River of Refuge newsletter, September 2026

River of Refuge Graduate Illuminates Variability of Homelessness

DreAnna Simpson worked in corporate America as a fraud analyst and pharmacy technician, but then she shifted into teaching.

The career change came with about a $30,000 pay cut, and after struggling to pay rent on time for about six months, the apartment owners would not renew her lease.

She and her two boys, ages 9 and 4, stayed in a hotel for about a month with the boys’ father, and then Simpson and her sons moved into River of Refuge in March.

Simpson, 36, entered the program owing about $2,000 in utility charges, and she had built up savings by the time she completed the program in August.

The budgeting assistance at River of Refuge was particularly helpful for Simpson, who took a roughly 50% pay cut while working as a paraeducator before becoming a fully certified teacher.

“It’s hard to really get your brain wrapped around you making less money,” she said.

River of Refuge helps program graduates get on their feet after they leave, and Simpson was grateful for mattresses and other items she received to help furnish her new place. She estimated it was at least $1,000 worth of home goods.

Simpson illustrates that people from all walks of life can experience homelessness.

Instability can even intrude on someone with a business marketing degree from Lincoln University in Jefferson City, Missouri.

The U.S. Census Bureau estimates that about 7% of adults aged 25 and above living in homeless shelters have a college degree. The over-25 shelter population is also about six times more likely than the housed population to have low educational attainment and high unemployment.

Simpson has a supportive extended family, but it was not feasible to live with them during her transition to teaching.

She felt somewhat out of place at River of Refuge.

As someone who has never done drugs, she differed from other residents who were in recovery. Her salary history was also different from other adults who had perhaps never made more than $15 an hour.

“Sometimes I didn’t feel comfortable telling my stories because I didn’t want it to feel bragadocious,” Simpson said.

She interacted with the other families and found it instructive to hear about the past circumstances that led them to River of Refuge. It helped her not take her situation for granted.

She said hearing the trauma encountered by the adults and the kids benefitted her professionally, now that she is a first-grade teacher in Hickman Mills, a school district in a lower-income part of Kansas City.

“I’m grateful for the experience,” she said.

Simpson transitioned to teaching through Educator Academy, a program affiliated with the University of Missouri-Kansas City that prepares professionals with non-education degrees to become teachers. She is working on her master’s degree.

The classroom fits Simpson because she was a teacher in her past supervisory roles. She hadn’t even considered teaching until a principal at one of her son’s schools suggested she consider becoming a substitute.

She quit the rat race because she wanted to be a better parent. Simpson is now making close to what she did in her previous jobs and loves teaching in an urban school district.

“Just because people are in a lower-income building (doesn’t mean) they don’t deserve quality teachers,” Simpson said.

 

Super Volunteer Again Aiding in Security Upgrade for River of Refuge

River of Refuge is in the midst of a security upgrade financed by a grant of nearly $34,000.

One improvement allows staff to remotely unlock doors to the building. Under the system that is being replaced, a staff member has to come to the facility if a parent locks themself out of the family wing outside of normal business hours.

That becomes a security issue if, as has happened, the parent has stepped out briefly while something is cooking on the stove. “That’s a pretty serious thing,” noted River of Refuge Executive Director Pam Seymour.

The new system will also improve battery backup power. Seymour said that is important because the building experiences short-term power losses.

The job is going to take two to four months, and River of Refuge is again benefiting from the volunteer labor of IT expert Hunter Shoptaw.

 

FROM THE DIRECTOR

What does a nonprofit staff do first thing in the morning? For our team, it often means driving through campus to check for vandalism, theft, and trespassing.

We devote a lot of time to maintaining security in the former hospital tower attached to our building. But the vacant Two Rivers psychiatric hospital that neighbors our property is also a magnet for unauthorized activity; it closed in 2019.

Rising copper prices attract scavengers looking to strip anything of value from the buildings.

Squatters are also a problem. Our surveillance cameras recently captured multiple individuals inside our tower during the early morning hours.

These vacant facilities aren’t safe for anyone, but it breaks my heart to see parents exposing their children to such danger. Broken glass is just one threat.

Nevertheless, our greatest concern is the safety of the families and staff who live and work in our transitional housing community.

Despite extensive camera coverage, law enforcement can only intervene when individuals are caught in the act, and response times often vary depending on call volume and priority.

We recently invested in additional concrete barriers to block first-floor entrances and deter trespassing in the hospital tower.

These are funds that would otherwise support programs and services for the people we serve. Staff time spent responding to these issues also diverts them from our mission-focused work.

It is encouraging that a developer recently purchased the Two Rivers building. A safe, secure, functional building would benefit us.

Our long-term plan is to develop the hospital tower into affordable housing.

We have begun conversations with local developers and will soon launch a strategic planning process to guide the next phase of this important project.

As plans take shape, fundraising will be critical to turning this vision into reality. We look forward to sharing more updates as we work to create safe, affordable housing and strengthen our community for years to come.

And let me just add a related postscript to my comments above.

One recent night, someone dumped a ton of garbage on our grounds. Our cameras captured an image of the offending white pickup, but that does not seem like a lot to go on for law enforcement.

I feared this was going to be yet another example of us having to spend precious resources on vandalism. But our good friend Tiffany Buckley rallied the troops through her nonprofit, Volunteer KC, to clean up the mess.

And our new neighbors at Two Rivers allowed us to use their dumpsters.

We are happy that we could find a silver lining in this mess.

Until Next Time,
Pamela Seymour, Executive Director