Anyone who has lived long in Kansas City — a city proud of its fountains, parks, first-rate sports teams and barbecue — could not help but see that it has also become a city with a burgeoning population of people experiencing homelessness.
Huddling downtown against the cold and heat. Raising sprawling, and, in some cases, dangerous encampments in the woods along the railroad and Missouri River. Sleeping beneath bridges, at traffic medians and in parks.
On Thursday, in a tacit acknowledgment that the loose, uncoordinated system it has relied upon for decades has largely been ineffective in reducing homelessness, the Kansas City Council voted to pass an ordinance to put $1 million toward kickstarting a public-private strategy as a better response to the crisis…