The Kansas City Public Library keeps an updated list of resources for patrons who need a helping hand. It’s called the Street Sheet and is available in English and Spanish at all 10 locations and on the Library’s website.

The sheet is often used by unhoused Kansas Citians looking for clothing, food, shelter, and financial assistance. But it also includes information for veterans and families as well as phone numbers for local and national support agencies like Alcoholics Anonymous, Safe Place, and the National Runaway Safeline.

“Think of the issues that the homeless population encounters. That could be money, that could be food, it could be clothing, but not all the individuals accessing those resources are homeless,” says Library Community Resource Specialist Jimmy Thomas.

He likens the feeling of searching for those resources to that of shopping for a big purchase like a new furnace.

Even a small amount of research yields an overwhelming amount of information. “How often do you buy a furnace?” Thomas asks. If the goal is to find breakfast or a safe place to sleep rather than make a purchase, the stakes are much higher.

“There's lots of things we don't know anything about. But then we have to go find that resource,” Thomas says.

The sheet eliminates the need to research and sends people to legitimate, vetted agencies categorized by the type of assistance offered.

When the pandemic forced the Library to close in 2020, the list temporarily took the place of one-on-one assistance by the Library’s community resource team and did so very effectively. That year, the Urban Libraries Council honored the Library as one of the 10 most innovative libraries in the nation in the category of Race and Social Equity for producing and distributing the Street Sheet, and it became a permanent offering.

Mary Olive Joyce, the Kansas City Public Library’s director of Library outreach and community engagement, called the Street Sheet “a prime example of how our Community Resources team responds to the needs of our most underserved patrons. It is a key part of our continuing effort ‘to meet people where they are.’”

Created by Joyce’s Outreach team in partnership with the Greater Kansas City Coalition to End Homelessness, the Street Sheet grew out of a wider listing of emergency and other community services.

The Library continues to improve and update the list by working with more than 250 partner organizations and listening to feedback from community members who’ve used the services it includes.

Outreach Operations Specialist Elaine Bilyeu says it’s a living document that is regularly adjusted to reflect the shifting capacities of the listed organizations.

So many people have found the sheet helpful that the Library has created slightly different versions for the senior community, the LGBTQ population, and each of the Library’s 10 locations. Those, too, are regularly updated with input from Library staff and those they serve.

Recently, an employee at a branch heard from a patron who wanted to take one of the LGBTQ-specific copies but was weary of picking it up in a public place; it included bright rainbow colors in the header.

Bilyeu says that the branch employee asked her team, “‘Is there an option to not have [the rainbow] on there so they can feel more comfortable taking it with them?’ That suggestion was great; I hadn't thought about that.”

The LGBTQ-specific street sheet ensures that participating organizations are friendly and welcoming to members of that community. Thomas adds that it includes “transgender resources and advocacy. It has a lot of the hotlines like the Trevor Project and the Transgender Helpline, so it's a little more encompassing of those specific needs.”

The Library branches’ lists reflect the closest organizations, so that users without transportation won’t have to travel far. Those are available in person as well as under each location’s tab on kclibrary.org under “resource pamphlet” at the bottom of the page.

However, Thomas understands that regardless of how thoughtful the list is, the city’s resources are limited; city shelters do not have enough beds for the approximately 2000 people who need them, and food can be hard to come by on weekends among other shortfalls.

“So,” he says, “there's definitely still a lot of need for services.”

Thomas says he has no idea how many people the sheets have helped over the past few years or even how many copies go to people every month. Every one of the partner organizations make them available, so it’s well into the hundreds.

“It's a known commodity for the for the community,” he says. “It’s not like we have this great resource, and nobody knows about it. We have a great resource, and a lot of people know.”