KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The houseless community in Kansas City is remembering two of their own. Marcia Boring and Eugene Shaw were murdered on Friday, May 6, near 2nd Street and Lydia Avenue.
Hope Faith, a Kansas City-based assistance campus for people experiencing homelessness the two victims to attend, hosted a balloon release in their honor on Friday. Friends and family of the two were joined by community advocates.
“All too often, especially for our homeless, houseless guests, we can let their legacy be forgotten,” Hope Faith’s Executive Director Doug Langner said.
According to Langner, roughly 3,000 people are houseless in Kansas City every night. He says the number has spiked quite a bit since just a few years ago.
He personally knows at least four people in his houseless community that has been murdered since December.
“People are afraid. You and I can go home and we can lock the door and have some sense of safety. They don’t have that luxury,” Langner said. “We’re gonna have to see what we value. Do we actually value that people are not living on the streets? Is that a value, because right now, that is a value that is okay with our society.”
Levada McHenry, Boring’s sister-in-law, says the hardest part is feeling like the community could have done more to protect them.
“I wish I was there for you, I wish I was there, you know. I wish I was there,” McHenry said. “I couldn’t be there, and that hurts.”
McHenry remembers Boring as a good soul with a humble heart. She says Boring was houseless by choice and found her second family in the Hope Faith community.
“She judged not anyone, she took you how you were,” McHenry said.
According to McHenry, Boring leaves behind two children ages 21 and 32.
“It hurts and someone is walking around with dirty hands — maybe two people, I don’t know,” McHenry said. “I don’t think it’s so much as forgiving, it’s accepting. It’s more accepting what someone did. How do you do that?”
The pain of the family is rippling through the houseless community as well. Jenelle Simmons, who knew the victims, hopes the murder of her two friends can be an eye-opener for change, because every loss feels like their own.
“I was homeless too not long ago, it wasn’t okay out here and these people are not safe,” Simmons said. “It could’ve been me. I’m nice to everybody, I’m cool with everybody but that doesn’t mean it couldn’t have been me. And thank God it wasn’t."
According to the Kansas City, Missouri, Police Department, there are no updates to the case and no arrests have been made. The department is still asking for the public’s help.
