Starting in late December, people with no place to escape the cold can expect blankets, a hot meal, sleeping mats and a little privacy in tents pitched indoors near Sixth Street and State Avenue in Kansas City, Kansas. This emergency cold-weather shelter — a project led by Cross-Lines Community Outreach for those nights when the […]
Mili Mansaray
Mili Mansaray is The Beacon’s former housing and labor reporter and began covering the beat in 2022. She’s documented the concentration of housing ownership by corporate interests and explored challenges to Kansas City’s homeless shelter capacity. She received training through the Solutions Journalism Network’s labor cohort. She has a bachelor’s degree in digital journalism and Africana studies from New York University. She also studied abroad in Argentina. She was a business reporting intern for the Dow Jones News Fund. She was an audio intern for The Urban Scene with Don Frierson on WGCV 105.1 in Columbia, South Carolina. She has lived in Kansas City since 2022.
Posted inLabor
Kansas City cannabis dispensary workers win union to gain leverage in a growing industry
Takeaways:1. Workers at the Homestate Dispensary have voted to establish the first cannabis union in the area in the Kansas City market. 2. Homestate employees have complained about not receiving paid holidays and a lack of security in the workplace. They want better pay, job security, better health insurance and protections from wrongful termination. 3. This unionization […]
Posted inHousing
Afghan refugees still adjusting to life in Kansas City — and wondering if they can stay
When the Taliban overtook Kabul in 2021, Qasim Rahimi went into hiding at a neighbor’s house. Meanwhile, U.S. troops withdrew and took nearly 90,000 Afghan evacuees who were in danger of persecution. Rahimi knew he had to leave, too. “I was a journalist and a director in (the) Afghanistan government when the government fell, so […]
Posted inLabor
What is solutions journalism and why do we do it? A look at past coverage
At The Beacon, it is our mission to produce stories that shine a light on wrongdoings and abuse by government, businesses and other powerful institutions through in-depth, solutions-driven journalism. With a solutions focus ingrained into the fabric of our publication, we’re looking to do something different and fill in gaps where they might exist in […]
Posted inHousing
Rising rents leave more Kansas City tenants facing eviction
Correction: This story originally misstated the Kansas City area’s ranking in a Rent.com study on rising rental rates. The Kansas City area ranks second. Jared Johnson hasn’t paid rent in four months. The trouble started when his car got towed. That cost him his job delivering groceries for Instacart. He’s been able to hold off an eviction […]
Posted inEconomics, Local Government
Some Northland bus lines shut down as Kansas City moves away from subsidizing suburban transit
Bus routes go away in Gladstone on Sept.1. To keep the existing RideKC bus lines going, the city faced a bill rocketing up 400%. Instead, Gladstone decided to dump the service — like other parts of the Northland — and shift to a patchwork where riders hop from Uber-like cars for short hauls to buses […]
Posted inEducation
A Black parent’s guide: How to help protect your kids from racism at school
Students have a right to a safe and discrimination-free environment while at school. But when acts of racism or discrimination happen, what can a parent do to protect their child?
Posted inEducation
A Black parent’s guide: How to help protect your kids from racism at school
Solomon Desta was working one day last May when he got a call that three of his son’s white classmates at Olathe South High School had handed him a piece of metal with the N-word carved into it. Desta was angry. “It was a Friday around 3 p.m. and they were trying to tell me […]
Posted inHousing
A low-barrier shelter may be in the works for Kansas City
Three years ago, Brian Haimowitz slept behind buildings and under bridges because he couldn’t afford a place to stay with the money from his job as a cashier at a local Wendy’s. He said he tried to get help through Kansas City’s shelter system, but he was quickly turned off by roadblocks he encountered. One […]
Posted inLabor
Food and retail employers at the new KCI terminal hiring for hundreds of positions
If hiring goes according to plan, food and retail businesses in the new terminal of Kansas City International Airport will employ 1,000 workers over the next 15 years. But so far, five months after the terminal opened in February, employers at MCI are hundreds of workers shy of that goal. There are 600 employees at […]