Building a Regional Response
to Homelessness
The City of Joplin engaged Sharity to support a homelessness response that matched the true regional nature of the issue. While services were concentrated within city limits, the need extended across the broader tri-state area.
Through a structured planning process grounded in community input, Sharity helped align stakeholders, clarify system gaps, and establish a governance model designed to distribute responsibility more effectively across the region.
The Outcome
The engagement helped establish a Regional Commission on Homelessness, increase government funding, and support the hiring of the coalition’s first full-time staff member, creating a more coordinated and sustainable system of care.
Meet the City of Joplin
As a regional anchor for the tri-state area, Joplin faced a shifting landscape following the 2011 tornado. The destruction of thousands of residences severely constrained the local affordable housing inventory, leading to a rise in regional homelessness. The catastrophic EF5 storm that struck on May 22, 2011, claimed 161 lives and caused approximately $2.8 billion in destruction. Its mile-wide path demolished nearly 8,000 buildings, including the primary regional medical center, fundamentally altering the city’s infrastructure and social needs.
In the wake of the disaster, critical aid and crisis resources were anchored within a five-block radius of the city center. These emergency hubs remained fixed over the subsequent decade, leading to a centralized cluster of facilities rather than a distributed model that followed shifting regional needs. While this geographical density provided proximity for those navigating the system, it fundamentally skewed the response framework. What began as a logistical necessity evolved into a structural burden, where a broad, multi-jurisdictional challenge was increasingly perceived—and funded—as a purely local obligation.
By 2023, leaders recognized the opportunity to strengthen coordination, expand regional participation, and build a more sustainable system of care.
Setting the Stage
A Regional Issue Concentrated in One City
The core challenge was structural, not programmatic.
Service providers were working with commitment and urgency. City leaders, nonprofit partners, public agencies, and community members all had a role in the response. But the system needed a clearer way to coordinate responsibility, prioritize resources, and align around shared outcomes.
Several realities shaped the work:
- Homelessness was geographically concentrated in downtown Joplin, but driven by regional conditions
- Surrounding communities were connected to the issue, but not yet structurally integrated into the response
- Governance relied heavily on volunteers who also held roles within partner agencies
- Service coordination existed, but without shared accountability or system-level prioritization
The question was not whether Joplin cared about the issue. It was how to build a regional structure capable of matching the scale and complexity of the need.
Community-Led Planning
Understanding the Full System
Sharity designed a planning process that reflected the full ecosystem, not just individual organizations.
Input was gathered through:
- Two onsite working sessions in August and October/November 2023
- Four interdisciplinary stakeholder focus groups
- One-on-one interviews with service providers and community leaders
- Conversations with individuals experiencing homelessness
- Encampment tours with city officials and law enforcement representatives
- A legislator-hosted town hall and additional community discussions
This process helped map both formal services and lived experience. It revealed important gaps in coordination, data, governance, and public understanding.
From there, the strategy was organized into four workgroups:
- Leadership
- System of Care
- Data
- Community Education, Engagement, and Awareness
Together, these workgroups created a structure for turning community input into coordinated action.
Governance Alignment
Building Shared Accountability
One important constraint emerged during planning: the lead Continuum of Care structure depended heavily on volunteers who also worked in partner agencies. This created practical limitations and made independent prioritization more difficult.
To address that, the plan introduced a regional governance model with clearer roles:
Regional Commission on Homelessness
A decision-making body composed of leaders not receiving HUD funding, including business leaders, school representatives, hospital executives, law enforcement, and municipal representatives.
Homeless Coalition of Jasper and Newton Counties
The Continuum of Care body responsible for coordinating service delivery.
Independent Staffing Support
A mandate to secure dedicated staff capacity separate from partner organizations.
This structure separated funding decisions from service provision while preserving coordination across both. It created a stronger foundation for shared accountability, regional participation, and long-term system performance.
Operational Alignment
Strengthening the System of Care
With governance clarified, the work turned toward the operational pieces needed to support implementation.
Priorities included:
- Renewed use of the Homeless Management Information System (HMIS) to standardize definitions and track outcomes
- Funding pipeline development, including initiation of a Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI) Fund application
- Frontline training design to support more consistent practices across case managers, medical responders, and law enforcement
These operational shifts helped move the work from shared concern to shared system design.
Real-World Outcomes
From City Burden to Regional Response
Implementation is ongoing, but several important outcomes were achieved during the planning process:
- Establishment of the Regional Commission on Homelessness
- Increase in HUD and other government funding
- Hiring of the coalition’s first full-time dedicated staff member
- Revisions to city health, safety, and public property ordinances
- Installation of public education signage and expanded access to warming shelter information
- Formal mapping of encampments and updated cleanup procedures
The work helped reframe homelessness from a localized service burden into a regional system issue requiring coordinated governance, shared investment, and sustained operational capacity.
Learn more about the impact here.
IMPACT SINCE IMPLEMENTATION
Securing new funding and resources
More support through new resources
Building lasting response capacity
What We Learned
When homelessness is managed only at the point of service delivery, responsibility concentrates where services are visible.
A regional governance structure changes the conditions of the work. It creates space for shared accountability, clearer prioritization, and more sustainable system performance, especially when funding decisions are separated from direct service provision.
For Joplin, that shift helped move the region from proximity-based response toward coordinated regional responsibility.