TOPEKA (KSNT) – Community Action Agency of Topeka Executive Director Alicia Walker stopped by the 27 News studio to talk about one of her organization’s housing projects.
Community Action (CA) is a non-profit organization that helps individuals striving to escape poverty. CA works as an advocate to mitigate policies that cause or worsen the condition of poverty and identify solutions to improve the community.
“Our particular community action conducts a needs assessment every three years,” Walker said. “We cover 12 counties within the state of Kansas and based on that needs assessment, we determine where we should focus our programing.”
One of the projects that Walker mentioned is Tanglewood. Tanglewood is part of CA’s affordable housing program and provides housing for those in Topeka with severe and persistent mental illness and a history of homelessness.
“Tanglewood has been one of our housing projects for a long time, and we’ve maintained a partnership with Astra to ensure that the individuals who live there are well cared for as far as their mental health and well-being,” Walker said.
There are 14 individuals who currently live at Tanglewood, and Walker said most of them have been there for 10 or more years with minimal mental health crises.
“Because of that partnership with Astra, we’re able to have them come in, provide case management on site, as opposed to the tenants having to leave and find support in the community,” Walker said. “Over the years, we’ve watched just strangers come together and build themselves a family.”
CA has partnered with Astra and the City of Topeka to provide that housing for residents. Walker emphasized that if the organization can’t help them, CA will connect them with someone who will.
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“I will say this, while we may not be able to serve everybody at any given moment, we definitely work towards giving access to resources,” Walker said. “So if we can’t do it or we just don’t have the means, we will connect you with someone. And I think that’s just the beautiful thing about social services is not everybody has everything available to them, but it’s that connection to the community and those other resources that allow us to be able to serve beyond what we do have.”
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