kevin to provide additional information about the private sector's commitment.

Yes. So far, the group of businesses have been involved in this. It's been very, very small. We wanted to stay nimble, and we wanted to raise the funds quickly in order to get sorry, Mary Mandy on board, but also really started with a small group of business people working with city staff to determine who the best consultant was on this issue, and that's how we determined it was Mandy. Tomorrow will be the first day where a larger group of business leaders and philanthropic leaders have had a chance to

the in

we've very very progress be able And to to that

And

to

to then we'll do that.

That.

Right

think think that's point. Important I that's important very term, it would be something that would be managed and the sustainability of the funding would come from the city. But we're off to a very good start. No one has had no, not one business leader, not one foundation leader has said, no, I don't want to do this. It's count us in.

We want to be there. We're going be there to hear about it. So in fact, Mary already mentioned that the chamber actually has endorsed a resolution that sort of outlines what the plan is, the Gateway Housing Program also endorsed the hiring of Mandy and really encouraging much more cooperation from the business community, collaboration with the city to stand up a very transparent program that is sustainable well into the future. I think you may have that in front of you. If not, there are copies of it here. Think

great

question. Question. Think that's And I a a that's the civic council, the downtown council, the chamber and a broad ranging of members of the business community. So I want to commend the for the or the city council for your passing the ordinance now. It seems like just yesterday, but it was a few weeks ago because it really led the way for helping us get others involved and just shows that the city is a team.

Great And

that's and question.

And

U. Mr. Mayor.

Over here. I know it's confusing, not sure. Thank you, Kevin. Welcome to Kansas City. Very excited about your work. I have a couple of detailed questions, but I'm going to begin with a more broad question. So Houston has seen a 60% decline in its population of folks who are chronically homeless. But in the 2025 count, they actually saw an increase, which was a reverse of the trend from the last couple of years, which was a pretty dramatic decrease. What happened in Houston and why is why did the population move in that direction?

So if you're talking about chronic homelessness versus overall homelessness, I just wanna kind of appreciate parsing a little bit. So if you look at the trajectory in Houston, right, big dramatic reduction. And then the difficulty for Houston has been in kind of holding and continuing to chip away at that without the ability to make substantial investments. So one of the most interesting things about Houston is that it has a revenue cap and is constrained in its ability to invest general revenue. And so all of that work that was accomplished was without an investment in general revenue, was just leveraging their existing entitlements and the likes.

They leveraged every opportunity that came their way, had a huge investment of resources from ARPA and COVID and actually came right to the edge of, you know, fully scaling their system to be highly responsive. And then with the transition into the new administration, that funding fell off a cliff. And so what you're witnessing in the data in Houston itself is a reflection of when you resource this system to meet that annual demand, that's when you can hold steady and continue to decline. But when you stop resourcing that system, then that inflow accumulates inside your system. And so the new administration is deeply committed on this.

They have some different ideas about how to secure the funding that's needed to move this in that direction. They're still constrained by the revenue cap issues. And so that's it's really a reflection of complex funding environment and a deep commitment on the part of the previous administration to dedicate ARPA dollars and then not having a way to sustain that.

Yeah. So, it sounds like in Houston, they don't have a sustainable municipal funding source for their programming.

That's correct. And that's been a a large topic of conversation. And I think timing, political timing is everything on some some of those issues. And so Houston is contemplating that sustainable sustainable revenue strategy both at a city level, but also at a county level. And I'm just appreciating that that work is actually, know, there's a large urban county and then two adjacent counties.

So it's somewhat similar in its regional reach. And so contemplating the appropriate shared revenue strategy is a complex consideration. Dallas is in a really similar situation, and I think they're probably closer to a remedy on that issue. But but this is something that communities across the country are up against, especially as the federal funds begin to shift, and the local problem remains the local problem.

Yeah. I think that's an important takeaway from Houston, and I share this comment with the mayor and the city manager about a sustain sustainable funding source. We have $22,000,000 in federal funding from HUD right now, 17,000,000 of that is at risk potentially next year, which I think makes our funding situation a little more difficult to manage moving forward. If we put a $0.38 sales tax on the ballot for this specifically, we know it would generate 22,000,000 to $24,000,000 a year, which is what we did for the public safety sales tax. And it would give us control over a funding source that we currently have $22,000,000 that we have very little control over that goes through the COC and all the issues that we're going to And be

to

percent tax. It could be some other fraction, but it would give us I think the takeaway from Houston is exactly that, is that you need I think we need a municipal funding source that doesn't put us at the mercy of whoever is in control of the federal government at the time because I think the decision we're gonna have as a community soon, very soon, is are we gonna comply with what the Trump administration and HUD are imposing on communities, which include ordinances that are criminalizing homelessness, abandoning housing first, getting away from or accepting binary gender classifications, those are all things that I think we're not going to want to do. And so that funding is going to be at risk. And if we control our own destiny, then I think it makes us all more successful. A couple more questions.

And this is on Slide two for titled The Plan Year one Targets. If we can bring that back up on the slideshow.

This one?

Yes. So under Activity one. So I want to try and reconcile this with what I know housing staff have been doing for the last year under Nicholas Allen and his outreach work. So we had three additional outreach positions that are in the process of being filled. That would give us four outreach workers that we don't have now.

Under the one outreach worker with Nicholas Allen and Josh Hinges going out, we were closing about one encampment a month and doing great work. We had one in Sheffield that housed about 82% of the folks that were closed. If you bring that to scale with three additional positions, it seems like we would be able to do maybe more than the 200 folks that are listed here, more than one encampment a month. And maybe I'm reading that wrong, but I'm trying to understand with our new capacity, getting those new positions filled, what that will allow us to do. And the second part of that is because I look at the zones that are listed here, Downtown, Power And Light, Jazz, what is CCP? I don't know what that is.

The Plaza, Country Club Plaza.

Oh, Country Club Plaza. Okay. Sorry, 6th District. I didn't know you guys are acronyming that now. Turn to be trendy. I don't you know, we so encampments are what? Three individuals or more? I don't know that we have that many encampments within these specific areas. Maybe a lot of the folks that travel to and from encampments. I can think of a handful that are, but I think it's a lot. I don't see the encampments in those areas that I see in some of our neighborhoods in big empty lots. And so I'm trying to reconcile what we already do, what our capacity will allow us to do and how that will interact with what's listed to occur in these zones?

Yes, great question. So we're going to take a zone approach to these environments. So within so we're going to look at sleeping, day and nighttime activities, whether they're in an encampment or not. So just to put a finer point on that. Within those zones, there are some encampments that we'll target.

And what we're doing is additive here. So in addition to the capacity and the way that capacity functions today, we're bringing a new tool on board that allows us to target without reliance on cobbling together or hoping we can find resolutions for those individuals through the existing system, which is already operating, right, from a place of scarcity. And so we're standing up an additional lane of capacity that can be targeted that delivers, that holds the resolutions in hand. So when I go to this encampment or I go to the zone and I identify that there's 50 individuals that are actively sleeping between these encampments and the zones in downtown, I'm making that number up. I don't don't we don't know the exact number at this time.

We will have the resolutions in hand to offer every one of those individuals a direct pathway out of homelessness and into stabilization, into housing. And that is what's going to equip us with the ability to say, and now from this point forward, as we've resolved all of the regular sleepers in this zone, we're not going to allow sleeping to occur on the backside of that. It doesn't change the activities that those outreach workers might be engaged in from a health and safety perspective. You know, your current kind of prioritization of those encampments is, you know, rated based on those conditions, you're still going to be responsive simultaneously while we're doing this targeted work with the goal in subsequent phases to expand that work, right, to the totality of those zones. The difference is inside these zones, we're going to prevent kind of repopulation or reoccurrence of encampments.

And as I understand it today, that while good resolution is happening as a result of the city's team, many of those locations ultimately backfill with new individuals, right? And so what we're trying to do is start to control to prevent that backfill without disrupting the city's ability to continue to be responsive. Yeah.

And I'd like to add to that as well, councilman Minrea. Part of the city's limitations is that we have to coordinate several different departments to do an encampment closure. So we have to public works participates in the abatement of the encampment, and KCPD is also provides assistance. So with the addition of new outreach workers, we we also have those limitations with how many can be closed with our other departments as well. So hopefully, we are able to accelerate closures, but, it's going to be an interdepartmental coordination effort.

Thank you. It was very helpful. I appreciate that.

Councilman Duncan.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Mandy, good to see you again. I want to add to the zone concept, and you correct me if I'm wrong, the fact that we're also trying to prove a concept. And I think it's important that in these zones, these are some of the most visible folks who are in our in house population.

Not to detract about the camps that are in some of these neighborhoods that are will continue to be a problem, but we have to garner support for this program. And I think we have to show proof that it's working. And I think that's part of is that part strategy of as well to help Kevin and his advocacy as well. So I'm excited about this. I think for a long time, we've been chasing our tail as far as, all right, we're moving folks from one place to another place.

At the end of the day, people need to be housed. How are we housing the people? I think excited to get a federal housing voucher.

About

And believe, it's over 2,000 families who are currently on that waitlist. And this is us taking matters into our own hands to remedy that issue. So I'm excited about this. I know it's a big undertaking, but we can't do nothing. So happy to continue to support. I think it's something that do it. Going

so

we're it, I still didn't, to to miss Owens, do see anything related to how you would diversify the placement of the municipal vouchers. So I'm interested in how, we will ensure that those vouchers are avail available throughout Kansas City. So,

councilwoman Patterson Hasley is asking about our landlord engagement strategy, and something that we are certainly wanting to do is concentrating all of the placements of our of our homeless individuals in one district. And so that in landlord engagement strategy will include efforts able able 20. First

And And And I think I could speak to what we've done historically in other communities that might be helpful. So one of the most important things when we're approaching the rental market is to take a very data driven approach to that. So rather than relying on the areas where we've always relied on or the landlords that we've always considered, we actually pull data about the totality of the rental market. And we look for a variety of owners within that market that have vacancy or properties that fit kind of right in the sweet spot that we're looking for. And so we form a list and we, you know, want that to be we want that to be diverse because we also know that individuals experiencing homelessness are coming from all different parts of this community.

And so we want to give give the ability to return to to those those communities from which folks came from, you know, or neighborhoods, right, within the market. So we're going to develop a list of those landlords. We're going to outreach to those landlords. That's where having a dedicated landlord engagement team becomes really powerful. If we were to rely on social workers, it's going able to to ir we're be do do first quarter And so so we're we're gonna going try be to push do the boundaries of that as much as possible through that data driven approach.

So

I don't mean to rude, but that's not good enough. So I think that, it's sort of a chicken and egg as it relates to development patterns, especially in Kansas City. And so, for you to say some of it's out of your control in terms of where the units are that you can afford, that's gonna lead you to where the development pattern is gonna lead you. So it's gonna lead you to red line neighborhoods. It's gonna lead you to where the appraisals are depressed because of banking discrimination.

It's gonna lead you to neighborhoods that will have been destroyed by 71 Highway. That's where it's gonna lead you, and you don't even need statistics for me to tell you that. And so at some point, you guys are gonna have to make a decision that that's not acceptable whether it leads you there or not. And so exacerbating the the issue of of poverty concentration will be a net negative to the people that live near it. So you'll be solving a problem and you will be causing a bigger problem of societal concentration of poverty.

And so and I don't see that reflected in this anywhere as being another issue that causes you to then have more issues that are expensive to solve. So if you're not thinking downstream of what's gonna happen based on you solving problem a, then you're gonna have problem b, and it's gonna be really expensive. Yeah. And so I've mentioned this many times, many many times about how important it is and what it does to a community when you put all of the undesirable projects in that area. And then it just becomes acceptable, and it's very difficult politically to stop doing it.

And so because I've mentioned this so many times, I've tried to put it in the legislation that it needs to be paid attention to, but it's still not reflected in presentations when you guys talk about it. It makes me feel like that is not as important as I'm trying to convey to you, being a person that lives in an area with concentrated poverty every day. Maybe you don't. I do. And so I know the impact that it has on people that are trying to make a life for themselves and raise their children and do the right thing and pay their taxes.

And when you have an overwhelming geographic placement by policy, it makes it hard for people to live a good life. The people that are experiencing the poverty and the people that are not because you're grouping them all together and it and it has a negative and the US government knows this. There's lots and lots of research about it. I'm not making it up and I'm not a genius. I've just read about it. It continues to get overlooked when we have these conversations.

Yeah. I wanna validate everything that you're saying and appreciate that those standards and those values are necessary when we're thinking about the development of of new affordable housing, right, and the importance of spreading that out. This project is not about the development of affordable housing, but rather about creating an emergency rehousing system that uses the existing rental market. And so that there's these two things, I think, become complementary. We want to build the capacity to help people avoid languishing in homelessness, and we equally want to expand where affordable housing exists.

But this plan is really focused on building that emergency rehousing. I think housing and community development has other projects that are focused on the expansion of affordable housing.

No, ma'am. They work together. They work together. Even though it's not new housing, it is still housing in an area that allows you to get the price point that you want because it's in a depressed area. So you're making a delineation between it being a rental.

Also, due to redlining, the 3rd District has a overrepresentation of rental properties. So, again, it's gonna lead you right back to where the problem is because that's where the rental users are due to US policy. So I'm just trying to get everybody to pay attention to it. So you're not gonna be deliberately trying to do it. The economic development pattern is going to lead you to it and it's going to solve your problem for you.

And you wanna solve your problem. You're laser focused on solving your problem, but you're not thinking about all of the other processes that lead you to where you think your problem needs to be solved. So I know you're trying to say it's not affordable housing creation, but the affordable housing rental stock exists because of the banking policies that are already bank baked in. They're already there for you. So you don't need to create it.

It's been created for you. And so you've gotta find a way to put your foot down and not continue to concentrate poverty. You you just gotta make a decision that's not that that's not acceptable because anybody in the community that will notice this happening to their neighborhood would stop you. If anybody in I'm not gonna name names, but I can name some expensive streets in this city. And if anybody noticed that there were four or five housing gateway vouchers within this three block area, then people would be down here filling up this room and you would have a problem.

You would get negative community feedback for concentrating it, and I want the same type of treatment in my district even though my people are at work and can't be down here at 02:00 and 01:00. They still feel the same way, but they at work. Yeah. So that's all I have to say about it. I'm gonna just write some legislation and force it because I've said it six, seven, 11 teen times, and I still don't see it reflected in how we're going about talking about this problem. So I'll have something from the floor today.

Thank you, councilman Patterson. Hasn't he's the council mayor pro tem.

Actually, I just want to remind you that it actually is in the $1,000,000 legislation that the council appropriated. You really have the same statement. So you actually did put that language into our ordinance that we passed back a couple months ago.

I have no idea. And what I'm saying is I'm not satisfied with how the presentation doesn't give a a close look at it. So I know that I've written it in there. It's like two sentences, and I thought that was a good enough, you know, fix. But as we're having this constant this as we're having this conversation, mister mayor, I don't see it being paid attention to. And I find it to be very serious. I mean, I think it's very, very serious. So I would like it to be talked about every time we talk about this.

Yes,

ma'am. Other questions or comments? Councilwoman French.

Just to expand upon that a little bit because I wholeheartedly agree with my colleague. Do we have a a map, a regional map, zoning, kind of like what we're looking at, what's available as far as temporary housing, permanent housing, like existing stock, not just new development or potential new development or affordable housing and new

We're doing a housing assessment as part of our five year consolidated plan with HUD, and so we're going to be doing a very robust assessment of our local housing stock. We have not identified or started the process of working with landlords yet, but we certainly will be able to provide you more information when that work is underway.

Okay. Because I'd like to be involved with that too because I've made it very well known that we want to look at that in the Northland as well and specifically the second with do government. Government. And we have a or weather shelters, quote, and things like that, we don't seem to have any I feel like the Northland's not paid attention to. And I think my council owner is right that it's very concentrated in certain areas, and we're not looking at the city as a whole and the needs for the city as

a whole.

Also had another question just with numbers alone. When you say individuals are experiencing long term houselessness, what constitutes

constitutes long long term? Term? Yes. So that is an experience of homelessness for longer than a year.

Okay. So longer than a year. So you're saying seventeen fifty, seventeen fifty single adults are entering houselessness

we're a of business. In

the And

with we'll slide. The the trajectory next of this, And but it is not representative as a fully scaled solution. So what comes under this are subsequent phases in order to continue to systematically scale. So this is just a first step to a step to build proof, right, and to demonstrate that we can move forward. But we're

still saying there's about 1,300 individuals plus the 300, so 1,500 individuals are kind of left in that we'll wait and see you're in a purgatory trial

able going to

then

we're going that. Otherwise, you would be see a lot more homelessness. Right? They're eventually finding their way out, but they're staying in that experience of homelessness on average four months before they find their way out. And so this is filling your shelter beds, kind of clogs up your system because we're not doing enough to intervene early. And so, you know, we certainly every community kind of makes a decision about what their first bite can look like as we move in this direction. And so we landed on this year one strategy relative to the resources that we could likely activate in this first period of time. How do we establish a proof

able to And

do that. In world.

And thing seeing is we're

people Those individuals a who are getting a deep intervention, we're staying with them for twelve months to support the stabilization. Those individuals that are new to homelessness, we're giving them a pretty light touch and and, you know, letting them them go. For both populations, We're looking at the data and analyzing our individuals returning. Are they finding themselves back in homelessness again? And so if an individual, for example, we provided a light touch the twelve months, what that's going to signal to us is that we need to consider a deeper intervention in order to stabilize.

For those individuals that were providing twelve months of stabilization support, that deep intervention, we will also look for the next twelve months after they exit that intervention, do they return? And what the data historically has showed us from all of these other cities that have implemented this model is about eighty five percent of individuals do not return to homelessness after they exit the program on month 13, and we monitor that for another twelve months. So it's it's pretty good. Not to it's not perfect. It's not 100%, but it affords us the ability to kind of slow that inflow by reducing the number of returns and shortening lengths of stay

in homelessness. And that eighty five percent was the deep dive? Or is

that Eighty five percent of the people that get that deep intervention do not return to homelessness within twelve months of exiting the program. The early interventions, this is this is a relatively new emerging practice because the entire country was kind of kind of finding itself, you know, operating a lot of waiting rooms and not necessarily focused on on these early interventions. And the crisis of unsheltered homelessness is forcing everyone to look at the efficiency within their own shelter systems. And so we're just on the cusp in many of these cities of activating these new front door resolutions. But but the the data overwhelmingly shows us that we can reduce lengths of stay and reduce returns to homelessness when we can scale.

Right? And and we are just not fully scaled yet in in any one community to so so that I can give you even more reliable data on it. And I

just wanted to add to Mandy's point. I think one thing about this program that's different than our current system is that we're really not set up at all to address those newly unhoused individuals. So they're coming into a system that has wait lists, and we're they're they're have to be homeless for several months up to a year before they're being able to receive any kind of housing benefit. And so this is trying to address that population before they get to that chronic state in addition to providing more assistance to the chronic population.

And that's why it's kinda getting that 87% Yeah. And kind of where we are in the deep dive versus kind of like Like if we

can get to the newly unhoused and address the chronically unhoused simultaneously, that's really the path forward for us, we think.

So the ones that don't get

the deep dive, they still get resources, financial literacy, like help with childcare assistance? Yes. Those rapid resolutions is really based on creating a flexible pool of resources coupled with a problem solving or diversion specialist that really ask the question, what is it going to take to help you kind of stabilize? And so in many cases, it's a combination of onetime financial assistance that could go to an array of things, but also a connection to those other types of supports and services within the community that are going to help them stabilize and stay out of homeless

And point. Point. That's hasn't always been in this space. And what long term impact do we expect both on our tax base and our taxpayers? And I say it with an understanding of the magnitude of the problem, but also an understanding of general fund challenges.

The city continues to have rising pension and insurance costs, cost of employees and others. Is it the anticipation that this becomes a permanent program? In the event it does not become a permanent annual program, what follows after the conclusion of the period of what might otherwise be a pilot? And I'll have that, I guess, be the first question.

Yes. So I think the contemplation here in the context of a public private partnership is as this project is implemented and you're seeing the results that you're interested in, there is a collective question that has to be asked, which is how do we continue to scale this system? Rarely does it fall to any one particular governmental entity be the sole bearer of that, I think there's always a lead and I think cities oftentimes bear an outsized responsibility to lead on the issue, but most typically we tend to look toward counties to provide some of the ongoing resources that sustain these programs. And then we, you know, ask of our private funding partners to help us move in the direction toward that particular, you know, scaled programming that we're looking for that can be sustained, right, with, you know, those suitable mechanisms. And and ultimately, many communities find themselves in a very similar situation where we understand the problem in front of us today, we're starting to get a handle on what the the ongoing demand might look like, and we now need to both respond to what is, an urgent need in front of us while also simultaneously commit to defining a sustainable strategy for what ultimately is is often kind of coming to be understood as critical infrastructure or a critical safety net that supports broader rehousing opportunities.

Mr. Mayor, may I add something to this? Again, I spend a lot of time in cities in our region and cities outside of our region. And I know you do, too. But if you look to the East, the next major city to the East right now has office vacancy rate of 60% downtown.

Able a we're so better we're we're do that. And major city to the West, they are now going looking at a 40% office vacancy rate, and people are leaving the downtown rapidly. They had three years of net decrease population in that city that had been growing for years and years and years. I consider this issue the biggest threat to certainly our downtown businesses. Know of three businesses right now that are considering leaving Kansas City, Missouri, and all three of them are looking at the other side of the state line because of this issue.

This is the number one issue. And I know one or two have already met with you and maybe our city manager, but it's very serious because their employees that work downtown no longer feel comfortable walking from the parking lot to the building or they no longer want to live downtown. And it's not that all the homeless are dangerous, they're not. It's just people in crisis interacting with people that are working and living downtown is not a good mix. It's not a good mix.

We've had 70 on our properties, we had 72 reported incidents in the last twelve months, not all of them were the homeless. But it's a very serious issue for those of us that have people that live and work downtown. So doing nothing is just it's not an option unless you want to go downtown and have it look like it doesn't to the big city of the east of us right now, which is not good.

I think I would add an additional question to that and point understood on that. I'll still look for kind of from someone, and I mean, guess I'll just be a taxpaying Kansas the point City at which we get to the end of what this pilot period would be. But we do owe that long term plan to our taxpayers, to be just quite honest. And what we can't do is kind of hodgepodge it, right? We will continue, to your point, to invest mightily in the police budget.

That city to the east is having debate now between its new Board of Police Commissioners and the city on bankrupting the city just to fund that. They may not even have resources for the homelessness issue. And so it is something that I think is just core to our discussion. My only other question as the hour gets later is a flip side. Actually, it's a it's related to councilwoman Patterson Hasley's question.

I appreciate the focus in the 3rd District, right? So my sister and mother live on the Eastern edge of the 3rd District where for for future. Foundation the areas that also very much deal with these issues consistently, how do you plan to ensure that they are part of this discussion as well when they may not have some of the same stakeholders as downtown council,

And

do to that.

And to to excited of world. Response in Kansas the City. We have a lot of resources invested in this issue across several different foundations and governmental entities. And I think this effort is really trying to coordinate

opportunity level of 're

the to level

very

excited our come to the for public input so that we're really engaging excited the public in a meaningful way. But your point about funding, resources exist in our system. They're just not being used efficiently. They're it's very siloed. And we are going to be supplementing the current system with this program, but this is bigger than just housing gateway.

We want to have an overhaul of our entire system. And that includes stakeholder input, that includes looking at our funding sources and aligning that funding. But I think that this is a comprehensive plan to address what is not working in our community. And we certainly don't mean to exacerbate any housing discrimination issues that have historically been in place in Kansas City. And I think that the input regarding including our our community in this process is very much, recognized, and we'll be sure to include them moving forward, as we continue to develop this plan.

Well, I appreciate that. I'll just, I'll conclude with this and very much heard on the point you raised, Mr. Barth, in terms of making sure we stay regionally competitive, and that is a priority of ours. I will also note, though, that there are many communities in our city where, for lack of a better term, folks have almost gotten used to it. Not that they've accepted it, but you may not actually hear the same concern or complaint from somebody who for thirty, forty years knows that there have been people at x or y corners, spot establishments.

And so I think the challenge to our housing staff and as you build out this program is to make sure that you are reaching to them through means by which we may not typically do so because it doesn't mean the problem is any less. Frankly, it doesn't mean of Directors Board Board of Board of of of