Kansas City failed the extreme cold test. How can we protect the homeless next time?

It was still bitter cold, Kansas City’s merciful warmup not yet arrived. The man in brown coveralls stood at a busy intersection in tony Leawood, his handwritten sign announcing to motorists: “Laid off. Need a miracle.”

The thing is, he shouldn’t need one. All he should need is us — those of us blessed with work and warmth, the nonprofits we give to, the shelters we provide, the government that’s supposed to weave together the final safety net.

We’re supposed to be better than to leave our neighbors out in the cold. We’re supposed to be our brothers’ keepers. How can we let this happen?

In Austin and Washington, D.C., officials will investigate a massive energy failure that left millions of Texans without power and water. In Kansas City, we should examine whether we’re doing all we can to bring people in from the brutal cold.

We’re clearly not.

City Hall did respond to the arctic snap with a warming center at a community center, then at Bartle Hall, thank goodness. Appropriately, the warming center was named after Scott Eicke, one of two men known to have perished in the season’s cold. But as well-intended and critical as the center is, it’s bizarrely slapdash for a Midwestern city that sees dangerous cold reliably each year: few resources at first, failure to marshal existing ones, volunteer labor, squabbles about how the center’s run — and no plan of attack on how to help a providentially assembled captive audience of those in need, to get them on the path to permanent housing.

“It was kind of a (reaction) to a problem that’s been a standing issue for many, many years that has not been addressed,” said Marqueia Watson, executive director at the Greater Kansas City Coalition to End Homelessness. Though careful not to disparage those involved, she laments the lost opportunity to serve the homeless in one fell swoop. “We had a really unique opportunity. There was a moment.”

Untold numbers of organizations and individuals throughout the metropolitan area have pitched in to help the homeless get through the beastly cold weather, certainly. In south Kansas City, the Community Assistance Council, a nonprofit helping keep people in their homes with rent and utility assistance, has an “In From the Cold” program putting homeless folks in temporary shelters, usually hotel rooms. In conjunction with The Martin City Telegraph, the program raised some $7,000 and sheltered some 14 families during the recent bitter cold, says CAC Executive Director Rachel Casey.

For some reason that Casey can’t divine, there are no homeless shelters in south Kansas City. Yet the need is: She says calls for help averaged about 20 a day a year ago, and more like 80 a day now.

Notwithstanding the added layer of COVID-19 pandemic layoffs, it’s as if this is the first hard freeze we’ve ever experienced in Kansas City. Must we continue to rely on ad hoc efforts to help, or carry on as if we didn’t realize winter was nigh, or that we don’t know what to do or don’t have the resources to do it with? We simply have to be better than this.

“Kansas City needs a citywide plan with strong strategies and funding for prevention, emergency shelters and the creation of housing that is affordable to low- and extremely-low income brackets,” said Stephanie Boyer, CEO of nonprofit reStart, which provides a comprehensive set of services for preventing and ending homelessness. “We have never had a plan.”

Boyer says Kansas City has 11,200 people in need of housing vouchers just on the Housing Authority of KC waiting list. She says a 2018 study revealed a need for 7,000 low-income housing units.

“How will we ever get there if we don’t have a plan or funding allocated?” she asked. “The city needs to double down its focus and efforts on creating housing that is affordable. Housing prevents and ends homelessness.”

Absolutely — though, as notes Eric Burger, executive director of rescue mission Shelter KC, prevalent substance abuse and mental health issues must also be confronted: “It doesn’t matter how much housing is available if substance abuse and untreated mental health issues aren’t addressed.”

As complicated as the problem is, and despite a ton of agencies helping the homeless, the city must step in and step up. Thankfully, although belatedly, the mayor and council have formed a public-private Homeless Services Task Force, which has just begun to meet. It’s a needed step. But it’s only a step. This isn’t a task that a temporary force can complete. As a community, we’ve got to gird ourselves for the long term.

Mayor Quinton Lucas seems to understand this — telling The Star Editorial Board in a written statement that while there are myriad community organizations working on the homeless problem, with millions of dollars for temporary housing and transitional housing assistance along the way, it hasn’t been enough.

“All — the city, community groups, and activists — share in the recognition that there’s more to be done,” he wrote. “As someone who grew up experiencing homelessness, I know it comes in many forms, and one’s housing status can change overnight — particularly during this health pandemic.”

Watson, a member of the task force, says she hopes it moves swiftly — especially since warmer temperatures have melted away much of the urgency and have scattered many of the warming center’s occupants to the wind.

“It’s not about the weather. It’s about survival and the preservation of life,” said Watson, who was chronically homeless in her youth. “For me, I feel like the urgency around this is really profound. If we’re going to leverage this moment, while we’ve got the attention of the members of this new task force, we need to get busy very quickly.”

The most urgent needs, she says: better collaboration and fewer silos among both service providers and city council members, and a comprehensive long-term plan from the city.

She’s right. The city needs to provide a steady hand, a helping hand, but not a heavy one. It should respect the vast expertise of local nonprofits, while aggregating and assimilating their existing efforts, but while seeing how the city government can elevate those good works.

Most of all, the city can provide leadership and inspiration to prevent this from ever happening again.

We can, and must, be the miracle the homeless need.