Welcome to business session.

Our first item is approval of minutes from business session of March 5th, 2026.

Is there a motion?

So move.

Second.

The moved and seconded that we approve the minutes for business session of March 5th, 2026.

All in favor indicate by saying aye.

Aye.

All opposed.

Motion passes.

The item for discussion today is the Housing Gateway Program.

I believe we have the housing department and other friends here with us.

We'll hear a presentation.

Hi, good afternoon.

My name is Mary Owens.

I'm the Deputy Director of Housing and Community Development for the City of Kansas City.

And I'm joined by the HM.

My name is Mandy Chapman Simple.

I'm managing partner of Clutch Consulting Group.

And I'm Kevin Barth.

I'm with Commerce Bank here in Kansas City.

And we're here today to uh follow up on the ordinance that was passed on the Housing Gateway program in February.

Um we are going to be providing you some updates uh regarding the housing gateway program.

Um and we have uh Mandy Chapman Simple today to discuss with you uh more details about the program that have been developed uh since the inception of the ordinance.

So the housing gateway program, we have some updates to share with all of you.

Um since February, uh the initial one million dollars that was appropriated to the housing gateway program.

We have uh obtained an additional three million dollars.

Um one million of that was uh through our uh the appropriation that this council passed in our budget process.

Um and we've also identified $2 million in home funds that we plan to use for uh tenant-based rental assistance, um, and that is subject to HUD approval, but that's an additional two million dollars that we plan to put towards the housing gateway program.

In addition to uh funding changes, we have also um through the business community's generosity retained Mandy Chapman Simple uh who is uh a housing expert uh from Houston to advise the city on our homeless strategy and our housing gateway program.

Um, and in addition to that, we've obtained the KC Chamber of Commerce endorsement for the program, which Kevin will be discussing with you momentarily.

Um and we would like to invite all of you uh to our program tomorrow uh where Mandy will be presenting on the Housing Gateway program to members of our business community, foundations, and city leadership.

So that'll be tomorrow um at 8 a.m.

Um very briefly I did want to discuss uh what was in our ordinance regarding um our uh evaluation of the homeless response uh system um as part of the housing gateway program um we are directed uh the housing department is directed to perform an evaluation of our homeless system and make recommendations on how to improve that system.

Um we did want to share with you all that uh there have been uh resignations from the um from the board of directors for the continuum of care.

Uh, the executive committee, the president, vice president, and secretary um have uh resigned from those positions.

Um, we have an upcoming NOFO uh coming on June 1st, which creates some um concerns from from us regarding how the city will be applying for and receiving HUD funding.

Um and we've made um a recommendation to you all that an audit uh will be or should be performed um by the city uh with respect to some of the uh claims that were raised by the executive committee.

Um and upon receipt of an audit report, we will fold that into our systems analysis as part of our housing gateway systems response valuation.

All right, I'm gonna turn it over to Mandy who will walk us through uh the housing gateway program.

Great.

Well, thank you.

It's a pleasure to be here, and I'm uh excited to share with you the work that we've been doing with the city team and uh in partnership with the business community to really uh uh reimagine the way homelessness um is uh responded to in this community, recognizing that there's incredible work that's being done by service providers today, but that some of that work uh is um not necessarily reaching some of all of the individuals that are finding themselves outside.

And so we're excited to really think about how to be strategic partners in this process with the city and with the business community to create a collective impact structure that can really respond and meet the moment of homelessness as it is today.

I'm part of an organization called Clutch Consulting.

We're a small consulting firm based in Houston, and we were really born out of work that was led by the Houston mayor's office that resulted in a 60% reduction in homelessness in Houston in about four years.

And so from that work, we really found ourselves committed to a formula that tackles unsheltered homelessness in a very direct way, and but also required not just planning and consideration, but real support to implement.

And so we formed Clutch Consulting so that we could work from boardrooms to encampments, all the way to stand beside our outreach workers in the field, and help communities respond differently to this issue and get real results in real time.

This new formula, you know, was something born out of Houston, but one that we wanted to test in cities across the country and certainly recognize that there have been shifting conditions around homelessness for some time, especially since that dramatic reduction that we achieved in 2016, almost 10 years ago.

And so this new formula is has been applied in cities across the country, each adapting it to their unique conditions, each contributing to new lessons learned and to a continued evolution.

And you can see that there are new cities joining in this effort each week, working diligently to close encampments and to move communities forward, creating proof that investment in homelessness response can produce real remedy and real relief to the individuals experiencing homelessness, but also to the broader community itself who are experiencing homelessness as it plays out on the streets.

Clutch has worked in more than 12 communities to transform those their street response.

We've closed, you know, hundreds of encampments, we've closed four whole zones, downtown zones in cities across the country, and directly supported the resolution of over 6,000 individuals from unsheltered homelessness.

And looking at the data, understanding what are the drivers of homelessness in your community, what are the conditions around homelessness, what's the current performance, and then creating a more targeted strategy to leverage all of your current capacities and to expand or amplify in a strategic way the ability to address both those pain points that are in front of us but also to prevent those pain points from returning by really anticipating who will be flowing into homelessness in the future and how do we intervene early to avoid some of the long-term complexities that we see playing out on our streets today.

We did that in December and have quickly now moved into galvanizing public and private partnerships so that we can get to ground as quickly as possible.

I just want to appreciate that this is not an elongated planning process, but really a process to get to action as quickly as we can.

So without further ado, and without going into all the details on this slide, I wanted to give you a snapshot of what we learned from that system modeling so that we're all starting from the same place and understanding the issue.

There are about 1,750 single adults that will flow into homelessness each year in the Kansas City region.

What's so interesting is about 87% of those individuals are experiencing new homelessness.

And so that represents a real opportunity to intervene early.

But there are still another 300 of those individuals that are experiencing long-term homelessness, and these are often the faces that we see over and over on our streets.

They're often the individuals that are languishing and living in encampments.

What we also know to be true is that the current shelter capacity is pretty limited and doesn't always align with that particular demand.

The other thing we know is that because you have 300 individuals that are experiencing long-term homelessness, very naturally your service providers become quite oriented around those complex cases and working to care for and resolve for those individuals.

And the unintended consequence of that is that we're missing the opportunity to intervene for that other 87% who are flowing into homelessness, and this is a new experience, and we could just intervene and avoid any elongated stay within the shelter system.

And to put a finer point on that, even if individuals stay in your shelter system 60 days, if we were to reduce that to 30 days, you would functionally double your shelter capacity in a year without having to make a single additional investment in the expansion of a shelter bed.

Excuse me, I'm gonna interrupt you for one second.

Councilman Willard is trying to get online and needs to be let in, please.

Thank you.

Go ahead.

Great.

So so these are the this is the kind of strategic thinking that went into understanding what are the drivers and then what are the targeted ways in which we can start to pivot and leverage your existing capacities to move the needle on homelessness and unsheltered homelessness in particular.

So what that gave way to was the design of an optimized system that really can produce more immediate results.

It includes four things.

The first is to eliminate encampments and prevent new street sleeping using new space management practices and enforcement.

The second is to focus on immediate interventions and rapid resolution for newcomers that are entering homelessness.

The third is to target any remaining individuals experiencing long-term homelessness with urgent deep interventions.

We know that not everyone who's experiencing long-term homelessness is in an encampment outside, so we want to be mindful that we're factoring in when those individuals are languishing in shelter that we have the resources to be responsive.

And finally, the fourth is to prevent long-term homelessness going forward.

And so we see some modest expansion of temporary low barrier shelter capacity paired with some new front door triage practices and these rapid interventions can really support consistent bed turnover and the ability for the system to respond to all of that annual demand in the most efficient way possible.

And that's how we ultimately prevent unsheltered homelessness in the future.

So we can conceive an optimized system, but we can't necessarily get there all at once overnight.

And so we broke this down into a ramp up plan or a multi-phase strategy.

And so in year one, we identified two primary activities.

The first is we can begin to permanently decommission encampments and prevent street sleeping in downtown in the entertainment corridors.

In order to garner additional investment to be comprehensively responsive, we need to prove that an investment can actually produce real results.

And results mean things that people can see and feel in the broader public.

And these zones of downtown, the Power and Light, the Jazz District, and the Plaza, these are zones that are frequented by many individuals, both who live in those areas but also who come to visit and engage right in business and entertainment and activity within the core of your city.

And so we really want to demonstrate that both individuals should not have to sleep outside, and we're going to provide remedy for that for those individuals.

And we can also maintain safety and maintain health in those communities by preventing individuals from returning to those areas and instead redirecting them to where we've resourced the resolutions, and we can be accountable for producing those resolutions from those places.

And that really goes to the second activity, which is we then must activate those places of resolution and produce those rapid remedies.

And so in addition to the 200 unsheltered individuals over the first year that we intend to respond with a deep intervention, we equally intend to respond to 400 individuals who find themselves new to homelessness, finding themselves outside or without shelter, and we want to immediately redirect them into those environments and begin practicing the ability to deliver those rapid resolutions from low barrier shelter and from within targeted days day centers.

I think it's helpful to evaluate this through the lens of what's different in this plan from the status quo today, and I think there are a few things.

First, while the city is doing incredible work at being responsive to encampments, this plan takes us one step further to not just be responsive, but to produce complete resolution and to permanently close location by location by location and to maintain closure.

And of course, that happens through active partnerships with management districts, law enforcement, private property owners, private security, council districts, you know, it takes the village in many cases to support our neighborhoods, and now we want to connect our homelessness response activities to then a maintenance strategy that continuously redirects individuals from sleeping outside into those other environments.

This also effectively expands partnerships to both respond to nighttime activities to sleeping, but also daytime activities.

Many times there are a lot of things playing out that get tangled with individuals that are experiencing homelessness, and it makes it very difficult to manage our public spaces effectively.

And so by coming into partnership and providing a guarantee that vulnerable individuals are getting the help and remedy that they need, it repositions the entire partnership to also then ensure that bad actors are being managed accordingly, and that we're able to be highly responsive to any safety concerns that may exist for everyone involved.

The third is that by default, unfortunately, many of our homeless response systems have become waiting rooms, not by design, but just by having a lack of resource focused on the ability to produce those immediate interventions.

And so we want to go in and be supportive in equipping a culture shift from waiting to rapid resolutions.

So we don't want to invite folks in to sit and wait on a list for something to happen.

We want to produce that immediate result.

We want to functionally increase shelter capacity through modest expansion and reduced lengths of stay and reduced returns to homelessness.

So we want everyone to begin to move through this system absolutely as quickly as possible to what we call to springboard back into stability, and we want the shelter system to become that springboard rather than that waiting room.

And the last thing that's different is that it's often difficult to tease apart the need for an emergency rehousing response from the complexity of the affordability crisis that's playing out in front of us.

And so we want to appreciate that the continued investment in the expansion of affordable housing is a critical element.

But the right now solution for individuals who are experiencing homelessness isn't waiting for that eventual unit.

Rather, we have the ability to buy into our existing market today by using time limited rental subsidies, and we can get people into the market, and then we can help them identify a transition plan ongoing.

And so one of the ways, one of the differences in this program is we no longer ask the actual individuals experiencing homelessness or even the social workers that are their case managers to go and try to negotiate with a landlord for a unit.

Instead, we concentrate our collective buying power, we have dedicated landlord engagement specialists, and we create you know business deals that get us into the market and gain and give us access to quality units where individuals can stabilize, gain rental history, and then effectively transition from that point forward.

And so that is a really exciting new dimension to this work.

So finally, we have put a budget around all of this and started to indicate exactly the uh the likely split between public and private investments.

We know that the public investments are particularly critical for the rental assistance uh, for example, but we need some flexible dollars from the private sector in order to create incentives in the market to buy furniture kits and move-in kits.

Um so you can see from this budget, we are anticipating about a $10 million year one uh strategy, and we're really excited to demonstrate that the city has already made a commitment of about four million dollars as Mary reported, and that um there's there's been early activation on the part of the private sector to contribute toward these costs, uh, you know, with that socialization happening in in real time over the next couple of days.

Um and so with that, I'll turn it over to Kevin to provide additional information about the private sector's commitment.

Yes, so far the uh the the group of businesses that have been involved in this, it's been very, very small.

We wanted to stay nimble, and we wanted to raise the funds quickly in order to uh get um um uh Mary, sorry, Mary, uh Mandy on board, but also really started with a small group of business people working with uh city staff to determine who the best consultant was on this issue, and that's how we determine it was Mandy.

Um tomorrow will be the first day where a larger group of business leaders and philanthropic leaders have had a chance to uh hear from Mandy, hear about the plan as it is today, and hear what next steps are.

We'll also at the end of the meeting tomorrow be talking about the fact that we'll be setting up a uh a funding advisory council for lack of a better term.

Uh we'll have it nailed down by tomorrow.

Uh, that will be uh working alongside um members of the city staff in the city uh to hear Mandy's recommendations to look at the work that is recommended and to ensure that we have execution and proper accountability.

Uh again, part of that will be to also raise funds from the philanthropic and business community.

I anticipate that most of those funds will be used to stand up a model that Mandy's going to recommend for us to get it up and running, working alongside the city for a period of a couple years, but but long term uh it would be something that would be managed and uh the state sustainability, the funding would come from the city.

But we're we're off to a very good start.

No one has had no not one business leader, not one foundation leader has said uh no, I don't want to do this.

This count us and we want to be there, we're gonna be there to hear about it.

So in fact, um Mary already mentioned that the chamber actually has um endorsed uh a resolution uh that sort of outlines what the plan is, the gateway housing program also uh out uh endorsed the hiring of Mandy and uh and really encouraging uh much more cooperation from the business community collaboration with the city to stand up a very transparent program that is sustainable well into the future.

Uh I think you may have that in front of you if the if not there are copies of it here.

I fully expect that the uh civic council and the downtown council will be endorsing the same uh document, the same program.

Um it's just it's been my problem, I've gotten in front of them to ask them to endorse it yet, but we had lots of discussions, and uh I haven't been that involved with the efforts with the city and the business community working together, but this may be one of the few times where I've observed uh uh complete endorsement by the city council, the civic council, the downtown council, the chamber, and uh, and a broad ranging uh members of the business community.

So I want to commend the the chamber for the or the chamber, the city council for your passing the ordinance now.

It seems like just yesterday, but it was a few weeks ago, uh, because it really led the way for helping us get others involved, and just shows that the city's willing and ready to work alongside the business community and the philanthropic community to make a difference.

I've talked to uh city leaders from Houston, uh Tulsa, and now Dallas, where Mandy's done work, and I know we can do this if we all work together to get it done.

So Mandy, we're very happy to have you on board.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Any questions for our presenters today?

Councilman Ray.

Thank you, Ms.

Mayor.

Um I know it's confusing.

Uh that chair.

Thank you, Kevin.

Uh, welcome to Kansas City, very excited about your work.

Um, I have a couple detailed questions, but I'm gonna begin with the more broad question.

So, um Houston's seeing a 60% decline in its population of folks who are chronically homeless, but in the 2025 count, they actually saw an increase, which was a reverse of the trend from the last couple years, which was a pretty dramatic decrease.

What happened in Houston and why is why did the population move in that direction?

Um, so if you're talking about chronic homelessness versus overall homelessness, I I just want to kind of appreciate parsing a little bit.

So if you look at the trajectory in Houston, right, big dramatic reduction, and then the difficulty for Houston has been in kind of holding and continuing to chip away at that without the ability to make substantial investments.

So one of the most interesting things about Houston is that it has a revenue cap and is constrained in its ability to invest general revenue, and so all of that work that was accomplished was without an investment in general revenue, it was just leveraging their existing entitlements and the likes.

Um they leveraged every opportunity that came their way, had a huge investment of uh resources from ARPA and COVID, and actually came right to the edge of a you know, fully scaling their system to be highly responsive, and then with the transition into the new administration, that funding fell off a cliff.

And so what you're witnessing in the data in Houston itself is a reflection of when you resource this system to meet that annual demand, that's when you can hold steady and and continue to decline.

But when you stop resourcing that system, then that in inflow accumulates inside your system.

And so the new administration is deeply committed on this.

They have some different ideas about uh how to secure the funding that's needed to move this in in that direction.

They're still constrained by the revenue cap issues.

Um, and so that's but it's really a reflection of um uh a complex funding environment and a deep commitment on the part of the previous administration to dedicate ARPA dollars um and then not having a way to sustain that.

So it sounds like in Houston they don't have a sustainable municipal funding source for their programming.

That's correct, and that's been a large topic of conversation.

Um, and I think uh timing it political timing is everything on some some of those issues.

Um, and so Houston is contemplating uh that sustainable sustainable revenue strategy, both at a city level but also at a county level.

Um, and and I just appreciate that that work is actually um, you know, there's a large urban county and then two adjacent counties, so it's somewhat similar in its its regional reach.

Um, and so contemplating the appropriate shared revenue strategy is a complex consideration.

Dallas is in a really similar situation, um, and I think they're probably closer to um uh a remedy um on that issue, but but this is something that communities across the country are up against, especially as the federal funds begin to shift, um, and the local problem remains the local problem.

Yeah, I think that's an important takeaway from Houston, and I share this comment with the mayor and the city manager uh about a sustainable funding source.

You know, we have 22 million in federal funding from HUD right now, 17 million of that is at risk potentially next year, which I think makes our funding situation a little more difficult to manage moving forward.

If we put a three eighth cent sales tax on the ballot for this specifically, we know it would generate 22 to 24 million a year, which is what we did for the public safety sales tax, and it would give us control over a funding source that you know we currently have 22 million that we have very little control over, that goes through the COC and all the issues that we're learning about from the COC aside.

You know, I think the only way we truly address this issue is if we have that long-term funding source and we just pass a public safety sales tax.

We know it can generate that 22 million dollars.

It doesn't even have to be a 38 cent sales tax, it could be some other fraction, but it would give us uh I think the takeaway from Houston is exactly that is that you know you need I think we need a municipal funding source that doesn't put us at the mercy of who's a whoever's in control of the federal government at the time, um, because I think the decision we're gonna have as a community soon, very soon, is are we going to comply with what the Trump administration and HUD are imposing on communities, which include ordinances that are criminalizing homelessness, abandoning housing first, getting away from or accepting binary gender classifications.

Those are all things that I think we're not gonna want to do, and so that funding's gonna be at risk, and if we control our own destiny, then I think it makes us all more successful.

Um a couple more questions, and this is on slide two for titled the plan year one targets.

We could bring that back up on the slideshow.

Mr.

Yes, so under activity one, uh so I I want to try and reconcile this with what I know uh housing staff have been doing for the last year under Nicholas Allah's Nickel Sallon and his outreach work.

Um so we had three additional outreach positions that are in the process of being filled.

Um that would give us four outreach workers that we don't have now.

Under the one outreach worker with Nicholas Allen and Josh Hinges going out, we were closing about one encampment a month and doing great work.

We had one in Sheffield that uh housed about 82% of the folks that were closed.

Um, if you if you bring that to scale with three additional positions, it seems like we would be able to do maybe more than the 200 folks that are listed here, more than one encampment a month, and maybe I'm reading that wrong, but I'm trying to understand with our new capacity getting those new positions filled, um, what that'll allow us to do.

And the second part of that is because I look at the zones that are listed here, downtown power and light, jazz, what is CCP?

I don't know what that is.

The Plaza, Country Club Plaza.

Oh, Country Club Plaza, okay.

Um sorry, sixth district.

I didn't know you guys are acronyming that now.

Turn to be trendy.

Um, I I don't, you know, we so encampments are what three individuals or more.

I don't know that we have that many encampments within these specific areas.

Maybe a lot of the folks that travel to and from encampments, I can think of a handful that are, but I think it's a lot.

I don't see the encampments in those areas that I see in some of our neighborhoods and big empty lots.

And so I'm trying to reconcile what we already do, what our capacity will allow us to do, and how that will interact with what's listed to occur in these zones.

Yeah, great question.

So we're gonna take a zone approach to these environments.

So within so we're gonna look at sleeping day and nighttime activities, whether they're in an encampment or not.

So just to put a finer point on that, within those zones, there are some encampments that we'll target.

And um, what we're doing is additive here.

So in addition to the capacity and the way that capacity functions today, we're bringing a new tool on board that allows us to target without reliance on cobbling together or hoping we can find resolutions for those individuals through the existing system, which is already operating right from a place of scarcity.

And so we're standing up an additional lane of capacity that can be targeted that that delivers that holds the resolutions in hand.

So when I go to this encampment or I go to the zone and I identify that there's 50 individuals that are actively sleeping between these encampments and and the zones in downtown, I I'm making that number up.

I don't, I don't, we don't know the exact number at this time.

We will have the resolutions in hand to offer every one of those individuals a direct pathway out of homelessness and into stabilization into housing.

And that is what's going to equip us with the ability to say, and now from this point forward, as we've resolved all of the regular sleepers in the zone, we're not going to allow sleeping to occur on the backside of that.

It doesn't change the activities that those outreach workers might be engaged in from a health and safety perspective.

You're still going to be responsive simultaneously while we're doing this targeted work, with the goal in subsequent phases to expand that work right to the totality of those zones.

The difference is inside these zones, we're going to prevent kind of re-population or reoccurrence of encampments.

Right.

And so what we're trying to do is start to control to prevent that backfill without disrupting the city's ability to continue to be responsive.

And I'd like to add to that as well, Councilman Rea.

Part of the city's limitations is that we have to coordinate several different departments to do an encampment closure.

So we have to public works participates in the abatement of the encampment, and KCPD is also provides assistance.

So with the addition of new outreach workers, we also have those limitations with how many can be closed with our other departments as well.

So hopefully we are able to accelerate closures, but it's going to be an interdepartmental coordination effort.

Thank you.

This is very helpful.

I appreciate that.

Councilman Duncan.

Thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

Mandy, good to see you again.

I want to add to the to the zone concept, and you correct me if I'm wrong, the fact that you know we're also trying to prove a concept.

And I think it's important that you know in these zones, these are some of the most visible folks who are on house in our on-house population, not to detract about the camps that are in some of these neighborhoods that are continue will continue to be a problem.

But we have to garner support for this program, and I think we have to show proof that it's working, and I think that's part of is that part of the part of the strategy as well to help uh Kevin and his advocacy as well.

So I'm excited about this.

I think um, you know, I think for a long time, you know, we've been chasing our tail uh as far as you know, all right, we're moving folks from one place to another place.

At the end of the day, people need to be housed.

How are we housing the people?

Um, I think you know, this is also uh a solution to fill a gap, right?

We know that it's it's uh generally a two-year wait to get a federal housing voucher.

Um we have um, I I believe it's over 2,000 families who are currently on that wait list.

And um this is us taking matters into our own hands to just to remedy that that issue.

So I'm excited about this.

Um I know it's it's a big undertaking, but uh we can't do nothing.

So um, happy to continue to support um I I think it's something that not only uh not only that we have to do, but something that we can do.

And so I'm I'm I'm excited.

Thank you.

So uh Councilwoman Patterson has it.

Thank you, honorable mayor.

Um hi, thank you for the presentation.

Um, unless I missed it, I still didn't um Miss Owen, see anything related to how you would diversify the placement of the municipal vouchers.

Um so I'm interested in how um we will ensure that those vouchers are available throughout Kansas City.

So um councilwoman Patterson Hasley is uh asking about our landlord engagement strategy, and something that we are certainly wanting to do is ensure that we're not concentrating all of the uh placements of our of our homeless individuals in one district, and so that in landlord engagement strategy will include efforts to diversify that, and we'd love for you to be involved with that planning with us.

But we are um we haven't formalized uh our our landlord engagement strategy.

We're we're we'll we're still undertaking that part of it.

I think I could speak to um what we've done historically in other communities that might be helpful.

So one of the most important things when we're approaching the rental market is to take a very data-driven approach to that.

So rather than relying on the areas where we've always relied on or the landlords that we've always considered, we actually poll data about the totality of the rental market, and we look for um a variety of owners within that market that have vacancy or properties that fit kind of right in the um sweet spot that we're looking for.

And so we form a list and we you know want that to be, we want that to be diverse because we also know that individuals experiencing homelessness are coming from all different parts of this community.

And so we want to give the ability to return to to those those communities from which folks came from, you know, or neighborhoods, right?

Within the the market.

So, so we're gonna develop a list of those landlords, we're gonna outreach to those landlords.

That's where having a dedicated landlord engagement team becomes really powerful.

If if we were to rely on social workers, it's a perfectly appropriate that they go to the landlords that they already know.

Um, but we wanna, you know, and have had great success in kind of changing those dynamics and creating more diversity.

The one caveat that I'll put into that is that we also can't control where those units are in the market that meet that sweet spot from a cost perspective, and so um we're at the mercy of of the economic environment that we're up against, and so we're gonna try to push the boundaries of that as much as possible through that data-driven approach.

So, um, I don't mean to be rude, but that's not good enough.

So I think that it's sort of a chicken and egg as it relates to development patterns, especially in Kansas City, and so um for you to say some of it's out of your control in terms of where the units are that you can afford, that's gonna lead you to where the development pattern is gonna lead you.

So it's gonna lead you to red line neighborhoods, it's gonna lead you to where the appraisals are depressed because of banking discrimination, it's gonna lead you to neighborhoods that have been destroyed by 71 highway.

That's where it's gonna lead you, and you don't even need statistics for me to tell you that.

And so at some point, you guys are gonna have to make a decision that that's not acceptable, whether it leads you there or not, and so um exacerbating the issue of poverty concentration will be a net negative to the people that live near it.

So you'll be solving a problem, and you will be causing a bigger problem of societal concentration of poverty, and so um, and I don't see that reflected in this anywhere as being another issue that causes you to then have more issues that are expensive to solve.

So if you're not thinking downstream of what's gonna happen based on you solving problem A, then you're gonna have problem B, and it's gonna be really expensive.

Yeah.

And so I've mentioned this many times, many, many times about how important it is and what it does to a community when you put all of the undesirable projects in that area, and then it just becomes acceptable, and it's very difficult politically to stop doing it.

And so I've mentioned it so many times, I've tried to put it in the legislation that it needs to be paid attention to, but it's still not reflected in presentations when you guys talk about it, it makes me feel like that is not as important as I'm trying to convey to you.

Being a person that lives in an area with concentrated poverty every day.

Maybe you don't, I do, and so I know the impact that it has on people that are trying to make a life for themselves and raise their children and do the right thing and pay their taxes, and when you have an overwhelming geographic placement by policy, it makes it hard for people to live a good life, the people that are experiencing the poverty and the people that are not because you're grouping them all together and it and it has a negative.

And the U.S.

government knows this.

There's lots and lots of research about it.

I'm not making it up, and I'm not a genius.

I've just read about it.

It continues to get overlooked when we have these conversations.

Yeah.

I I want to validate everything that you're saying and appreciate that those standards and those values are necessary when we're thinking about the development of new affordable housing, right?

And the importance of spreading that out.

This project is not about the development of affordable housing, but rather about creating an emergency rehousing system that uses the existing rental market.

And so that there's these two things, I think become complementary.

We want to build the capacity to help people avoid languishing and homelessness, and we equally want to expand where affordable housing exists, but this plan is really focused on building that emergency rehousing.

I think housing and community development has other projects that are focused on the expansion of affordable housing.

No, ma'am, they work together, they work together, even though it's not new housing, it is still housing in an area that allows you to get the price point that you want because it's in a dispressed area.

So you're making a delineation between it being a rental, also due to redlining, the third district has an overrepresentation of rental properties.

So again, it's gonna lead you right back to where the problem is because that's where the rental use are due to U.S.

policy.

So I'm just trying to get everybody to pay attention to it.

So you're not gonna be deliberately trying to do it.

The economic development pattern is going to lead you to it and it's going to solve your problem for you.

And you want to solve your problem.

Your ladies are focused on solving your problem, but you're not thinking about all of the other processes that lead you to where you think your problem needs to be solved.

So I know you're trying to say it's not affordable housing creation, but the affordable housing rental stock exists because of the banking policies that are already banked baked in.

They're already there for you.

So you don't need to create it, it's been created for you.

And so you've got to find a way to put your foot down and not continue to concentrate poverty.

You just gotta make a decision that's not that that's not acceptable.

Because anybody in the community that will notice it's happening to their neighborhood would stop you.

If anybody in, I'm not gonna name names, but I can name some expensive streets in this city, and if anybody noticed that there were four or five housing gateway vouchers within this three block area, then people would be down here filling up this room, and you would have a problem.

You would get negative community feedback for concentrating it.

And I want the same type of treatment in my district even though my people are at work and can't be down here at two o'clock and one o'clock.

They still feel the same way but they are work.

Yeah.

So that's all I have to say about it.

I'm gonna just write some legislation and force it because I've said it six, seven living times, and I still don't see a reflect in how we're going about talking about this problem.

So I'll have something from the floor today.

Thank you, Councilman Patterson has these mayor pro two.

Actually I just want to remind you that it actually is in the one million dollar legislation that the council appropriated you really have the same statement.

So you actually did put that language into our ordinance that we passed back a couple months ago.

I have no idea and what I'm saying is I'm not satisfied with how the presentation doesn't give a a close look at it.

So I know that I've written it in there it's like two sentences and I thought that was a good enough you know fix.

But as we're having this conversation this as we're having this conversation Mr.

Mayor um I don't see it being paid attention to and I find it to be very serious.

I mean I think it's very very serious so I would like it to be talked about every time we talk about this.

Other questions or comments uh councilwoman French just to expand upon that a little bit because I wholeheartedly agree with my colleague do we have a a map a regional map zoning kind of like what we're looking at what's targeted what's available as far as um temporary housing permanent housing like existing stock not just we are new development or potential new development or affordable housing and new we're doing a housing assessment as part of our five year consolidated plan with HUD and so we're going to be doing a very robust assessment of our local housing stock.

We have not identified or started the process of working with landlords yet but we certainly will be able to provide you more information when that work is underway.

Okay because I'd like to be involved with that too because I've made it very well known that we've we want to look at that in the Northland as well and specifically the second district I don't feel like we have looked at that enough to have any options or available options for houselessness in the Northland itself.

And even when we have temporary shelters or weather shelters quote things like that we don't seem to have any I feel like the Northland's not paid attention to and I think my councilwoman is right that it's very concentrated in certain areas and we're not looking at the city as a whole and the needs for the city as a whole I also had another question just um with numbers alone um when you say individuals are experiencing long-term houselessness what constitutes long term yeah so um that is an experience of homelessness for longer than a year okay so longer than a year so you're saying 17 so 1750 some 1,750 single adults are entering houselessness each year and then that's 87% of those are newly houseless but um you're saying our target then is about 400 individuals over the next 12 months so that leaves about 1300 1350 individuals I guess where is where you trying to fill that gap where were you looking at to yeah I I think what we're representing is that this first step this first year is you know a step to establish proof points that we can start to to change the trajectory of this but it is not representative as a fully scaled solution.

So what comes um under this it are subsequent phases in order to continue to systematically scale.

So this is just a first step to a stop to to build proof, right, and to demonstrate that we can move uh forward okay but we're still saying there's about 1300 individuals plus the 300, so 1500 individuals that are kind of left in that, we'll wait and see you're in a purgatory trial period.

Yeah, there's a so a couple of things are happening.

So one, some of those individuals are getting access to some of your existing continuum of care resources, so they're getting some remedy.

And lots of those individuals are not languishing in homelessness.

Otherwise, you would see a lot more homelessness, right?

They're eventually finding their way out, but they're staying in that experience of homelessness on average four months before they find their way out.

And so this is filling your shelter beds, kind of clogs up your system, because we're not doing enough to intervene early.

And so you know, we certainly, every community kind of makes a decision about what their first bite can look like as we move in this direction.

And so we landed on this year one strategy relative to the resources that we could likely activate in this first period of time.

How do we establish a proof point?

But the goal would be we want to fully resource the system to respond to every single person who comes through that door with the right intervention that's immediate and that that allows us to turn our shelter beds over so that there's no one sleeping outside.

That's the future state we're we're aiming toward, and this is a first step toward that.

Okay, and then are we following up with those individuals on a constant basis to make sure they're not re-entering that so there's a couple of things happening.

Those individuals who are getting a deep intervention, we're staying with them for 12 months to support the stabilization.

Those individuals that are new to homelessness, we're giving them a pretty light touch and and you know, letting them them go.

For both populations, we're looking at the data and um analyzing are individuals returning, are they finding themselves back in homelessness again?

And so if an individual, for example, we provided a light touch intervention and they return to homelessness at some point within the next 12 months.

What that's going to signal to us is that we need to consider a deeper intervention in order to um stabilize.

For those individuals that were providing 12 months of stabilization support, that deep intervention, we will also look for the next 12 months after they exit that intervention, do they return?

And what the data historically has showed us from all of these other cities that have implemented this model is about 85% of individuals do not return to homelessness after they exit the program on month 13, and we monitor that for another 12 months.

So it's, you know, it's pretty good.

Not to, it's not perfect, it's not 100%, um, but it affords us the ability to kind of slow that inflow by reducing the number of returns, um, and shortening lengths of stay in homelessness.

And that 85% was the deep dive, or is that 85% of the people that get that deep intervention do not return to homelessness within 12 months of exiting the program.

Um the early interventions, um, this is this is a relatively new emerging practice because the entire country was kind of kind of finding itself, you know, operating a lot of waiting rooms and not necessarily focused on on these early interventions, and the crisis of unsheltered homelessness is forcing everyone to look at the efficiency within their own shelter systems.

And so we're just on the cusp in many of these cities of activating these new front door resolutions, but but the data overwhelmingly shows us that we can reduce lengths of stay and um reduce returns to homelessness when we can scale, right?

And we are just not fully scaled yet in any one community to so that I can give you even more reliable data on it.

And I just wanted to add to Mandy's point.

I think one thing about this program that's different than our current system is that we're really not set up at all to address those newly unhoused individuals.

So they're coming into a system that has wait lists, and we're there they have to be homeless for several months up to a year before they're being able to receive any kind of housing benefit.

And so this is trying to address that population before they get to that chronic state, in addition to providing more assistance to the chronic population.

And that's right, it's kind of getting that 87%, kind of where we are in the deep dive, versus kind of like that.

Like if we can get to the newly unhoused and address the chronically unhoused simultaneously, that's really the path forward for us, we think.

So the ones that don't get the deep diet, they still get resources, financial literacy, like help with child care assistance.

Yeah, the those rapid resolutions is really based on creating a flexible pool of resources coupled with a problem solving or diversion specialist that that really asks the question, you know, what is it going to take to help you kind of stabilize?

And so, in many cases, it's a combination of one-time financial assistance that could go to an array of things, but also a connection to those other types of supports and services within the community that are gonna help them stabilize and stay out of homelessness in the future.

Okay, thank you.

Other questions?

I think I'll ask just um I'll try to be um as quick as one can be on this, and it's gonna be a question we've spoken of before.

Um, and this broadly comes from just the idea that local government hasn't always been in this phase, and what long-term impact do we expect both on our tax base and our taxpayers?

And I say it with an understanding of the magnitude of the problem, but also an understanding of general fund challenges.

The city continues to have rising pension and insurance costs, cost of employees, and others.

Is it in anticipation that this becomes a permanent program in the event it does not become a permanent annual program?

What follows after the conclusion of the period of what might otherwise be a pilot, and I'll have that, I guess, be the first question.

Yeah, so I think the contemplation here in the context of a public-private partnership is as this pro this project is implemented and and you're seeing the results that you're you're interested in.

There's a collective question that has to be asked, which is how how do we continue to scale the system?

And rarely does it fall to any one particular governmental entity to be the sole bearer of that.

I think there's always a lead, and I think cities oftentimes bear an outsized responsibility to lead on the issue, but most typically we tend to look toward counties to provide some of the ongoing resources that sustain these programs, and then we we um you know ask of our private funding partners to help us move in the direction toward that particular um you know scaled programming that we're looking for that can be sustained, right?

With with you know those suitable mechanisms.

Um and ultimately many communities find themselves in a very similar situation where we understand the problem in front of us today, we're starting to get a handle on what the the ongoing demand might look like, and we now need to both respond to what is um an urgent need in front of us while also simultaneously commit to defining a sus a sustainable strategy for what ultimately is is often uh kind of coming to be understood as critical infrastructure or a critical safety net that supports you know broader rehousing opportunities.

Mr.

Mayor, may I add something to that?

Um again, I spend a lot of time in cities in our region and cities outside of our region, and um I know you do too, but if you look to the east, the next major city to the east right now has uh office vacancy rate of 60 percent downtown, their overall population isn't growing at all.

Uh they don't have anybody living downtown, and they have a ballpark downtown, but most people don't want to venture more than a block or two away from that ballpark because the situation downtown, you look at the next major city of the west, they are now at looking at a 40% office vacancy rate, and people are leaving the downtown rapidly.

They had three years of net decrease in population in that city that had been growing for years and years and years.

I consider this issue the biggest threat to um certainly our downtown uh business businesses.

I know of three businesses right now that are considering leaving Kansas City, Missouri, and all three of them are looking at the other side of the state line because of this issue.

This is the number one issue.

And I know one or two have already met with you and maybe uh our city manager, but it's very serious because their employees that uh work downtown no longer feel comfortable walking from the parking lot to the building, or they don't longer want to live downtown, and and it's not that all the homeless are dangerous, they're not, it's just people in crisis interacting with people that are working and living downtown is not a good mix.

It's not a good mix.

We've had 70 on our properties.

We've had 72 reported incidents in the last 20 in the last 12 months.

Not all of them were the homeless, but uh it's a very serious issue for those of us that have people that live and work downtown.

So I doing nothing is just it's not an option unless you want to go downtown and have it look like it does in to the big city of the east of us right now, which is not good.

I think I would add an additional question to that, and you know, point understood on that.

I'll still look for kind of from someone, and I mean, I guess I'll just be a taxpaying Kansas City at the Kansas City and at the point at which we get to the end of what this pilot period would be, but we we do owe that long-term plan to our taxpayers, to be just quite honest, and what we can't do is is kind of hodgepodge, right?

Well, we will continue to your point to invest mightily in the police budget.

That city to the east is having debate now between its new board of police commissioners and the city on bankrupting the city just to fund that, right?

So they may not even have resources for the homelessness uh issue.

And so it is something that you know I think is just core to our discussion.

My only other question as the hour gets later, is um a flip side.

Uh actually it's a it's related to councilwoman Patterson Hasley's question.

I appreciate the focus um in the third district, right?

So my sister and mother live on the eastern edge of the third district where they do address they face the same issue you're articulating.

However, I'm not sure they or institutions perhaps near them may be part of your advisory board and others for um areas that also very much deal with these issues consistently.

How do you plan to ensure that they are part of uh this discussion as well when they may not have some of the same stakeholders as downtown council, the chamber, other entities for folks that just happen to live on the east-east side of perhaps portions of far south Kansas City and other areas where we hear these issues addressed all the time or I guess these concerns all the time so I think um part of our strategy is to do uh really a system overview of all of the homeless response in Kansas City.

Um we have a lot of resources invested in this issue across several different foundations and governmental entities, and I think this effort is really trying to coordinate everyone and everything and look at this issue freshly.

We welcome opportunities to engage with the community, and we will certainly be working with uh all of you.

We're happy to come to district meetings and put this for public input, um, so that we're really engaging the public in a meaningful way.

Um, but your point about funding resources exist in our system, they're just not being used efficiently, they're all it's very siloed.

And we are going to be supplementing the current system with this program, but this is bigger than just housing gateway.

We want to have an overhaul of our entire system, and that includes um stakeholder input, that includes looking at our funding sources and aligning that funding.

Um, but I think that this is a a comprehensive plan to address what is uh not working in our community, and we certainly don't mean to exacerbate any um housing discrimination issues that have historically um been in place in Kansas City, and I think that the input regarding um including um our our community in this process is is very much uh recognized and we'll be sure to include them moving forward um as we continue to develop this plan.

Well I appreciate that I'll just I'll conclude with this and very much heard on the point you raised Mr.

Barth in terms of making sure we stay regionally competitive and that is a priority of ours I will also note though that there are many communities in our city where for lack of better term folks have almost gotten used to it not that they have accepted it but you may not actually hear the same concern or complaint from somebody who for 30 40 years knows that there have been people at X or Y corners establishments and so I think the challenge to our housing staff and as you build out this program is to make sure that you are reaching to them through means by which we may not typically do so because it doesn't mean the problem is any less frankly doesn't mean the clientele with which we work is any less deserving if they are encamped near I 70 in Sterling in our city or 12th in Walnut.

Is there any further uh any further questions from council?

All right thank you.

Discussion of ordinances resolutions or other items to come before today.

Harry N will stand adjourned.