By Meg Cunningham
Beacon Missouri
(Photo- Officials collected video evidence of out-of-state law enforcement vehicles dropping people off at truck stops. Some medical systems seemed to be involved, too.-Naomi O’Donnell/The Beacon).
“People were coming to the City Council meetings and saying, ‘I don’t know why you guys don’t know this, but I’m witnessing busloads of people being dropped off in our town,’” said Joplin Mayor Keenan Cortez. “‘Buses are coming in, stopping at gas stations, unloading and the buses are turning around and going back.’”
The city commissioned a study to investigate. But it came back with no hard evidence.
Still, the reports kept coming in. So the city took a deeper look.
Officials collected video evidence of out-of-state law enforcement vehicles dropping people off at truck stops. Some medical systems seemed to be involved, too. They also gathered signed affidavits from people who were new to Joplin, saying they were given promises of a shelter bed or resources at the end of their ride.
“We were starting to hear from people in our community that, ‘I was brought to Joplin and just dropped off. I was in trouble over there. That community didn’t deal with me. They put me in a car, a van, a bus and said there’s help for you,’” Cortez said.
Instead, they were left without their support system, in a new city with limited resources and few places to turn.
Cortez said city officials aren’t sure how many people shared similar stories.
“At the end of the day, I don’t know if it was 15, if it was 50,” Cortez said. “As a mayor, it doesn’t matter.”
Joplin officials put their heads together with the city’s legal team. After sending cease-and-desist letters to the organizations they believed were dropping people off in the city, the City Council started considering legislation to ban the practice.
The City Council passed an ordinance at the beginning of November. It isn’t uncommon for medical systems to refer patients needing specialized treatment, or for victims of domestic violence, to be sent to a shelter in another town. The ordinance includes exemptions for those situations.
So far, Cortez and city officials think the letters and new ordinance appear to be working. They haven’t had any reports of people being dropped off since the ordinance was passed. But the trend points to a larger problem Missouri’s cities are facing as homelessness rises across the state.
Missouri’s reliance on larger cities for services for the homeless population
It is fairly common for smaller, rural areas to rely on the services in larger cities for things like shelters, medical care or mental health treatment.
From 2023 to 2024, the number of unsheltered people grew 9% in Missouri, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development point-in-time counts. In Kansas, the number grew by 6%, while Oklahoma saw an 18% jump.
Columbia is similar to Joplin when it comes to being a regional hub for services and shelter beds.
Columbia began working more closely on reducing homelessness in 2023 by establishing a program within Boone County’s Department of Public Health to connect people with resources. City officials also created a homeless outreach team within the police department to try and divert people from the justice system.
Now, the city has launched the Ride Home program, which gives homeless or impoverished community members free rides back to their hometowns or to support systems up to three hours away. If someone needs to travel farther, the city will purchase a bus ticket to get them to where they need to go.
Since the launch in October, the city has provided three rides, said Austin Krohn, public information specialist at the Columbia & Boone County Department of Public Health and Human Services.
“People come in for mental health services, or if there is a facility that can only do a certain type of screening for them,” Krohn said. “People are coming here from all over Missouri to get services, and then they’re stuck here.”
Local service providers and shelters can refer people to the program to receive a free ride. People must have verifiable support at the destination, a referral, photo ID and no outstanding warrants in the county.
Studies have shown that voluntary transport to a support system can be instrumental in improving someone’s housing situation.
San Francisco runs a robust transportation program, similar to Ride Home in Columbia. In fiscal year 2024, the agency that runs the program gave 230 rides.
San Francisco officials followed up with riders 90 days after their ride, and found that of the 230 served, 61 found housing, while 29 had another or unknown location. The remaining riders were unreachable or declined to be surveyed as part of the program.
“When I was doing direct service 30 years ago, people called it Greyhound therapy,” said Jeff Olivet, the former executive director of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness. “Get a bus ticket to another town, just get out of here, basically. Sometimes that can be incredibly helpful if people are really wanting and needing to get back to family and social supports.”
But if someone is transported or coerced to leave town against their will, it can lead to poorer outcomes, Olivet said.
“Transportation can be critical,” Olivet said. “But if it’s basically, ‘Get out of town or we’re going to arrest you,’ that doesn’t solve homelessness for anybody. It just moves the problem around.”
One 2023 study modeled over 20 U.S. cities concluded that involuntary displacement of people experiencing homelessness — things like encampment sweeps or involuntary transport to another area — could lead to substantial increases in morbidity and mortality.
The study linked involuntary displacement with worse outcomes for overdoses and hospitalizations and a decrease in getting connected with treatment for opioid use. It said the displacements could contribute to deaths of homeless people who use drugs.
A 2017 investigation from The Guardian analyzed nearly 35,000 relocation journeys over a six-year period. The investigation found that most riders were relocated to places with a lower median income.
How Missouri fares
And as homelessness rates rise across all of Missouri, cities may need to start thinking about how to address these gaps, Olivet said.
“In the case of rural areas, or even suburban areas, where there aren’t as many shelter options for people, there aren’t as many mental health treatment programs, there aren’t as many supportive services. Oftentimes, the only way to get help is by going to a larger urban area,” Olivet said.
“That speaks to a tremendous gap when we don’t have good services, support and housing options for people in rural areas. They have to go somewhere else, even if they are from that rural area.”
In Missouri, the numbers aren’t improving.
The state’s continuum of care — a group of agencies that work under the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to address homelessness — found in its most recent report that homelessness is rapidly increasing across the state.
In Region 9, which includes the southwest corner of the state (but does not include metro areas like Joplin or Springfield, which run their own continuums of care outside of the statewide framework), 2023 data found a 133% rise in unsheltered homelessness and a 100% rise in sheltered homelessness from 2022 to 2023.
The area also saw family homelessness increase by 100% from 2022 to 2023.
Region 10, which represents the counties surrounding the Kansas City area, 2023 point-in-time data showed a 3% increase in unsheltered homelessness and a 119% increase in sheltered homelessness from 2022. Family homelessness increased by 173%.
In the group’s annual report, every region saw at least one metric of homelessness, sheltered or unsheltered, increase from 2022 to 2023.
It rings alarm bells with Mary Kenion, the chief equity officer at the National Alliance to End Homelessness.
“At least half of all people experiencing homelessness in largely rural continuums of care do so outdoors, in unsheltered locations,” Kenion said. “We’re also seeing family homelessness on the rise, in rural communities specifically.”
And in their report, the Missouri continuum of care providers noted that while larger towns were better equipped to handle homelessness, it highlights the lack of resources in more rural areas.
The report found a positive relationship between the number of beds available in permanent housing situations and the length of time someone was homeless. For every 1% increase in permanent housing beds, there was a 54-day decrease in the length of time someone was homeless.
Although solutions like access to permanent housing show promise, roadblocks remain.
A coalition of nonprofits and local governments recently sued the Trump administration, arguing it created unreasonable restrictions on state continuums of care across the country. The lawsuit argues that the administration is looking to shift funding away from proven solutions that improve homelessness and that it could force up to 170,000 Americans into homelessness.
The new rules change what types of projects are eligible for funding through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the criteria for selecting projects and the conditions grantees have to accept to receive the funding, the lawsuit argues.
Ultimately, Joplin Mayor Cortez and other experts said that following up with someone after they receive care or resources is key in reducing homelessness.
Cortez is excited about a new development of 16 tiny homes dedicated to providing permanent housing situations for Joplin. But addressing the issue takes everyone coming together, he said.
“This is an ongoing thing that everybody in the community is involved in —– the health care community, the religious community,” Cortez said. “We have some passionate champions in our community working to resolve this problem.”
Calls would come in to city officials following a recurring theme.
“People were coming to the City Council meetings and saying, ‘I don’t know why you guys don’t know this, but I’m witnessing busloads of people being dropped off in our town,’” said Joplin Mayor Keenan Cortez. “‘Buses are coming in, stopping at gas stations, unloading and the buses are turning around and going back.’”
The city commissioned a study to investigate. But it came back with no hard evidence.
Still, the reports kept coming in. So the city took a deeper look.
Officials collected video evidence of out-of-state law enforcement vehicles dropping people off at truck stops. Some medical systems seemed to be involved, too. They also gathered signed affidavits from people who were new to Joplin, saying they were given promises of a shelter bed or resources at the end of their ride.
“We were starting to hear from people in our community that, ‘I was brought to Joplin and just dropped off. I was in trouble over there. That community didn’t deal with me. They put me in a car, a van, a bus and said there’s help for you,’” Cortez said.
Instead, they were left without their support system, in a new city with limited resources and few places to turn.
Cortez said city officials aren’t sure how many people shared similar stories.
“At the end of the day, I don’t know if it was 15, if it was 50,” Cortez said. “As a mayor, it doesn’t matter.”
Joplin officials put their heads together with the city’s legal team. After sending cease-and-desist letters to the organizations they believed were dropping people off in the city, the City Council started considering legislation to ban the practice.
The City Council passed an ordinance at the beginning of November. It isn’t uncommon for medical systems to refer patients needing specialized treatment, or for victims of domestic violence, to be sent to a shelter in another town. The ordinance includes exemptions for those situations.
So far, Cortez and city officials think the letters and new ordinance appear to be working. They haven’t had any reports of people being dropped off since the ordinance was passed. But the trend points to a larger problem Missouri’s cities are facing as homelessness rises across the state.
Missouri’s reliance on larger cities for services for the homeless population
It is fairly common for smaller, rural areas to rely on the services in larger cities for things like shelters, medical care or mental health treatment.
From 2023 to 2024, the number of unsheltered people grew 9% in Missouri, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development point-in-time counts. In Kansas, the number grew by 6%, while Oklahoma saw an 18% jump.
Columbia is similar to Joplin when it comes to being a regional hub for services and shelter beds.
Columbia began working more closely on reducing homelessness in 2023 by establishing a program within Boone County’s Department of Public Health to connect people with resources. City officials also created a homeless outreach team within the police department to try and divert people from the justice system.
Now, the city has launched the Ride Home program, which gives homeless or impoverished community members free rides back to their hometowns or to support systems up to three hours away. If someone needs to travel farther, the city will purchase a bus ticket to get them to where they need to go.
Since the launch in October, the city has provided three rides, said Austin Krohn, public information specialist at the Columbia & Boone County Department of Public Health and Human Services.
“People come in for mental health services, or if there is a facility that can only do a certain type of screening for them,” Krohn said. “People are coming here from all over Missouri to get services, and then they’re stuck here.”
Local service providers and shelters can refer people to the program to receive a free ride. People must have verifiable support at the destination, a referral, photo ID and no outstanding warrants in the county.
Studies have shown that voluntary transport to a support system can be instrumental in improving someone’s housing situation.
San Francisco runs a robust transportation program, similar to Ride Home in Columbia. In fiscal year 2024, the agency that runs the program gave 230 rides.
San Francisco officials followed up with riders 90 days after their ride, and found that of the 230 served, 61 found housing, while 29 had another or unknown location. The remaining riders were unreachable or declined to be surveyed as part of the program.
“When I was doing direct service 30 years ago, people called it Greyhound therapy,” said Jeff Olivet, the former executive director of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness. “Get a bus ticket to another town, just get out of here, basically. Sometimes that can be incredibly helpful if people are really wanting and needing to get back to family and social supports.”
But if someone is transported or coerced to leave town against their will, it can lead to poorer outcomes, Olivet said.
“Transportation can be critical,” Olivet said. “But if it’s basically, ‘Get out of town or we’re going to arrest you,’ that doesn’t solve homelessness for anybody. It just moves the problem around.”
One 2023 study modeled over 20 U.S. cities concluded that involuntary displacement of people experiencing homelessness — things like encampment sweeps or involuntary transport to another area — could lead to substantial increases in morbidity and mortality.
The study linked involuntary displacement with worse outcomes for overdoses and hospitalizations and a decrease in getting connected with treatment for opioid use. It said the displacements could contribute to deaths of homeless people who use drugs.
A 2017 investigation from The Guardian analyzed nearly 35,000 relocation journeys over a six-year period. The investigation found that most riders were relocated to places with a lower median income.
How Missouri fares
And as homelessness rates rise across all of Missouri, cities may need to start thinking about how to address these gaps, Olivet said.
“In the case of rural areas, or even suburban areas, where there aren’t as many shelter options for people, there aren’t as many mental health treatment programs, there aren’t as many supportive services. Oftentimes, the only way to get help is by going to a larger urban area,” Olivet said.
“That speaks to a tremendous gap when we don’t have good services, support and housing options for people in rural areas. They have to go somewhere else, even if they are from that rural area.”
In Missouri, the numbers aren’t improving.
The state’s continuum of care — a group of agencies that work under the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to address homelessness — found in its most recent report that homelessness is rapidly increasing across the state.
In Region 9, which includes the southwest corner of the state (but does not include metro areas like Joplin or Springfield, which run their own continuums of care outside of the statewide framework), 2023 data found a 133% rise in unsheltered homelessness and a 100% rise in sheltered homelessness from 2022 to 2023.
The area also saw family homelessness increase by 100% from 2022 to 2023.
Region 10, which represents the counties surrounding the Kansas City area, 2023 point-in-time data showed a 3% increase in unsheltered homelessness and a 119% increase in sheltered homelessness from 2022. Family homelessness increased by 173%.
In the group’s annual report, every region saw at least one metric of homelessness, sheltered or unsheltered, increase from 2022 to 2023.
It rings alarm bells with Mary Kenion, the chief equity officer at the National Alliance to End Homelessness.
“At least half of all people experiencing homelessness in largely rural continuums of care do so outdoors, in unsheltered locations,” Kenion said. “We’re also seeing family homelessness on the rise, in rural communities specifically.”
And in their report, the Missouri continuum of care providers noted that while larger towns were better equipped to handle homelessness, it highlights the lack of resources in more rural areas.
The report found a positive relationship between the number of beds available in permanent housing situations and the length of time someone was homeless. For every 1% increase in permanent housing beds, there was a 54-day decrease in the length of time someone was homeless.
Although solutions like access to permanent housing show promise, roadblocks remain.
A coalition of nonprofits and local governments recently sued the Trump administration, arguing it created unreasonable restrictions on state continuums of care across the country. The lawsuit argues that the administration is looking to shift funding away from proven solutions that improve homelessness and that it could force up to 170,000 Americans into homelessness.
The new rules change what types of projects are eligible for funding through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the criteria for selecting projects and the conditions grantees have to accept to receive the funding, the lawsuit argues.
Ultimately, Joplin Mayor Cortez and other experts said that following up with someone after they receive care or resources is key in reducing homelessness.
Cortez is excited about a new development of 16 tiny homes dedicated to providing permanent housing situations for Joplin. But addressing the issue takes everyone coming together, he said.
“This is an ongoing thing that everybody in the community is involved in —– the health care community, the religious community,” Cortez said. “We have some passionate champions in our community working to resolve this problem.”
9 comments:
Joplin and Springfield are nothing other than cancerous, tightly-packed interstate exists who have as much square footage in churches as they do gas stations and fast food. It really makes a lot of sense why—even without manual intervention—homeless folks would be attracted to a town like Joplin.
I would like to know who specifically they sent letters to and I’d like to see the letters
Barry?
Ozark center profits off of them, and water gardens stays in business...they are the 2 main contributions to the problem.
Finally, step 1: acknowledge the problem! For years the city council and a certain segment of people said people were not being dumped in Joplin by other communities. We waisted a lot of energy getting people to understand that “you can’t empty the bathtub without turning off the faucet first”! Step 2: do a physical count of the “unhoused population in Joplin”. Then we can understand if there are 100 or 1,000 people that have been in Joplin. Give each of these an ID that states they were in the Joplin community as of 2025. Step 3: Determine how many are willing to accept help with a catch. This will tell us if 70% refuse help because of the catch (no drugs, no violence, no stealing). Step 4: divide these people (maybe 100-200 people) into the 30 nonprofit agencies (or include churches and that number goes up to 60) that want to help the community. Give each 3-6 individuals they will help. This will reduce the double dipping between agencies. Step 5: Send new unhoused people back to their communities. If they don’t have an ID showing they were in Joplin as if 2025, they are not in the program. If you tell people this when they arrive, they will move on.
ARM THE HOMELESS
They are homeless, quit with the unhoused nonsense. Unless you want to call them Urban Outdoorsmen
You’ve published recent huge increases in the numbers of homeless in the state of Missouri. Do we know why so many, all at once, suddenly became homeless in Missouri? Where they became homeless? What help they sought, or even was available where they became homeless? Whether their shift into homelessness was known in their communities? And, do we know if this huge increase of homelessness in the state of Missouri consists of Missourians who became homeless, or if any were brought to Missouri from other cities/states in our nation?
Separately, If someone becomes homeless in a small rural community, it would seem their vacating of a property/home/apt even shelter would be noticed, their community would know about that, wouldn’t they?
One of the main problems with the homeless population is that the majority of them have gotten themselves into this situation, and when given opportunities with spending on them and giving them housing, food, medical care and offering employment have failed in every city in the United States. How do you try to help someone when they will not help themselves? The majority having drug, alcoholic, health and mental issues, and of course housing, financial and economic hardships. Our country and the hardworking taxpayers cannot support the amount of people that are only looking for handouts and not one-time hand-ups (for a short periods of time). We have become a country of everyone looking for handouts and not how we get ourselves out of these situations. Fraud and Waste in our programs are rampant, just in one state Minnesota has the Somalia's refugees have gotten Billions of Dollars to support themselves through Fraud while sending money back to their home country to support anti-American factions. WHY???
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