Foundation Journal

The annual point-in-time count of homeless people starts with a flurry of activity. A steadily rising number of men migrate into City Union Mission 's chapel, where the survey is conducted, leading to a room filled with 150 people. I fully expect my perceptions of homelessness to be reinforced; I expect to see and talk with hard-working, clear-eyed individuals down on their luck, without health care, without a good job or money to make ends meet...and alone. In one sense they are just like the people I work with every day, except they lack necessities like a home, a job, health care, transportation. Vickie Riddle, the survey coordinator with Homeless Services Coalition of Greater Kansas City , interviews one of the men to show us survey takers how it's done. After our last instructions we spread out across several tables to conduct interviews about health conditions and lifestyle behaviors in an open room with everyone in earshot listening to the most private information th...

Georgia Walker with the Homeless Services Coalition of Greater Kansas City facilitated a training session for emergency assistance agency representatives and supporters at the KC Salvation Army headquarters on January 18. Agencies included government organizations, schools, housing groups like Phoenix Family Housing, and counseling groups, to name a few. The session was attended by 50 or more individuals who will participate in the January 25, 2012 point-in-time count of people that are homeless in this area. Ms. Walker mentioned the count, like last year's count , was meant to discover “what are the needs in the community" in order to direct resources and services to the need. One example of the benefits of this discovery could be a new shelter dedicated for single, homeless women as reported in a Kansas City Star article this week. I met Pat Wilkins, Executive Director of the Greater Kansas City Housing Information Center, who noted an increase in housing requests an...