On Friday I attended a meeting about homelessness that was attended by representatives from the police department, municipal court, the Downtown Council and various various community-based organizations. The main purpose of the meeting was to begin planning some sort of event -- a summit or conference, perhaps -- that would bring local policy makers together around the issue of homelessness in order to develop progressive and effective strategies for addressing the issue.
The highlight of the meeting for me was listening to Bill Dietrich, president and CEO of the Downtown Council, talk about some of the things that have been done in Seattle to address the issue. Bill worked there before coming to Kansas City, and he participated in a concerted effort around homelessness between government officials, nonprofit service providers and downtown business leaders to find solutions.
One of the most interesting steps they took was to take an apartment building and convert it into a shelter that, unlike most homeless shelters, doesn't require folks to sober up. The reason they did this was that they found that a certain percentage of the homeless population -- not a particularly large one, it turns out -- would not, for whatever reason, give up drinking or using drugs. Because of this, they would refuse to use homeless shelters, and would instead stick to the streets. Obviously, this puts a burden on downtown merchants and residents, because people who are chronically drunk and high aren't always the most agreeable folks. So one solution was to provide a place where they could go and do their thing, so to speak, so as to minimize their impact on the neighborhood and commercial areas.
As you might expect, there was some resistance to this. Business leaders, who ultimately wound up funding the shelter, didn't like the idea of helping people who they perceived as unwilling to help themselves. Some felt like they were enabling unhealthy behavior. But eventually they realized that even if they were right on principle, the problem wasn't going to go away, so they backed the idea and it pretty much worked.
Bill talked about other things they did as well, such as finding ways to better coordinate health and public safety systems to better serve people without homes and the larger communities they live in. I was really impressed with him. He displayed a compassion for homeless people and a realistic and objective understanding of the challenges and burdens homelessness can bring to a larger community. I think Kansas City is well served by the perspective he brings to our civic leadership community, and I'm looking forward to seeing this summit or conference come together.
-JM
