Kansas City’s homeless community asks for extension to temporary hotel initiative
Jessica Marroquin teared up as she held her 7-month old daughter tight to her chest, kissing her cheek. She was afraid of losing her.
Marroquin, a single mother, works two jobs to provide for her daughter. Since April, she has been one of a few hundred people staying in Kansas City hotels as part of a city housing initiative.
The program expired Thursday.
City Council passed a measure in April that provided temporary housing in hotel rooms for 90 days after more than two months of dozens of people living in tents outside City Hall as well as Westport.
At a press conference Wednesday afternoon, advocates and leaders with the KC Homeless Union demanded the program — which temporarily housed nearly 400 people — be extended while city leaders continue to find long-term solutions. Activists and those who are experiencing homelessness said that many of the people who were in the initiative did not get the full 90 days stay.
“When coming into this program, I did not think that we would have to go back to the streets,” Marroquin, 25, said.
City officials said on Thursday there were placement options at shelters around Kansas City being made available for anyone who had been staying at the hotels.
“As of yesterday (Wednesday), more than 200 shelter beds were available at City Union Mission for single males and there were rooms there for families and single females,” said John Baccala, a spokesman for the Kansas City’s housing and community development department. “This doesn’t include beds available at existing shelters. The city also secured 30 apartments in a 55+ senior living facility.”
Activists and volunteers said many of those in the program have already left the hotels. As of Wednesday, they were caring for about 200 people.
James Shelby, who goes by Qadhafi, said at the press conference that he had been promised people would not end up back on the streets.
“They said this would not happen,” Qadhafi said. “Everything that got said was a lie.”
Baccala said the city was proud of its efforts in the last 90 days to connect 120 people with first-time benefits like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, as well as putting some 350 people in touch with housing services providers.
The Neighborhood Planning and Development Committee was set to discuss a proposal that would have allowed a contract to build tiny homes. It was held on the agenda to next week.
The ordinance would have authorized the city manager to contract with Merging KC, Inc. to build “Verge - A Pallet Community,” which would have about 200 beds. It would be funded by about $1.7 million from the Unappropriated Fund Balance of the General Fund.
“They’re not homeless; they’re houseless,” activist Anton Washington said. “Kansas City is their home.”
One woman’s story
Marroquin told The Star after Wednesday’s press conference that five months ago, her ex-boyfriend kicked her and their daughter out of his house at 1 a.m. She spent the next few months couch surfing between friends.
In April, she moved into a hotel in the Northland with her daughter, piling her whole life into one room. A room she called home.
“I don’t even know why I’m calling it home,” Marroquin said. She had spent the last few days preparing to leave.
She didn’t know where she would go once she was supposed to leave the hotel. Washington had set up an apartment tour later that day, but it would be weeks before she would be able to move in — if she even got accepted.
In order to stay in the hotel for another month, she would have to use every cent from her paychecks at both jobs — Taco Bell and Worlds of Fun — to make it work.
Two hours after the press conference, she learned an anonymous donor was paying for another two months for her hotel room.
This story was originally published July 15, 2021 at 3:40 PM.
