Then and your permission of course to release this under Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike license sorry, you heard of the I propose to release this under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike license that just means that anybody can can use it or in any in any form they want. They just need to give you a give you I acknowledge you as a source right?
Yes, I understand. Yes.
And I suppose we have 30 to 60 minutes session I need 28 minutes to broadcast but I also wonder if you have any comments on the episode description that that I probably I don't know if you had had chance to look at that
Yeah, yeah, I did I don't see any real real discrepancies or anything that needs to be changed to you know, Esther can look at it later and if she's cutting comments will change as she wants to see we'll pass it on then. Dad.
I'm sure it's just fine.
That's great. I could Okay, fine. So all right. So then what I think my microphone works better if I use my ear but so I could do this.
Okay, one of the things I'll tell you Esther will probably be giving you more of the nuts and bolts type stuff. And all my approach lives and it serves as well but what I do more is talking about the the moral and the myths, the moral issues and the misconceptions. That that may be helpful for you to know that ahead of time.
Okay. Okay. So let's just began Hang on just a moment. Oh, my throat
Welcome to radioactive magazine, Jeff Humphrey out and Reverend Esther Hudson Dorf will talk with us about the Kansas City homeless Union, and the hope for the homeless project. Reverend Esther is a retired social worker, Executive Director of the chestnut Resource Center, and a leader of this coalition. Jeff Armfield is, is Chair of the Board of consolidated social work services. I'm Spencer graves. Jeff, Reverend asked what are the most important things you'd like our listeners to know about the Kansas City homeless union and the hope for the homeless project?
Well, first thing I would say is that we do not speak for the homeless Union, we cannot they have their own spokesperson. Qaddafi, and
we speak
about what we see going on with government and the efforts to, to address this issue. And, you know, let's face it, the same groups keep getting the money for this and millions of dollars over the last 2025 years or whatever. And we still have a problem that it's growing. So those are kind of what we're addressing. I, I will be addressing kind of the misconceptions of of who and is homeless and how they became homeless, and our, our actual approach to addressing this issue. And Esther, I'll let you speak to what you're going to speak to.
Okay, and thank you for this opportunity to Spencer to address this very important issue. It's taking place in most cities, Kansas City being one of those cities. We actually became involved with the houseless project back in 2019. As it came about as a result of a person who had frozen to death. And so we began to do research and inquire as to how could this possibly it had happened before. And which, of course, has always been a concern of ours. But, you know, to know that this kind of thing is continuing. We find that inexcusable and something that can no longer be tolerated. So we began to do research as to what organizations are supposed to be working with individuals who are in dire straits, so to speak in critical need. And, and what what was the funding coming from who where's the funding going? And so as a result of that, and meeting up with Qaddafi, I had met Qaddafi, several years ago, probably 20 years ago, when he was serving time in in one of the Maduro penitentiaries. And because I'm in prison ministry, so I had met him. And I knew about an organization that he has started while he was still incarcerated, and that was hugging your hood. And so when he got out of prison, we have the Resource Center at 1311. Chestnut, we meaning consolidate social work services, has the chestnut Avenue Family Resource Center. So he came to the resource center when he was released from prison, and he was involved with the homeless situation. And so I became involved through Qaddafi. And, and they created their own homeless union and the community of the homeless community. I prefer calling them houseless. Because in a way you hang your head at home. So they had gotten together and, and they had created their own houses union, and they selected Qaddafi to be their spokesperson, and they have an LLC. And so I began working with them. At that time, they were camped out, they were occupied. They were not just protesting, they were occupying City Hall. So I started working with them then. Then I did some outreach to the mayor's office, Mayor Quinton Lucas met with him, met with folks from his office met with city manager Brian plant, began meeting with the various and sundry organizational leaders, executive directors of cetera center. With the Greater Kansas City coalition and homelessness, you name it, we probably met with him Hu D. I found myself going in circles. And so my my team came together we have a team that we work with, and, and through the board of directors for Consolidated social work services,
we came together and we had to make some hard decisions. Because winner was sitting in a game. And we've been doing work and trying to work with people for almost a year and getting absolutely nowhere. So
after all of the talking with the city officials, etc, was done. And we hadn't solved the problem of houses just met with the city manager, and some of the other folks one more time. And I asked him, so what is the mission?
You know, maybe maybe we just come up with a mission, maybe we can come to an agreement on that. So
the city manager Brian plant told us that the mission is a house, a roof, everyone who needs a roof, housing first, what I knew that was federal government. That was what they had intended. Because in March of 2021, President Biden has signed the American rescue plan act. And so we began to work we mean and consolidate social work services, those other organizations and entities that I was calling to come in to work with us to build a to start a developing a strategic plan to solve the problem of house lessness. And so we began to meet with the United States, the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness, and the federal government, a Congressman Cleaver,
you name it, we met with him because what we what we intend to do, what we went in and then and we still intend to do is to find out why we haven't solved this problem.
Yes, we've done a lot of money at it. And once again, you know, my, my part of this is is the misconceptions, and I've been working at this for a lot longer than 2019. I was involved with Richard Crippen, and his care of poor people. Organization 1520 years ago almost. And one of the problems that we have is, is among not just our citizenship, but but also our press. And our you know, city government is a misconception of who is homeless and how they became homeless. And, you know, the issue or the image that most people have is, you know, somebody that's drug addicted or mentally ill tripping down the street or whatever. That really is what what people see when in their mind when you use these words and say, homeless, or houseless. But, you know, over the years, the reports I've read put the number of children at 20 to 40% of the homeless. Now, those aren't drug addicted. Folks, families are a big percentage of the homeless, and they're, they're out there, if they're able to stay together, they're afraid to go to shelters, because they get separated in the shelters, two girls up all have to go one way. And boys all have to go the other way. And everything. And families find that very difficult. And that puts a real strain on them. Sometimes, and this is this is maybe I don't know, whether it's as prevalent as it used to be. But parents were looked on in shelters as being lacking. And their children quite often were taken from them put into the foster care system. So they avoid these shelters. That's why it's hard to count them and hard to understand the that they are out there. You know, the other thing is, is that, yes, there are those people who are addicted, there are those people who have mental illness. And that's, once again, that's that's a failure on our part as a society to take care of those people. And address those issues. You know, homelessness is basically a symptom is not a problem, that stands alone, it is a symptom of poverty, it is a symptom of, we don't pay enough to the working poor, for them to be able to navigate our economic and social system. So that's, you know, the image of KU Howe is, is really very multifaceted, and very much an economic problem. You know, the unhoused people are very often blamed for their own situation, oh, they are out there because they want to be, or whatever. But most people who end up are part of the working poor, and they get into a car accident or the car has a break down. And they can't get to work because they don't have the money to fix the car. Or one of the biggest issues is illness, a sick you know, an illness, or a hospital bill can just devastate someone that's working from paycheck to paycheck. And, you know, once you lose the job, once you lose that income, your shelter is gonna go not too too long after that,
because you're going to be put out because you're not paying your rent. It's not because you don't want to, because you're not able to. So, you know, COVID was was a really big contributor to the problem that we have right now. And it still is for a lot of people. So it's created a spike.
And, you know, also the the loss of jobs during COVID, you know, the shutdown and stuff. So a lot of people lost their their housing during that period, or shortly thereafter, you know, after it started to get better, but they just couldn't get back to work. You know, the help that was out there, dried up. And so here we are. One of the other things that I see as a real problem is gentrification.
And by definition, gentrification is losing affordable housing, that people come in to depressed areas and rebuild and, you know, the housing that they the money that they put in, they want to recoup that money. And that's That's understandable. But, you know, for someone who is working paycheck to paycheck, and they're put out of an apartment or whatever, and said, Look, I'm gonna renovate this building, you have to move. Well, they don't have the money that's required to get a new apartment. They can't come up with with a first and last rent or, or deposits and all this other stuff, they just don't have the resources to do that kind of thing. So these are some of the main reasons why people end up on the street. You know, and something that we're seeing more and more of, is younger people in particular have this problem is they make enough money to afford a mortgage. But that, in fact, they're paying more for rent than they would for a mortgage. But they can't come up with the downpayment. And this is a you know, this is a policy thing in this country where we support the the landowner, so to say the landlord's with programs quite often, but we don't come up with with those programs that help people and encourage people to become home owners. And, you know, 30 years ago, when I was on the board of neighborhood housing services, we ran into that problem a lot. And one of the things that was developed was a low interest, very low interest loan, for the downpayment, and a program like that could make a go a long way to helping some people who, you know, are in affordable housing, but actually can afford to move into homeownership. And that can also open up more affordable housing for people who are still in need. So, you know, it's, it's an inc economic system, that's, that's just not working, right. And we need to look at the whole thing from top to bottom and say, Where can we tweak this thing? Or where can we make changes that will actually help people. But right now, really, our our biggest concern really is the chronic homeless that are out on the street, that, you know, just don't have the shelter. And we're looking at the cold winters, but we're also looking at the the hot summers, and I heard something on the radio yesterday that that heat is probably the biggest weather related killer, even more so than cold or storms or anything else. So these are all things that we need to be considering.
And kind of follow up on what Jeff was saying. That is situations and circumstances that are created, that causes people to become houseless in the first place, and then they remain houses and become chronic, and doesn't mean that they are all mentally ill, or drug addicted. It's uncalled for is preventable because, and this is not this, this information that I'm about to share is not hidden information is open to the public. If you look up making the most of the American rescue plan, you will find that the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness is the only federal agency with the sole mission to prevent an end homelessness. They actually coordinate the federal response to homelessness with 19 agencies that make up their council. And they help state and local governments and the private sector create partnerships, use resources in the most efficient and effective ways and implement evidence based best practices. President Biden signed, I'm sorry, President, President Biden signed the American rescue plan act on March the 11th 2021. In response to the economic crisis catalyzed by the COVID 19 pandemic. The relief legislation offers more than $1.9 trillion in health for individuals, families and businesses. It includes $21.6 billion in emergency rental assistance for households struggling to pay rent and utilities. Many of the laws provisions can be used to help For people who are currently are at risk of experiencing homelessness. These resources provide communities with a once in a generation opportunity to innovate and improve existing systems and should target the most vulnerable people, including those living with disabilities and those living on sheltered. We need affordable accessible housing. Kansas City, Missouri, received the allocations of $194,776,376. And we still don't have roofs. We don't have the wraparound services that is included in the American rescue plan. And also, there's an emergency housing voucher plan program within this rescue plan. It provides $5 billion to fund approximately 70,000 emergency housing vouchers, and the provision of services. It also provides for emergency Rental Assistance provides up to $25 billion under the Consolidated Appropriations Act 2021, which was enacted on December 27 2020. For the emergency rental assistance, 90% of the funds must be used for direct financial assistance. remaining funds are available for housing stability services, including case management. So there are funds that have been made available by the appropriations
were made. And the I'm not an attorney. And I'm probably not the brightest bulb in the box, either. But it seems pretty clear to me that the making the most of the American rescue plan is written in such you know, just basic, using basic information that anybody can understand. It's clear to me that the federal government intends to end homelessness. And they and they trusted the cities and the states to do the right thing with the funds that was Alec was appropriated for that purpose.
But yet, we still have people dying as a result of living unsheltered in unsafe, unsanitary situations,
Sikhs didn't have to die, the way he did, is he didn't have to burn up under that bridge. Reggie didn't have to freeze to death.
There are so many that are suffering from trauma, as a result of having to watch their friends, Reggie in here and his friend had been tent mates for for 20 years. And he and he came home, his friend came home and came back to the tent where they were staying. And he thought he was just laying there. He tried to wake him up. And he didn't wake up. So he said he went over to pick him up. And that's when he realized and I can't hardly talk about this because I get emotional. But he said that's when he realized his friend was frozen. I often wonder what happened to that young man? How does he do? How is he dealing with the trauma of losing his buddy? And his name? His first name is James. I won't I won't give his last name. But I wonder about James sometime, but how is he making it. And that's just one case of so many. And this is absolutely inexcusable and unacceptable. That the city of Kansas City, Missouri or any other city that has received the appropriations that they have received, will take those funds and not put them in the housing fund but put them in a general fund. So they anybody that wants to come and dip in for whatever purpose they want to dip in and do whatever they want to do with it. They do that. While people human beings are suffering and die, I find that not just inhumane, I find that totally despicable, disgusting, unacceptable, and intolerable. And so that's why I'll be at four years old if the Lord wants me to see the 15th of this month. That's why I keep doing what I do. I will never accept this because somebody is taking the money that the federal government intended to be utilized to help the most vile vulnerable, the voiceless. And that's one of the reasons why this is what I suspect that they don't check that the politicians are not changing anything they're not solving the problem because they don't have the political will to do so because they they see the houseless community as being voiceless they don't vote, so therefore they're no threat to them. Okay, so it's just let them suffer and that
right,
we are talking with Jeff Humphrey out and Reverend Esther Hudson Dorf about the Kansas City homeless union and the hope for the homeless project. Now, you mentioned the American rescue plan act and and the substantial sum of money that they allocated to the city of Kansas City, Missouri. And are there provisions of that act that that require them to use? Use that for to reduce homelessness or house lessness? And if so, is there a legal lever that you can use in some way to to investigate that? And for a horse that issue?
We have we have a meeting with the mayor that we're in the process of scheduling now. He's he's in contact with us. So I he wanted to know some dates. And so I sent him some dates this morning. So I'm waiting to hear back from him to confirm those we have out. We are also in touch with the US Attorney General's Office. We also in touch with the state attorney general, because our question has to do with a pattern of behavior. Because we know that there are millions of dollars now this, there isn't a kcu our article that talks about here's how Kansas City spent $100 million at 18th and Vine since 1990. So we sunshine that and we got the report back after I filed with the state attorney general's to get Kansas City to respond because they would not respond to my sunshine, they violated their own Sunshine laws. And so I got with the state attorney general and as a result of state attorney general contacting Kansas City, then they responded. So I got the information back as to what happened to that $100 million. However, they would not give me the information as to exactly where that money went. But I'll give you a for instance, millions of dollars that they supposedly had had allocated to to work on a particular apartment dwelling place here in Kansas City, I won't call the name it's it's rundown tore down is obviously didn't spend the money over there. The old boom theater was supposed to have been renovated when we all know where they were boom, DAV is up there by the old call office, they are on 18th Street. And it's boarded up. We know there's nothing on 18th Street really except it originally it was supposed to be a tourist attraction. That was what they were originally had had said it was going to be well, we all know that didn't work. So you know that that is just one thing. Another thing that I'm asking questions about is the $385,000. And this is an audit, I have a copy the ID there's nothing hidden. It's unquestionable spending on Kansas City employees purchasing cards. So what they had done is they had taken the city's credit cards and made personal purchases with them. Now, if you make a mistake, you know, I mean, I'm a taxpaying citizen. I'm not an unforgiving person, you know, if you make a mistake, and you mess up 10 or $15, somewhere, I mean, I can kind of understand that. But $385,000 by and personal things had nothing to do with business. You know, they treat this money as if it's their own personal bank account. And that's wrong.
And so we will pursue this. And wherever truth leads us, that's where we will go. We are fully prepared to do whatever we need to do, to bring to the attention of Kansas City, Missouri, the state of Missouri and the United States of America, that there are some people in Kansas City, Missouri or Grandview, Missouri town and other little places that we do not appreciate being used and misused and seeing people devalued to the point where it's the city says to them, it's okay to let you die.
We will not accept that
without because you're not don't have proper shelter. Right?
Exactly. They don't have proper shelter, they don't have any way to shower. They don't have sanitary living conditions. They don't have ways to get their medication, they don't have anybody to help them to stay warm. They don't have. They don't have. But I think I said showers but they don't have proper food, because they don't have any way to cook. They don't have any basic human needs are not being met Spencer. And so we cannot, we cannot continue to sit down as citizens as human beings and see this happening and say it's okay. And if we still if we remain silent, then we are in fact saying it's okay.
One of the things that we have seen is that, you know, their practices are to, to put bandaid on things or make it look like they're doing something when they actually don't. And a good example is the homeless enclave ordinance that was passed by our city council. I think it was a unanimous vote. It was and they have not done it, they haven't created it. And it was suggested to Reverend Esther and I, here recently by somebody, we were discussing this with that what they need is an enclave in each council district, because there are homeless people in each of these districts, they aren't all down in the third district or the fifth district or wherever, there from one end of the city to the other. You know what I mean, there are there are some very basic things that we could do to help people especially the people who are living in tents, and what and things like that, there's a organization love and may X out in California, that helps organizations and not for profits, buy and equipped busses with laundry and shower facilities, where they can go around to the different camps, and actually help people. You know, one of the biggest problems around these camps is trash. And if you look closely, you'll see that a lot of trash is close. And the reason is that these folks, the day wear the clothes until they're so dirty there, they can't wear them any longer. Because they don't have a way to clean them. And they throw them away and get some more. This is one thing that would would help with the trash problem. But it also will give them some dignity in and actually being able to do something for themselves. You know, we need what I what I've been saying is we need a 24/7 physical 311 a place that's open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, where when somebody is thrown out of their house or whatever, they have a place to go.
Because when that net first few hours that first day, that first week is frightening. And it is, you know, it's a real trauma to people, because they have no idea what what happens next, and they're they're fearful because they're out on the street 24 hours a day, they got no place to stay, you know, and if they do go someplace, and and camp or whatever, they don't know who's going to come up on him or what authorities are going to come and rouse them. So we need to, you know, once again, we need to find new ways to address this issue. And that's all there is to it. I mean, this is a human rights problem. We see on the TV, these ads for the starving kids and refugees across the world. We give money to them. But here when we see the same thing in our own community, we look on them as as an inconvenience or a pestilence. And that's just wrong.
Yeah, it is. And
we have Senate Bill 1106. Coming up, it will go into effect January 2023. Now Senate Bill 1106. It talks about state funds shall mean any funds raised by the state and federal funds received by the state for housing or homelessness, but shall not include any federal funds not able to be used for housing program pursuant to this section due to federal statutory or regulatory restrictions. State funds for the homeless shall be used for the following. For parking areas each area shall provide access to potable water and electric outlets and access to bathrooms sufficient to serve all of the parking area. is for camping facilities, individuals experiencing homelessness may camp and store personal property as such facilities, which shall be subject to the following. Individuals shall only camp and store personal property such facilities in the areas designated to each individual by the agency providing the camping facilities. And it goes on and on to talk about wraparound services shall be provided mental health, substance use evaluations in how individual shelters are supposed to, to what services they're supposed to provide.
So it's gonna be very interesting to see what happens in January
in the middle of winter,
when Senate Bill 1106 kicks in.
So
do you have attorneys affiliated with the chestnut research, resource center consolidation, consolidated social work services?
We are not we are a non legal agency. We do not provide any type of legal services now.
But my point is that that you're you're suggesting, if I understand correctly, that the city of Kansas City, Missouri is in violation of the law? And if that's No, that's true, it would seem to me that the threat of a lawsuit might might get their attention.
Well, hopefully the state attorney general and the US Attorneys General will become involved based on the information that we have to share.
And we're not doing anything behind the mayor's back or anything. I keep them apprised of what we're doing. Because I don't believe that we I think one of the problems is that we have lack of transparency, and I'm not, you know, our organization, and our entity is not going to be a part of gameplan. I respect the mayor and I respect the mayor, the position of the mayor, I respect the office of the mayor. So I'm not doing anything behind his back. But I think it's time for the federal government and the state government to get involved in what is going on. In Kansas City, Missouri. I think this should be throughout the cities, because it's not just Kansas City where we have this type of behavior taking place.
Right? Yep. Well, so where are there? Is there someplace on the on the web that you would recommend for people interested in getting more information?
I don't have any any particular references. You know, like I said, my, my involvement has been kind of down on the in the trenches more than with the the, the internet so, okay. Yeah,
they can they can go to www dot advancing social networking. Ah, n i n g.com. Or they can look up consolidated social work services. They can just Google that. Or they can go go chestnut Avenue, Family Resource Center.
Okay. Great. And so what would you like our audience to do is in response to the concerns you've raised,
I would like for the, the general public, to educate themselves as to how city government and county government, the state government actually works. But all government is local. That's it starts local. So I would like to see the general public become more involved in what is going on in the city, and to and to up, because they can attend council meetings in person or they can get the clerk's office to give them the Zoom information. They can attend it via zoom. But get involved. Ask questions, offer your assistance. We often assistance to the city. We're not just here complaining. When we meet with the mayor. We have met with the City Manager We have met with other staff members, we offer Social Work Support Services. They just have not invited us to the table. But we have a plan of action. We we've been social workers. I've been in this business either as a social worker or nurse. I'm retired from corrections for since 1958. I've been in this a long time and we have to People who have been in this a long time that works with us, we have a master's level social work, we're prepared to hit the ground running to help the city to not only write a wrapper around a social service support plan, but to help to develop it and implement it. We're ready to go right now.
Okay, thank you. Thank you. We're basically out of time. Any final words for our listeners?
The one thing that I would say is I would encourage people to get involved in whatever efforts are out there to help people who are on the street. I'm trying to think of the and meet some people who are homeless, listen to their stories and realize that these are people just like you that have hits, hit some problems.
And I want to give a shout out to the incarcerated citizens at western Missouri Correctional Center, who have crocheted 1000, blankets, scarves and caps. And they sent them down here for us to hand out to the houses community, that's their way of trying to at least help somebody to stay warm as best they could. Now, these are folks who are incarcerated, and they don't have anything, but they figured out a way where they could do something and so they sent those down, and it's through their restoration, their restorative justice program at Western Missoula Correctional Center. So I want to be sure and give a shout out to them. We appreciate those fellows for their kindness and for their thoughtfulness. Okay, thank
you very much.
Jeff heartfelt and Reverend Esther, Halston. Dorf have been describing the Kansas City homeless union and the hub for the homeless project. Reverend Halston. Dorf is a retired social worker, Executive Director of the chestnut resource center and a leader of this coalition. Hump out is Chair of the Board of consolidated social work services. I'm Spencer graves, thanks for listening.
Okay, so I've got plenty more than I might I need any other comments?
Thank you so much, Spencer, we appreciate you for helping us to get the word out. People will become more involved.
Yeah, it's a it's a multifaceted problem. And yes, it's a structural problem. And really, what we need to do is build a an infrastructure that catches people as they fall and and hopefully helps them before they fall.
Right. I just want one question. I didn't have time to ask. What do you know if anything about the parade Park housing cooperative here in Kansas City,
that's the one I was talking about. Okay. That's what I was talking about. So it's a bit a million million and a half dollars that was supposed to go on in for restoration and upkeep and you see what shape it's in? I don't know what happened. It's not a co op anymore. It looks it looks to me on face. On the face of things I have been able to find out through research that is going into private corporate hands. Yeah.
Yeah, I expect that they will probably tear the whole thing down and build something different high end, probably probably not affordable housing or or, or even a home or something that people could buy, you know, a homeownership.
What's your What are your thoughts about housing coops generally?
I think that they're they're a good idea. You know, coops in general have not been taken off in this country like I would have hoped. I mean, I was involved with coops back in the early 70s. Yeah.
I was I was raised on a farm and, and my grandfather was, was managed an agricultural Co Op and Wheeler, Kansas and in the early 30s, they went bankrupt.
Yeah, I was on I was on a board here of an organization that was started out of MMU the Columbia Extension Center to try and bring the coops across the state and all kinds of coops everything from little food co ops, to farm coops and housing coops and stuff together into an organization. Unfortunately, that that didn't take it just sort of, you know, it did real well for for a short time and then just sort of fizzled out. Yeah, yeah, I, you know, I think co ops are a real good way for us to preserve And you know, housing and all sorts of things not just housing but business communities and everything else that are under pressure from from big corporate type interest or whatever the big money folks that want to run ever, you know, everything small out and all. I think coops are a very good way for people to, to, you know, take their own communities in hand. Right, right.
Yeah. Yeah. If you know, I think it could work you know, but I don't know, the way the mood of the people in the way things are going. I don't know. You know,
my I just don't yeah, my my. My research. They're, they're basically their worker coops and their consumer coops. And so housing coops as a type of consumer Co Op, worker coops, there's research that says that they, on average, grow faster, and are more stable than traditionally managed companies. It's, it's, to me, it's like the tortoise and the hare, you got 100 turtles and 100 Rabbits running 100 races, a rabbit is going to win every race, but half the rabbits are never going to finish but all the turtles will.
Yeah, yeah. Yeah,
you know, this. This is something that we are addressing at the, the chestnut Family Resource Center. I would neighbors group, we, you know, we've been discussing with our neighbors group and looking at different intentional communities, which is a type of co op. Yeah, okay. You know, it's not full out coop, so to say, but there's a lot of cooperation and management, so to say, of, of the community, by the members of the community. So we've we've been looking at things like that, that effort is, is kind of part of a number of things that they're doing, and I think that it needs, it will be put back on the front burner here before too long. But you know, that is something that we've looked at it that's the way to bring some of these neighborhoods, I mean, here in Kansas City, we we grew up in I grew up in a neighborhood over on the west side and, and the neighborhood that it's the resource centers in and I knew people that live there, and these were neighborhoods where, you know, if you as a kid did something, somebody else's block before you got home, mom and dad knew it, because everybody knew everybody, and they took care of each other, and they watched out for each other. And, you know, that lady that you happen to see on the porch when you did what you did. She made some calls. And and before before he got home, mom knew what you did. So I mean, they took care of each other, but they also played together and and ate together and party together and celebrated together. All right.
Yeah. What's, what's an intentional community?
It's just that it's a community that that, you know, works that lives together, but also they each take different jobs and all and sometimes the jobs rotate, take care of the community take care of each
other. Right. So I'm familiar with Jerusalem farm.
I knew about them. Yeah.
Well, I'm some of those folks are affiliated with Peaceworks Kansas City, and I'm, I'm there as the secretary Peaceworks. And so, you know, I know them through that. And I was, I interviewed them. A couple of them recently.
They are an intentional community. I mean, I mean, I went down there when they were there very early. Right. They had only been working down there for maybe a couple of years at the most when I went down I haven't been down really spending time with them or talk to them. But you know, they were identifying other properties within the neighborhood. Yeah. Going to be available or were available for to bring people into
you might want to listen because I interviewed them for radioactive magazine here just fairly recently within more than the past month or two, so that that the episode description of podcast is available if you want it Okay, well, I will Let you go unless you have something else for me and and I'll get on with it
thank you so much we appreciate you Spencer do
you take care well ditto
okay okay take care Jeff I'll talk to you later bye bye All right
