By Andra Bryan Stefanoni
PITTSBURG, Kan. — Southeast Kansas residents who met recently in Pittsburg to tackle poverty challenges left with more questions than answers.
Key among them is what to do about an emergency shelter for homeless families, built in 2008, that likely will close in March. Transportation services also could be in jeopardy, said Becky Gray, director of grants development for the Southeast Kansas Community Action Program, or SEK-CAP.
The shelter serves about 320 families a year; SEK-CAP’s general public transit program gives 150,000 rides annually.
At Memorial Auditorium on Friday, Gray, along with 220 SEK-CAP staff members from 12 Southeast Kansas counties, joined more than 40 stakeholders, a statewide leader and a national poverty expert to discuss problems, establish priorities and look at possible solutions. The group included representatives of agencies involved with law enforcement, health, education, foster care, developmental and intellectual disabilities, community colleges and housing.
Earlier this year, SEK-CAP learned that the Kansas Housing Resources Corp. proposed cutting the region’s Community Services Block Grant funding in order to shift money to community action agencies in western Kansas. SEK-CAP annually receives around $743,000, and the cuts, depending on variables, could be between $371,000 and $396,000.
The state’s eight community action agencies use the funding to support various programs, including Tenant Based Rental Assistance, or TBRA, homeless shelters and general public transit.
“We intended to use CSBG dollars to provide transition support specialists who would work one on one with the families receiving TBRA subsidies to ensure they were working toward education or employment, to link them with other resources, assist them in understanding appropriate and constructive tenant and landlord relationships, assist them in advocating for safe or repaired or appropriate housing, help them establish asset building plans like saving accounts, and so forth,” Gray said.
The idea, she said, was to help members of a household out for a year with full subsidy and transition support; after they successfully met all expectations, their subsidy would continue for a second year.
“This second year would allow time for asset development — savings accrual, transportation improvement, educational expenses,” Gray said.
But with cuts proposed in CSBG funding, that can’t happen.
CHOICES
The emergency homeless shelter, called Choices, which serves families from several Southeast Kansas counties, is funded by almost $200,000 in local donations and a grant. It continually faces a shortfall of nearly $200,000 — a gap that the agency has filled with CSBG money.
SEK-CAP also is facing a reduction in general public transportation in Pittsburg, according to Executive Director Steve Lohr. Stakeholders said Friday that reductions in transportation funding would jeopardize access to education and employment.
Tara Burch, who works with intellectually disabled clients at Mosaic in Pittsburg, noted that another stumbling block is the lack of available day care on weekends and in the evenings, which undermines the ability of single mothers to get a job.
Keynote speaker Gene Nichol said the rising cost of higher education is prohibitive for many of those seeking a way out of poverty. Nichol is the director of the Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity at the University of North Carolina School of Law and founder of the Center for Civil Rights at the university.
“If you come from a family making $90,000 or more, the chance of you getting a college education is one in two,” he said. “If you come from one making $35,000 or less, it’s one in 17.”
“To get someone through, they need it all — transportation, housing, education,” said Brian Inbody, president of Neosho County Community College in Chanute.
The community agency is exploring other ways of providing services and in a few weeks will begin seeking input, including one-on-one interviews, focus groups and online surveys.
Poverty level
ACCORDING TO FEDERAL income guidelines, the poverty level is about $23,000 a year for a family of four.
SOUTHEAST KANSAS has long been the poorest region of the state, with 27 percent of families in Crawford County and 26.5 percent in Cherokee County living in poverty. The statewide average is 18.76 percent.