KANSAS CITY, Mo — On cold winter nights like the ones the Kansas City area has experienced recently, extreme street outreach groups are out with those with nowhere to go.
They provide hats, gloves and other winter essentials to those unsheltered. They do this by going around to different encampments around Kansas City.
Anton Washington is the executive director of Creative Innovative, one of the leaders of the outreach group.
"We're out here till like 1:00 in the morning making sure people stay connected, stay warm, doing wellness checks," Washington said. "Those wellness checks keep people alive."
For people like Clinton Walker, just two weeks ago he was living in one of these encampments. The group helped him find housing and a job.
"Whew, the grace of God," Walker said. "I was out here on the first couple of nights we had the huge snowstorm. For the first time in my life, I found that I had nowhere, nothing, no one to be at, no car. For the first time in my life, I was at absolute zero."
The group has been out for 16 nights straight hitting as many encampments as they can until food runs out, something Washington calls his life duty.
"I give my life to these people because they are my friends," Washington said. "I know them because of the fact I grew up with some of them, I was in prison with some of them. And a lot of people don’t know that about me."
As for Walker, he now helps give back to the people he once called his neighbors as he counts his blessings.
"I never thought I'd be in that position," Walker said. "And honestly when I got there, I never thought I get out of it by the hands of another person."
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