Topeka leaders say the local homeless situation is spiraling. Here's how $76K may help.
Volunteers counted 365 unsheltered people last year in Topeka during the annual Point in Time Homeless Count.
Meanwhile, one chronically homeless person costs taxpayers an average of more than $35,000 a year, says the National Alliance to End Homelessness.
Multiply those and the total is $12.78 million.
Compare that to the roughly $76,000 Topeka's city government is considering paying a consultant to help the city better deal with homelessness and "that $76,000 is a pretty small number," said city manager Stephen Wade.
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Topeka's mayor and city council plan Feb. 7 to consider Wade's request that they enter into a contract through which the city would pay $76,080 to Evanston, Ill.-based Sylver Consulting LLC to help the Topeka community aid the homeless in a more proactive and humane manner.
The effort would be carried out "through a lens of empathy and concern," Wade told The Capital-Journal on Monday.
Support for the proposed move was expressed Monday by the Rev. Barry Feaker, former longtime director of the Topeka Rescue Mission.
"We need to invest on the front end, so we're not continually just doing what we're doing," he told The Capital-Journal.
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Why is the consultant thought to be needed?
Topeka's situation regarding the unsheltered is on the minds of almost everyone here, Wade said.
"Homelessness in the Topeka community is steadily getting worse and is becoming more visible," said a document in the agenda packet for the Feb. 7 meeting.
Last December, during a time of severe cold weather, resourcing challenges caused delays in emergency response actions regarding the unsheltered, that document said.
"Emerging from that situation, it has become clear to the city government and other working groups that deeper partnerships were needed if the community was going to achieve its goal of supporting the unsheltered population in a more proactive and humane way," it said.
Meanwhile, the scale of the homelessness challenge is becoming more tangible for the average Topeka resident, as trash produced by this population is becoming more visible in and around the community, the document said.
"How we are currently dealing with the unsheltered population of Topeka is not working — for the members of that unsheltered population, other residents of the city, or for groups in the community established to support the unsheltered community," it said.
The agenda packet document said residents here need to take a step back and ask themselves, “What can we do differently to yield a different outcome and, more specifically, to get to a place where we are more proactive (versus reactive) and more humane in a response to how our community supports its unsheltered population?”
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What would the consultant be asked to accomplish?
The proposed contract being considered Feb. 7 would arrange for Sylver Consulting LLC President Brianna Sylver to coach "the city of Topeka and other community partners through applying the Path to Innovation methodology to the topic of homelessness in the Topeka community," said the agenda packet document.
That methodology is taught as part of the innovation track of the Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative.
Topeka city leaders have taken part since 2018 in that initiative, founded by billionaire businessman Michael Bloomberg.
As part of that initiative, Brianna Sylver is currently coaching a core team of local leaders here as they seek to use the Path to Innovation curriculum to unlock new economic development opportunities for Topeka.
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The city needs this same support to make traction on addressing homelessness, the agenda packet document said.
The process would last from February through September of this year, the document said.
It added, "At the conclusion of the work scope, the city of Topeka will have identified a portfolio of solutions for addressing the challenge of homelessness in the Topeka community; prototyped and tested two of those solutions with members of their community; and developed an impact measurement and next step implementation plan for two solutions of the team's portfolio of ideas."
The estimated $76,080 cost would include $64,260 for teaching and coaching support, $6,750 for administrative and project fees and $5,070 for other project expenses, including travel costs for site visits and lunch catering for onsite meetings.
What has Sylver Consulting done elsewhere?
Brianna Sylver said in a letter to Wade that she has personally coached 19 municipal teams taking part in various Bloomberg programs, including applying the Path to Innovation curriculum to address the needs of unsheltered populations in Reno, Nevada, and Paterson, N.J.
The work in Paterson resulted in that city's becoming one of 15 winners out of more than 500 initial city applicants of $1 million in Bloomberg's 2021-22 Global Mayor's Challenge, which supports and spreads cities' most promising ideas, that letter said.
Paterson won for its innovation aimed at making medication-assisted treatment for opioid addiction available in 90 minutes, any time and anywhere.
Contact Tim Hrenchir at threnchir@gannett.com or 785-213-5934.
This article originally appeared on Topeka Capital-Journal: Topeka officials mull $76,000 consultant to find homeless answers
