![]() That’s why city officials were hoping to get the tiny house village built and serving up to 200 people this summer. But most have not, and it’s unclear where they may end up. Some families served in the hotels have found permanent housing. On June 24, the Council approved a plan to fund the hotels through mid-July, capping the three-month hotel cost at about $4 million, paid for with city and federal stimulus dollars. The city began housing nearly 400 people in 12 Kansas City hotels for 90 days. In April, the Council directed the c ity manager to provide hotel and other livable spaces for unhoused persons as a temporary solution. The Verge proposal gained traction in Kansas City after tent camps sprang up last winter in front of City Hall and near Westport. Kansas City would be the first Midwestern city with pallet homes, but Gilmore said Kansas City, Kansas, and Raytown have expressed interest. “I am very uncomfortable when people are living in a building without running water,” Hall said Thursday. She questioned the health and safety of pallet homes with no plumbing. They are seen as an affordable, temporary solution.īut Councilwoman Heather Hall noted that Missouri is not the West Coast. The pallet home villages are proliferating as short-term emergency housing in about 50 communities, including in California, Oregon and Washington. Some residents of Columbus Park and other Northeast area neighborhoods have vehemently opposed this type of homeless shelter community near their homes. The property does not border a residential neighborhood. It’s envisioned for the future East Village mixed-use development but is not currently in use. One possibility, Gilmore said, is a vacant city lot a few blocks east of City Hall on 12 th Street. The exact location for the shelter community, called Verge, has not yet been identified. Case managers and security are provided, along with medical and mental health services, job counseling, transportation, and life skills training. There share communal bathrooms, showers, laundry facilities and meals are brought in. They are 64-square-foot units for two people have heat, air-conditioning, windows and locks. “This is only to get a person out of a tent, out from under a bridge into something that is more structured, where they have a safe environment with wraparound services,” she told council members in June. The tiny homes are meant to be a bridge to more permanent housing, said Assistant City Manager Kimiko Gilmore. “Do we want to be in this business,” he asked the other council members, “or not?” Mayor Quinton Lucas said that he was interested in the concept, but that the council needs a consensus on how to proceed. ![]() “I’m not sure this is something we want to get into,” she said. “People are going to end up on the streets,” he said, adding that not enough other shelter beds exist to fulfill the need.Ĭouncil members have been inundated with calls and emails about the proposal, many from residents who didn’t want the community near their neighborhoods.Ĭouncilwoman Teresa Loar questioned why Kansas City is pursuing the emergency shelter idea, when non-profit shelter providers already exist. Those hotel stays are expected to end in mid-July.Ĭity Manager Brian Platt cautioned Thursday that the city doesn’t have other good options for many of those families once the hotel contract ends. The idea for a campus of tiny homes surfaced in April as another step to serve several hundred people who have recently been sheltered in hotel rooms. ![]()
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