26 January 2023
TOPEKA (KSNT)- Advocates conducted their annual homeless count in Topeka on Wednesday.
Advocates traveled around the city to homeless camps to see how many people are living on the streets. The homeless population has been rising since the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, and a local case manager told us why.
“If you don’t have income and you don’t have ID, you have to have an ID to get a social security card, a social security card to get an ID, so a lot of times, that is the main issue is that somehow they don’t have their documents anymore, and getting housing requires all those documents, as well as getting a job,” said Kelly Kendall, a homeless case manager.
Last year, there were 365 homeless people living in the capital city, which was up 22% from the year before.