Forum participants included residents, neighborhood leaders and business owners | Photo by Dorri Partain

Dorri Partain
Managing Editor

Following a survey launched by the Northeast Kansas City Working Group (NEKCWG) last month, the results were shared during an Education Forum held on Sept. 12 at the Northeast Kansas City Chamber of Commerce’s Community Room (2657 Independence Ave).

Ingrid Burnett, District 19 Missouri House of Representatives, opened this meeting by sharing the progress and development of the Northeast Transformation Plan —  which began during the 2021 Northeast Housing Solutions Summit. To continue the development of this plan — which  addresses homelessness within the community — funding was secured to hire Community Analytics, LLC to collect feedback and develop priorities for the plan.

Dr. Anne Williamson — facilitator with Community Analytics —- continued this forum by introducing the transformation plan’s six priorities and the results of the survey. The survey was formulated to garner input from the community to gauge the order of importance of the outlined priorities.

The survey garnered 122 responses —- with 68% indicating they were Northeast residents. The remaining percentage of responders indicated they were business owners or worked within the Northeast.

Priority 6, Promote Wraparound Services: received 88% of the highest numbers on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being the least helpful and 5 being the most helpful.

Priority 2, Establish A Neighborhood Community System: received 74%, the lowest percentage of all the six priorities scaled during the survey.

Forum participants were then invited to break into groups and discuss their thoughts on these six priorities, which were then shared to Dr. Williamson and collated as the forum’s time limit neared the end.

Participants included community residents, neighborhood leaders, business owners — along with representatives from the Kansas City Public Library  and the Kansas City Police Department.

During this feedback session, Charlie Passantino —- owner of Passantino Bros. Funeral Home —- said he’s never had a positive encounter with unhoused individuals.

“It’s hard to know which are sincere, truly need help and will accept help.”

Laura Birdsong, Team Resource Manager with the Independence Avenue Community Improvement District (CID), said she’s witnessed as many as six vans — in one day — offering food at homeless encampments near the Avenue. Other participants shared that excess food — brought in by well-meaning service groups —- is often left laying around, attracting rats and creating trash.

Kansas City Police officers in attendance expressed the difficulty of removing camps set in vacant lots and houses —- noting the abundance of both within the neighborhood — as well as difficulties identifying owners of vacant properties.

As thoughts and comments were shared, the main consensus agreed upon among participants is that better coordination of available services is needed. 

“We had very helpful feedback last evening,” stated Dr. Williamson on Sept. 13. “My own opinion is that we have what we need to move forward with the Plan. It is important to keep in mind that we have been receiving feedback ever since we held the Northeast Housing Solutions Summit in March 2021. Taking the community survey results, the results of the focus group with people with experience of being unhoused, and last evening’s community forum into account, we have much to work with.”

For more information about the Northeast Working Group and this Northeast Transformation Plan, read our previous article from Aug. 14 at https://northeastnews.net/pages/northeast-kansas-city-homeless-population-transformation-plan-process-feedback-and-future-steps/.