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Kansas City, Missouri, leaders launched the KC Housing Gateway Program on Wednesday, which invests $1 million into "rapidly" housing people experiencing homelessness and revamping the city's homeless response system.
City representatives and members from the business community gathered at the downtown Commerce Bank building on Wednesday morning to announce the public-private partnership.
The Housing Gateway Program comes as the city reports a shortage of 64,000 housing units, also noting rent has increased 7% since 2024.
Kansas City has the highest percentage of chronically homeless and unsheltered people in the country (95.7%).
Mary Owens, deputy director for the Community Housing and Development Department, said the city will create a better voucher system and house 600 people within the first year of the program.
The program will include help with security deposits, utilities and short-term rentals, as well as tenant protections.
The city manager's office will bring in a national consultant to evaluate where Kansas City's current continuum of care is lacking and how to improve it.
An advisory board made up of people from the city, philanthropic groups and the business sector will take part in the discussions.
The city manager's office will report back to the city council in six months with recommendations.
The program will run out of the Office of Unhoused Solutions and take the $1 million in funding from the city's general fund.
"There will always be those that critique and say $1 million isn't enough, and they're right. Thirty million isn't enough, but this is the first seed to what I hope grows into a large tree that shades us all," Councilman Johnathan Duncan (6th District) said at the program launch. "The programs we start today aren't going to solve homelessness overnight, but we've got to start somewhere."
Last week, the city council approved an ordinance to establish the program.
The city said unsheltered homelessness has increased 170% in KCMO since 2018.
Currently, more than 27,000 people in the voucher program are on a waiting list for housing with a two- to three-year wait.
Last December, the city held workshops with two experts in homelessness: Jim Mathy, a housing administrator for Milwaukee County, and Mandy Chapman Semple, of Clutch Consulting.
The two identified five issues with the current homelessness continuum of care:
1. Funding is not aligned with outcomes.
2. Kansas City lacks affordable housing options, such as low-barrier shelter and transitional housing.
3. The Homeless Information Management System (HMIS) is not capturing critical data and is obsolete.
4. Kansas City's Coordinated Entry System is inaccessible to people who are homeless for less than 12 months.
5. Kansas City's homeless response system is inefficiently distributing existing federal housing resources.
Owens said Wednesday the city hopes to see results like the city of Houston has seen, where homelessness has been cut by 60% since 2011 through a "housing first" strategy.
The consultant the city will work with moving forward has not been announced yet.
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