KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Cold weather shelters across the Kansas City area long for the capacity to meet the metro's growing need for homeless assistance services.
Hope Faith’s Homeless Assistance Campus and Project 1020 both opened shelters on Sunday, Dec. 1, the typical start for annual winter services.
Hope Faith’s shelter is open from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. seven days a week until late February and partners with several organizations, including Hope City (for women’s services), Heartland Center for Behavioral Change (for substance abuse help), Unity Southeast, Turning Point (temperature-based) and True Light Family Resource Center (also shelters women).
"This year, we also have some navigators, so meaning everyone that wants to move on and find housing solutions, there’s going to be someone there to really meet those needs, especially with seniors that might come through," Doug Langner, executive director of Hope Faith, said as he showed additional space the organization plans to use for guests this year.
Daytime services will be available when the cold-weather shelter is not operating.
Project 1020 is open from 6 p.m. to 8 a.m. every night.
But with snowy weather and below-freezing temperatures before Dec.1 this year, conditions have created a blanket that's not comfortable to sleep on and a desire from shelter leaders to have more permanent solutions to homelessness.
“We wished it would be even a little bit earlier and stay open a little longer. I think it’s a testament that sleeping outside is dangerous,” Langner said. “I have had people the last few days near here going, ‘Can’t wait till you open, can’t wait till you open.' Just a testament that I think we need to do this year-round.”
In August, the city of Kansas City, Missouri, approved the start of negotiations with Hope Faith to construct a low-barrier shelter at its current location, 705 Virginia Avenue.
“It’s my understanding it needs to be earmarked by the end of this year,” Langner said. “And so, it does have to go back to city council. So, we’ve been saying to the city, 'We’re ready.' We feel like we’ve done everything we can do.”
705 Virginia Avenue is also the former address of one of Hope Faith’s current employees.
“[I was] sleeping right here on the side of the building,” said David Kitchell, who used to be unhoused. “They got me off the street.”
Kitchell now spends more time inside the building than outside.
He said it's clear there's a "homeless problem around here; it's pretty bad."
Kansas City has the highest rate of chronic homelessness per capita in the United States, according to a 2023 study from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
“The need is all over our city, and we really think we need to tackle this very solvable issue,” Langner said.
Twenty minutes across the state line, Lenexa voted down a homeless services center in September.
Barbara McEver watched it all unfold.
“I was really disappointed when that didn't go through,” McEver said. “I’ve said all along, I think there’s so many misconceptions about what it looks like, at least at this shelter.”
The shelter she’s referring to is the one she founded 10 years ago: Project 1020.
The Lenexa-based shelter is the city’s only homeless shelter and low-barrier, cold-weather shelter for adults. It’s open from Dec. 1 to April 1 each year.
Hope Faith has 130 beds to offer, a far cry from Project 1020’s 30-bed, city-mandated limit.
“Yesterday, when the weather changed, I started to sweat thinking about tonight and what I'm going to do when I get to number 31,” McEver said.
In the decade since McEver founded Project 1020, she said one thing becomes more apparent each year.
“Johnson County needs a year-round shelter,” McEver said. “The number of people, it’s only increasing. I mean, we see that every year. Last year, we sheltered over 310 different people.”
McEver said she’d already received 16 calls from people she didn’t know as of mid-afternoon Sunday. She said she refuses to turn people away.
“It’s horrible,” McEver said. “I’m just going to do everything I can do to make other arrangements for that person. I am not going to send them out into the cold. I’m just not going to do it. I think it’s going to be a lot of people … that we’re trying to figure out someplace safe for them to go.”
The most recent data from Johnson County's point-in-time count revealed 250 unhoused people in the county.
With a limited bus system and a lack of vehicles, McEver said transportation is a barrier for people seeking shelter.
And it's not just a Lenexa issue, either.
“Ain’t no buses down there where I live at,” Kitchell said. “I walk all the way up here, walk all the way back there. Sometimes I get rides, but most of the time I walk. I love to walk. Good exercise.”
But that’s not everyone’s outlook or capability.
So until long-term solutions arise, Kitchell, Langner and McEver are all operating with the same mindset.
“It's really important for people to feel like they belong somewhere, and that they're treated with dignity and respect,” McEver said.
To learn more about volunteer opportunities for Hope Faith and/or Project 1020, click on each organization’s name.
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KSHB 41 reporter Rachel Henderson covers neighborhoods in Wyandotte and Leavenworth counties. Share your story idea with Rachel.
