At a Kansas City street corner in crisis, here’s how library staff keep doors open to all
Sitting inside an east Kansas City library, Zeylona Burnett pointed to a sack lunch in her son’s stroller and a printed list of places families can go for assistance.
Just that morning, a librarian provided her with both. It’s that kind of support, Burnett says, that draws her to the Lucile H. Bluford branch of the Kansas City Public Library, where her children can play and read and she can study for her online college classes.
“This library, it offers resources to mothers. There’s a lot of help here,” said Burnett, 24. She then paused, tilted her head in frustration and looked toward the front door.
If only, the mother of two said adamantly, she didn’t fear what’s out there when she leaves.
“When I do go outside, I’m afraid if me and my kids are going to make it home,” she said, her 11-month-old son, Kyrie, sitting on the table in front of her. “When you walk outside that door, it’s every man for themselves. … It makes me feel the urge to walk back inside the library.”
Burnett’s fear, the kind you can feel as she speaks, is pervasive inside this neighborhood. It’s because, residents say, of what the corner of 31st Street and Prospect Avenue has become.
Outside the library, many have reported a surge in criminal activities, including: seeing drug sales and use around that intersection, sexual activity inside cars near the library and loitering by key community spots like the Sun Fresh Market. Residents say at times they’ve been afraid to get off the bus at the intersection.
At times, those issues outside end up inside.
Group arguments move into the library and unfold. Intoxicated people have ended up in Bluford and patrons have to be reminded to follow rules or be escorted out. All while dedicated staff, who say they take pride in welcoming and serving the needs of everyone who comes into the neighborhood library, try to keep peace and order.
And Bluford — where staffers spend more time fulfilling the basic needs of the low-income community than checking out books — has been caught in the middle.
The Star spent more than eight hours over three days inside the library branch to see what staffers see and better understand the challenges they face. As well as get a better idea of the programs and additional staff introduced at Bluford to meet the community’s needs at the troubled east Kansas City corner.
Since January 2022, police have responded to more than 360 calls for service at 3050 Prospect Ave., the address of the library, according to information The Star obtained from the Kansas City Police Department. More than half of those calls have been for reported disturbances.
It isn’t clear if most of those reports were about incidents inside Bluford or outside in the parking lot. Security officials for the library say a significant portion of incidents reported are outside.
Each morning after the staff unlock the front door, they “intentionally focus” on safety inside the building, said Nalita McHenry, the children’s librarian at Bluford. She added that they trust local authorities to address “the crime that happens around the library.”
“Sometimes I think that once we know better, we do better,” McHenry said. “We have to give the city officials and our leadership team the opportunity and the time that they need to step up and step forward and make those changes.”
At recent community meetings addressing the intersection, neighbors have demanded leaders do more to put an end to the crime. In response, police have increased patrol.
“Those kids who go up there, some of those kids (are) in trouble,” said Pat Clarke, president of the Oak Park Neighborhood Association. “When you mix troubled kids with troubled adults, you get a troubled issue. I see it every day.”
Now, extra concern has turned to the Bluford library, named for the late, longtime editor of one of Kansas City’s Black newspapers, The Call. Approximately 700 people gather there each day—a diverse mix of young and old, some unhoused and others battling addiction or mental health issues.
“Used to be a fantastic library,” said Emmet Pierson, Jr., president of Community Builders of Kansas City, which operates the Sun Fresh Market nearby. “Somehow it became a safe haven for folks to go and, you know, run from the shopping center to inside of the library.”
Built in 1988, Bluford went through a $1.3 million renovation nearly 15 years ago that was a source of pride for the neighborhood. At the branch’s reopening in 2010, Bluford’s nephew Guion Bluford — who in 1983 became the first Black man in space — spoke at the ceremony.
This summer, Missouri Gov. Mike Parson vetoed from the state budget millions slated for various projects in Kansas City. The Bluford library would have received $3 million for improvements at the branch.
Today, the library and its walls painted with vibrant colors of fuchsia, orange and neon green still draws families and children who play in the kids’ area, but some wonder if the crime in the area will soon keep them away.
The library and police continue to collaborate, “moving forward in the same direction,” said Abby Yellman, the Kansas City Public Library’s chief executive since August. She stressed the library’s mission remains to meet community needs.
“We do allow everybody to come in this door,” she said. “We want our community to feel safe to come in the door. We’re not going to discriminate here, nor does the police department want us to.
“They just want people to be safe, because that’s their core mission, is to protect the community. So we’re trying to balance, and again, find that foundation of what we all want for the community, and how do we navigate the different things that we have to do in order for that to happen?”
More than just books
Many of the people who go to Bluford every day are unhoused. And for them, as well as other low-income residents, the library provides services way beyond reading materials.
That’s led some to feel the branch has changed.
“That place right there has not been a library for quite some time,” Clarke said. “It’s just a meeting place, you know what I’m saying?
“Kids that don’t have internet at home, where do they go? The library. People that are really looking for a job, where do they go? To the library. People trying to get on certain websites, where do they go? The library.”
What that means, he said, is “there’s a mixture of all types of people in one place.”
“And when you have that, you have good intentions and you have bad intentions.”
The library staff don’t deny that people come to their branch for more than books. They, in fact, embrace that. And so have libraries across the Kansas City area and nation where people use resources like computers and printers and phones they may not have themselves.
Employees at Bluford aim to meet the needs in their neighborhood like libraries across the country now do.
“We try to educate our residents and just our patrons using libraries in general, that the needs of our communities have changed.“ Yellman said. “We have evolved as our community has evolved because that’s what libraries do.”
Branches become what residents in the community need them to be, library officials told The Star. This includes offering support and resources for the unhoused.
“It’s a population with a different set of needs,” said Beth Hill, community resources manager for the Kansas City Public Library. “And those needs may not be something that you can check a book out on.”
At the intersection of 31st and Prospect, sometimes the library is a sack lunch for a hungry child or a place to sit and rest, Hill said. A place to log onto a computer and apply for jobs. And yes, even a bathroom in a neighborhood where a free one is hard to find.
Or, maybe just a “living space for the day,” said Gabby Miller, assistant branch manager at Bluford.
“For a lot of people, it’s just somewhere to go,” Miller said. “And I would argue that that’s a rare thing to find, especially in this community.”
At Bluford, the KC library system has also introduced peer navigators, individuals with lived experience who are trained to de-escalate traumatic situations and offer help. Peer navigators can then refer those they meet in the library to University Behavioral Health for services.
“They intimately know what some of the trauma is that these individuals are going through and they’re able to meet them where they’re at,” said Hill, of the position that started at the Bluford branch three years ago. “And connect and try to bring their emotions down to a point where they can begin to have a conversation with them and try to figure out what they can do to help them.”
If someone going to the library can count on seeing that person every day and knows they will help them, Hill said “they might seek them out and say, ‘I need to talk.’”
Joel Jones, deputy director of library services, has worked for the Kansas City Public Library for more than 30 years. The Bluford location, he said, “has always been a challenge with behavior problems. Always.”
“Our issues before were around teenage behaviors,” Jones said. “I think we’ve come a long way in correcting those.
“What’s changed, I believe, is the nature of the adults who use the library, who are coming into the library and the nature of the adults that are coming to this corner.”
These are people with “high needs,” he said. And those needs — addiction, mental health concerns, inability to pay rising housing costs — have only increased since the pandemic.
“Those are all issues beyond what the library can control and manage.”
‘Best de-escalation skills’
As Bluford works to fill the gaps in services throughout the community, safety has to be key, said
Shannon King, director of public safety for the Kansas City Public Library.
When she started with the library 18 months ago, King — who has worked in law enforcement for three decades — assessed what the branch at 31st and Prospect faces.
“I think it’s more just human mess than crime,” King said while sitting in a small room inside the Bluford branch with other library officials. “More disorder.”
At times, “folks out on the corner” would come in, bringing substance abuse issues and mental instability, King said. Tempers could rise quickly. Arguments that started outside would come inside.
Staff could sense if someone was intoxicated or if a situation was escalating.
Officials focused on increasing security, training guards “to have the best de-escalation skills that we could possibly give them,” said King, adding that this training has also been implemented at other branches.
“We don’t have armed security,” she said. “They don’t carry mace, any sort of weapons. So the staff in the libraries and the security rely heavily on their interpersonal skills to deal with whatever may arise inside the library.”
The public library also created a new position called “Patron Safety Engagement Ambassador.” Hill and Jones said these are modeled off of Denver Public Library’s hybrid security guards, positions that work public service desks.
“They’re not uniformed, but their main job is to assist patrons,” said King, who has had other library systems nationwide reach out to her to learn more about the positions. “They work just like any other employee for the library, but if they see something within the library that’s maybe starting to brew … they are trained to watch for those events, to engage with those folks and begin the de-escalation process with the support of security.”
If the situation continues to worsen, the ambassador “works with security to ask the patron to leave, escort them out.”
Sean Collins, one of these ambassadors, spends his days at Bluford walking through the library, talking to people, addressing what they need and helping de-escalate any situation that may arise. An argument. An unruly person.
He said he reminds library users about the rules, the noise level limits, and “behavior expectations.” And staffers have noticed that as they set a standard for what’s accepted in the library, people often correct their own behaviors and those of others.
Collins, who has worked in libraries in California and South Dakota in the past two decades, has been a safety ambassador at Bluford since November.
“I was always the staff member that walked toward the commotion, so this seems to fit,” said Collins, who believes in adapting to what the community needs.
“More than anything else, whatever the neighborhood is asking for is what we’re here to provide,” he said. “We’re kind of meeting that gap that there is between social services in the city and education.”
At times, Bluford staff may call the police if a situation gets out of hand. Some of those calls are documented in the list of service calls to the library in the past nearly five years.
Since Jan. 1, 2020, police have responded to 370 calls at the Bluford branch library address. Only seven of those calls came in 2020 and 2021, and after that, as more people were drawn to the corner, the number of reports skyrocketed.
Records from Kansas City police show that of the total number of calls for service, 190 were for disturbances and 76 of those were from 2024 alone.
A disturbance can range from “someone being asked to leave and refusing, to a verbal altercation, to a physical altercation,” said Officer Alayna Gonzalez, a police spokeswoman, in an email.
“Sometimes police intervention is needed to separate people and diffuse a situation,” Gonzalez said, “and other times police reports and/or arrest are needed.”
“It is important to note that seeing an increase in calls for service does not necessarily mean there has been an increase in crime,” Gonzalez said. “Sometimes, that just means more people are reporting illegal activity, which we encourage when it is bringing concerns to our attention.”
The goal at Bluford is to let the community know that the doors are open to everyone. And when you’re there, King said, there are behavior expectations drawn in a hard line.
“Anyone who wants to come into the library, you are welcome — we want you here,” King said. “And there are rules that must be followed; we are going to ensure that these spaces are safe for our patrons, for the community, and for the staff.
“You have my personal word on that.”
‘It’s a library, bro’
Vonzille Fayne arrived at the library early on a Wednesday morning so she could print packets of information — a list detailing where people can get hot meals in Kansas City — to distribute to many of the city’s unhoused population.
Here at Bluford, people can print a certain number of pages they need for free. And workers help with any questions.
“I was homeless once,” Fayne said, her arms full of papers. “Me and my boyfriend, we sat right there on that bus stop, and we slept all night until it was daybreak until we could get a place.”
She says this firsthand experience gives her a deep understanding of what the unhoused need in Kansas City.
“People walk up to me all the time and ask me, ‘Where can I go to get this? Where can I go to get that?’ ... Where they can go eat at?” Fayne said, moving a stapler through the stacks of paper. “I’m going to pass these out.”
Fayne, who has grappled with grief since her daughter died five years ago, says helping others in need keeps her “from being depressed.”
Later that morning, a family of three without housing hung out at a back table, hoping to use Bluford to search for an apartment or rental home.
A handful of teens hung out in an area designed for them and people conducted meetings inside two soundproof pods. Others lined up for free coffee and a granola bar the library served during its monthly “Coffee and Conversation” event.
On another recent afternoon, a week before Fayne printed the packets, a steady stream of people headed to a square table near the center of the room.
Divided in the middle, the table holds two tan, old-fashioned push telephones, one on each side.
“I want to say at least, like, 2,500 times a month, (each of) those phones get used,” Miller, the assistant branch manager said. “Coming from a library system that didn’t have that, I remember touring this library when I was interviewing and I saw the phones.
“It’s just like, so simple of a solution for something that we get asked every day, ’Excuse me, can I use your phone?’”
The public phones are just one of the ways Bluford strives to stay relevant, Miller said. By providing the services residents need.
On that recent afternoon, an older man plops down a full camouflage backpack on the square table and picks up one of the phones.
“Just checkin’ on you,” he tells the person on the other end. “Love you.”
Another man toting a plastic bag labeled “personal belongings” uses the phone on the other side to call around in search of a bed for the night.
As the two men make their calls, rap music blares from the back of the library near the computers.
“Turn that off,” a man yells. “You trippin.”
Another pipes up: “Come on, man, it’s a library, bro.”
Music goes off. But it’s back on within a minute or two.
An older gentleman walks from that area to the front of the library. “Stupid a-- sh--,” he mumbles as he walks away from the music.
The music stops again. Before any staffers heard and got involved.
Then at 1:13 p.m., a faint smell of marijuana fills the back of the library where the music was coming from.
Solving a problem together
Maj. Chris Young took over the East Patrol division in early August. Since then, he said two officers have been posted at 31st Street and Prospect Avenue around the clock, and a sergeant has been on hand nearby.
Young, who spoke at a recent community meeting addressing the uptick in crime, told the group in attendance that the department has also added additional emergency staffing near the Prospect Avenue business corridor. Officers have been stationed there during their annual extra six-hour shift, typically used for continuing education and training modules, Young said.
Both business and property owners, as well as the community, have reported noticing a positive change in the short time police have been addressing these concerns, the commander said.
Still, keeping abreast of loitering, vandalism and property crime complaints in the area has been like “drinking out of a fire hose,” he said.
“Our city has changed drastically since my first days of patrolling the streets,” said Young, who has been with the department for 26 years. “Unfortunately, in this wonderful community, a handful of individuals keep this area…from prospering.”
King and Jones, of the library, were at the meeting, too. They, along with Yellman, say they hear the concerns of citizens about the crime at the intersection and understand them.
“If I was a mother that lived in this neighborhood with young children or a senior, would I be frustrated because I might not feel safe coming into (the library) or going to the grocery store, whatever the business is?” Yellman said. “Yes, I would be frustrated.”
But what’s critical to understand, Yellman said, is that everyone — police, community and city officials, business leaders and the library —- is at the table together.
“This is a big, complex challenge that one entity can’t solve,” Yellman said. “We’re all working to try to solve a very complex problem, and the solutions aren’t simple. … If the solutions were simple, we would have solved the problem already.
“So that’s where I say patience is a hard thing to ask of your community when you’re trying to figure out, how do we best partner with other organizations and other stakeholders to figure out, how do we make this community better for everyone?”
The Star’s Ilana Arougheti and Glenn E. Rice contributed to this report.
This story was originally published October 9, 2024 at 6:00 AM.
