3 days ago
North KC church shuts down transitional housing program over tax status dispute
For the first time in her 47 years of living, Bobbi Roark was able to get a place with her own money and raise her daughter.
Although she did the work to get her own car, get sober and get her daughter back, she credits Homefront Community Development Inc, an organization providing transitional housing in the Northland, with helping her get to a more stable place.
Without Homefront, she thinks it would have taken way longer for her to make those strides.
Now, she and others are at risk of losing that support, as the church that owns the homes has ordered those who stay there to leave after an escalating dispute between the organizations.
'It is only with deep sadness that we have concluded this partnership cannot continue,' read a written statement from the leadership of First Baptist Church of North Kansas City regarding its relationship with Homefront.
What first started as a church filling a need in its community by providing shelter and grew into a a grassroots organization that neighbors in need turned to for a decade, has in recent months devolved into a dispute over tax codes, real estate and the role of religion in social services.
And the people who most benefited from those services are losing out.
Homefront started as a ministry through First Baptist Church of North Kansas City back in 2015.
With just two houses, hundreds of people have passed through the homes' doors when they needed a safe place to land. Most heard about the homes and the resources they offered through word of mouth.
'[The church] made a decision,' said Leigh Reynolds, a board member for Homefront. 'We have these properties. We can do something really useful with them. You're seeing an uptick of unhoused people in the North Kansas City area, lots of folks hanging out on the steps of the library. They said, 'What if we use these homes to help care for our homeless neighbors here in the Northland?''
Spencer Stith, a member of the church at the time, was the sole volunteer helping manage the homes. He spearheaded the effort to establish Homefront as its own independent nonprofit organization in 2015.
Since then, Homefront has created a board of three volunteers in addition to Stith.
Stith was not available for comment for this story.
Reynolds, who has 30 years of experience in nonprofit consulting, said that Stith has gone above and beyond supporting Homefront residents over the past 10 years, taking residents to appointments and acting as a stand-in social worker of sorts.
'Spencer is very committed to deep and lasting change for folks,' said Reynolds. 'Whatever it is that you need to be successful and move out of homelessness into a thriving life, Spencer would do that very meaningful, deep hands-on work.'
Roark said Stith had been an amazing resource for her when she was struggling most.
But the small, personal and informal nature of the organization that made people feel so at home there also made it susceptible to shifts in leadership at the church it was tied to and at risk of overlooking some of the administrative steps needed to keep it going.
Around 2020, First Baptist Church got new pastors, which Homefront volunteers said changed the relationship between the organization and the church that owned the homes.
'I feel that some of their priorities shifted as often happens when there's a leadership change. I think I'm no longer a member of that church,' Reynolds said. Instead of a partner to Homefront, she said the church began to feel more like a landlord to the nonprofit.
Things took a turn last fall when the church discovered that Homefront had lost its nonprofit status.
In the state of Missouri, 501(c)(3) nonprofits must file an annual report with the Missouri Secretary of State to maintain their good standing and state registration by August 31 of each year. Nonprofits also have to fill out an annual federal return with the IRS, Form 990, which is the equivalent of an annual tax return for nonprofits.
According to state records, Homefront has not filed that Missouri report since 2017, and federal records indicate the last time the organization filed its federal return was in 2020.
Missouri revoked Homefront's state nonprofit status in 2018, and the IRS revoked Homefront's federal nonprofit status last spring.
In the fall, First Baptist brought this discovery to Homefront's attention and gave the organization 90 days to fix its nonprofit status, and then an additional 30-day grace period, according to a statement from the church.
In the meantime, the church withheld donations from members for Homefront in order to follow Missouri law, which says an organization that loses its nonprofit status 'may not carry on any business except that necessary to wind up and liquidate its business and affairs.'
The majority of Homefront's donations had previously come from the church and were used to pay rent to the church for the houses' mortgages, utilities and a small stipend for Stith.
'Over the past decade, FBCNKC has provided more than $400,000 to support Homefront. This support has included subsidized rents, staff salaries, home repairs, and direct financial contributions,' the church in a statement earlier this month. 'This generosity reflects our deep belief that Jesus draws near to the hurting and that His gospel is good news to the is only with deep sadness that we have concluded this partnership cannot continue.'
Reynolds said Homefront's mail is delivered to the church and the nonprofit never received notification about its nonprofit status being dissolved. However, she said she's not blaming the church for the missed deadlines.
Reynolds said Homefont filed to be reinstated as a nonprofit in December but has not heard back. However, state records don't show that filing.
Earlier this year, the church and Homefront again met to discuss the future of the transitional housing organization if it regained legal status.
According to Reynolds, the church wanted to increase the rent it charged for the two homes to market rate and requested that Homefront provide more detailed information about the residents staying in the homes and require the residents to participate in Bible studies.
Reynolds said those requests went against what Homefront stands for.
'We are not anti-Bible and not anti-church. We do this work because we love God, and it came out of our love of doing the work of the church,' she said. 'But that's just never been a part of our program because we feel like it can be such an impediment to people's healing, especially if they have religious trauma, which a lot of people do. And so we didn't want to mandate that.'
In its statement, First Baptist asserted that, 'No specific terms for a new agreement were ever formally communicated to Homefront.'
In March, Homefront was preparing to let the church know they could not agree to the terms, but First Baptist asked them to vacate the properties instead.
Homefront officially closes on Saturday, at the end of the month. While residents need to find somewhere to go, Reynolds said it isn't a goodbye for good. The board will take time to regroup and find another location to serve the community.
It's unclear what will happen to the homes themselves. In its statement, church leadership said it 'has made no decision—formal or informal—regarding the sale of the residences, nor has it determined how or whether the properties will be used in the future.'
In the meantime, Reynold said she has a message for North Kansas City neighbors.
'I want to shine light on the people in our community that need help,' she said. 'Smile at your homeless neighbor.'
