KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Kansas City, Missouri, Mayor Quinton Lucas announced on Thursday the allocation of $4.5 million to assist Kansas Citians who are struggling with rent and utilities.
Through the KCMO emergency rental and utility assistance program, the city will allocate funding to local organizations that work with people in need of help.
That includes Journey to New Life, reStart, the Community Assistance Council and the Metropolitan Lutheran Ministry, among others.
The $4.5 million is part of $14.8 million in federal funding headed to the metro from the Treasury Department as part of the stimulus package passed in December.
"I grew up knowing moving around, I grew up knowing that sometimes it was tough for my mother to pay the full the rent or make ends meet," Lucas said. "So instead of having people get to a point where they're confronted with homelessness instead of creating situations where people need to move, we want to be that bridge."
Several of the organizations receiving funding in this round described the unprecedented demand for housing help as a result of the pandemic.
"There are so many people that are calling for assistance," Stephanie Boyer, Executive Director for reStart, said. "We saw through the course of the pandemic last year, we used to get five calls a day for emergency assistance, it quickly went to 25 calls a day."
Anyone interested in receiving assistance can either call 311 or apply for help on the emergency rental and utilities assistance web page.
