United Way outlines Missouri TANF rollout; Kansas committee asks whether state should replicate model

At a Committee on Social Services Budget meeting, Dr. Todd Jordan, vice president of community impact and executive director of 2-1-1 with United Way of Greater Kansas City, described a 2024 Missouri program that funneled several million dollars of TANF-related funding through United Way partners to pay vendors for rent, utilities, childcare and transportation for eligible households.

The discussion focused on how the model worked and whether Kansas could replicate it. "We wound up moving about $3,000,000 in assistance into the hands of households," Jordan said, summarizing the program's pace and scale. He told committee members the program processed roughly a couple thousand applications, approved a similar number of households and reached about 7,000 Missouri residents, about 5,000 of whom were children.

The project in Missouri used a state appropriation that the Missouri Department of Social Services contracted through United Way of Greater St. Louis, with United Way partners operating intake, eligibility screening and vendor payments. Jordan said payments were made directly to vendors — "we paid the utility company directly. We paid the landlord company directly" — rather than distributing cash to recipients. He said local United Way chapters decided how to deliver assistance in their communities, using options that ranged from…