Kansas City’s getting one major thing right with homeless people: listening to them

Today, I am a social impact documentary filmmaker. But once, I traveled this country in the pursuit of happiness while battling crack cocaine drug addiction. At the same time, I was raising my young daughter on the streets, inside shelters or in the home of anyone who was kind enough to let us stay there.

Together, she and I have visited more than 40 states while desperately trying to find our own place called home. There, I have personally witnessed the lonely tears of people whose families deny and turn away their own DNA.

By the grace of God, I was able to pull myself together. I have since traveled back to several of the pain-filled streets I once walked. That experience allowed me to become a voice for those who have none. I was able to compare the cities where a homeless person could reside and have the best — or the worst — chances to make it back into the mainstream of society.

On one night in January 2020, the Department of Housing and Urban Development calculated there were nearly 600,000 individuals encountering vagrancy in America. The majority — about 70% — were individuals, and the rest were families with children. They lived in every state, and they mirrored the diversity of the United States.

Cities across the country are experiencing an uptick in homelessness. They need insight on ways to end an epidemic that continues to spread rapidly. According to the U.S. Conference of Mayors, the primary causes of homelessness are a lack of affordable housing, unemployment, poverty, mental illness — and the lack of services for the latter two.

I am currently working on a documentary called “In Correspondence with Eric Protein Moseley.” The purpose of this film is to reach the president of the United States and others to tell the compelling true stories that you don’t regularly see in local broadcasting.

One of those stories is about a homeless individual who goes by the name of Holy Ghost. He ran an encampment in Kansas City, where he thinks leaders are doing outstanding work for the homeless. He thinks the city did a remarkable job of not only putting homeless people into hotel rooms, but also of helping them find permanent housing after they leave. That is an approach other municipalities need to consider replicating.

Homelessness is a condition and not a disease, and therefore there is no medical remedy or prescription that one can take for it to go away. But as the Greater Kansas City Coalition to End Homeless puts it, “Homelessness in Kansas City is a problem that can be solved.”

In one significant advance, the city is opening up communication with the unhoused community. Mayor Quinton Lucas has met with the Kansas City Homeless Union not once, but multiple times, including for four days straight in April. Together, they are taking the steps necessary to create results that address the necessities of the city’s homeless population. A lack of communication — leading to neither side having a clear understanding of the other — has always been a problem with the homeless and local officials nationwide.

Homelessness is bringing on new challenges, making leaders scramble to find solutions to combat a growing problem. While some cities continue to struggle with answers, some have made it a point to find solutions from those who need the help themselves. In my experience, the city of Kansas City is doing more things right than it has in the past, and it’s doing more overall than other comparable urban areas.

Eric Protein Moseley is a documentary filmmaker who works to educate the homeless about COVID-19. He is currently working on a series in Minneapolis.

This story was originally published September 2, 2021 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Kansas City’s getting one major thing right with homeless people: listening to them."