Homeless camps at City Hall and Westport dwindle, but not all want to move

Katie Moore
·3 min read

In less than 24 hours, about 100 people who had been living on the streets of Kansas City moved into hotels after the City Council approved a resolution providing temporary shelter.

But as of Friday afternoon, some of the people at one of the city’s biggest homeless camps said they did not intend to move.

The majority of the people who relocated to hotel rooms by Friday had been living in an encampment of dozens of tents that filled the south lawn at City Hall. The camp was established about two months ago as a protest site advocating for the needs of Kansas City’s homeless community.

On Friday, more than half of the tents had been taken down and several others were in the process of being dismantled in the afternoon. People at the camp were sorting through their belongings and cleaning up the lawn.

Mayor Quinton Lucas visited another large camp at Westport and said about 100 people, mostly from the City Hall site, had moved into the hotel rooms provided by the city’s action the day before.

The measure, passed unanimously on Thursday, will allow 500 people to stay in hotels for up to 90 days. The hotels are being paid for through U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development funds allocated to the city.

Samuel Thompson, 33, said he was looking forward to taking a bubble bath at the hotel.

Thompson had been staying at a shelter before setting up a tent at City Hall, where he has lived for the past two months. He became homeless after his relationship with his wife ended and he “gave up on life.”

While the encampment was safe and friendly, Thompson said, he would be glad for the comfort of the hotel.

“I feel like God just came down and put us in his palm,” he said. “It’s like a Christmas gift.”

Another camp resident, who said her name was Lulu Livingston At Your Service, said the encampment’s shuttering was “the end of an era and the beginning of a new one.”

The next hurdle will be securing permanent housing beyond the 90 days the hotels will provide.

Jeff Rogers, left, and others in need of shelter, sat on a bus outside Camp 6ixx in Westport to be taken to a local hotel on Friday, April 9, for housing. Mayor Quinton Lucas and the City Council fast-tracked a plan to provide hotel rooms for some of those without shelter for up to 90 days. Rogers said the hotel room would provide him a stable environment for him to line up stable housing and a hip replacement.

“There is some trepidation there,” said Livingston, who is part of the KC Homeless Union.

At the Westport camp, where about 40 tents remained Friday, volunteer Alina Heart said she also wondered what would happen to the people after three months.

Ashlea Banks, 33, said she was against the hotel program.

The encampments at City Hall and Westport were intentionally created at those locations to bring visibility to the homeless community.

Banks said she was tired of being hidden. “Being here is important,” she said.

She also said people at the Westport site were not consulted about their needs during discussions with the city this week.

On Friday, Lucas spent about 90 minutes at the Westport camp talking to people about the hotel initiative, other services and listening to their stories.

“There are a lot of people that want help and services and my long-term hope is that we can get them connected with those services,” he said. “I don’t know if we’re doing people any favors if we’re not actually coming up with a longer-term solution of what’s going to happen, not just moving people.”

Lucas said he has received criticism for spending money to address the needs of the homeless. But, he said, the investment makes sense.

“We end up paying for it anyway,” Lucas said. “It’s either through jail rooms, the city actually helps support Truman Medical Center where you get a lot of the ER cases, and so I think if we actually invest prospectively that puts us in a much better position long-term.”