Avenue of Life: Helping Families Achieve Stability

Avenue of Life is the backbone of the Impact KCK collective impact strategy, which was established to eradicate student homelessness. This collective impact strategy has been successful in reducing student homelessness in Wyandotte County by over half within its first three years of operation, thanks to partnerships with more than 90 organizations including schools, non-profits, for-profits, government entities, faith-based groups and investors. Impact KCK’s goal is to increase family stability and reduce trauma, leading to higher high school graduation rates and a reduction in poverty.
Between 2015 to 2021, Impact KCK provided support to 1605 families through prevention and diversion programs, housed 509 families, and helped 449 families find employment. In the 2019-2020 school year, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, there were 860 McKinney-Vento Act students in the KCK public schools, with 116 living in shelters and 22 living in unfit housing. Despite the challenges posed by the pandemic, Impact KCK’s youth services at Wyandotte High School saw a 100 percent graduation rate for case-managed McKinney-Vento seniors, and 84 percent of McKinney-Vento students across the district were safely housed.
With student homelessness on the rise caused in part by the economic effects of the pandemic, effective models for ending homelessness are needed more than ever. Impact KCK is a unique solution to homelessness in Wyandotte County; it is the only collective impact approach and the only program to offer a centralized location for extensive collaboration, comprehensive case management and wrap-around services. Homeless families often face difficulties accessing the numerous social services available to them, but Impact KCK aims to bring these agencies together in one place so that families can receive a wider range of services at once, making it easier for them to find the help they need.
In addition to housing, Impact KCK provides a range of services, including healthcare assistance, trauma-informed case management, nutrition assistance, behavioral health counseling, employment services, legal assistance, youth mentoring, transportation, furniture and emergency relief. The program also offers life skills classes, including Housing 101, Employment 101, Finance 101, Healthcare 101 as well as nutrition and parenting classes.
Avenue of Life has teamed with other organizations to replicate the successful Impact KCK program in different public school districts across the country. One such partnership is with the Kansas City Public Schools district in Missouri, where a pilot program called KCPS Empowerment Program has been established. Avenue of Life aims to end child homelessness, one school district at a time.

Your support can help transform lives and restore families in Kansas City. To learn more about how you can get involved, visit avenueoflife.org.