KANSAS CITY, Mo. — It’s National Safe Place Week, an annual effort to raise awareness about youth homelessness, which Synergy Services' street outreach team works to combat daily.
KSHB 41’s Rachel Henderson highlighted the initiative last year by talking with youth who’ve benefited from QuikTrip as a Safe Place.
There are multiple Safe Place sites around Kansas City, including QuikTrip, KCMO/Mid-Continent Public Libraries, YMCAs, metro buses and restaurants.
Typically, the spaces are indicated by yellow and black signs.
Youth in need of immediate help can go inside a place with a sign, tell an employee at the location they’re in need of a Safe Place, and that person will call the hotline so a Safe Place responder will arrive to help.
Synergy Services partners with reStart and Drumm Farm to operate as the metro Kansas City Safe Place sponsor.
“A lot of the crises that happen are after hours, and so Safe Place provides that safe harbor for someone to go when they can’t get ahold of their case manager,” said Lindsey Cattanach, a street outreach specialist with Synergy Services.
Her job is to go out and look for youth in the Kansas City area and let them know about the services Synergy offers, which includes food, laundry and connection to housing.
“I think I always knew there was a need with adults, but I didn’t realize how much of a need there was with youth,” Cattanach said.
The Greater Kansas City Coalition to End Homelessness’ 2024 point-in-time count reported over 2,200 people in Kansas City experience homelessness each night. The report also indicated Kansas City Public Schools reports 1,200 youth within the district do not have homes.
Synergy Services said Kansas City has over 2,000 homeless youth.
“It’s harder to visualize a homeless youth because they’re not going to be in camps, they’re not going to be out walking the streets like some of our other folks will be,” Cattanach said. “It’s more youth that are staying in cars or that are staying with friends and don’t have access to long-term, stable housing.”
That makes locating homeless youth difficult at times, especially during the day.
“Often, we’re out all day and we don’t see anybody, but the importance is still there because we’re giving cards out, we’re making connections,” Cattanach said.
She said the 24-hour access Safe Place locations offer makes a world of difference.
“Some of the shelters that they go to or the community resources they use are closed, but they know 24/7 they can go to QuikTrip and ask for help,” Cattanach said.
The point of Cattanach’s job is to make sure people know help exists in the first place.
“I think our youth have also lost a lot of faith in the adults that they trust, so a bigger part of our job is building that trust with them and helping them learn how to trust again,” Cattanach said. “A lot of the time, they feel like they’ve been failed time and time again, so they give up that piece of hope.”
Cattanach wants to be a safe resource people can trust, but that's something she said everyone can take part in by remembering humanity.
“Remember they’re humans and they deserve the same love we all deserve,” Cattanach said.
You can text SAFE and your street address, city and state to 44357 to locate the closest Safe Place location to you, 24 hours a day.
—
KSHB 41 reporter Rachel Henderson covers neighborhoods in Wyandotte and Leavenworth counties. Share your story idea with Rachel.
