By Dalton Black, executive director
Estimated reading time: 4 minutes
Direct service helps families today. Advocacy helps change the systems that shape tomorrow.
When most people think about a United Way, they may think about our grant programs, or our new resource navigation program. Ultimately, helping families find resources, strengthening supports for kids, connecting people to community programs, and building partnerships that make life better.
That is absolutely who we are.
Why Direct Service Alone Isn’t Enough
But here’s something we’ve learned more clearly over the last couple of years: direct service and grant dollars alone can’t fix the systems that keep families stuck. We can help someone navigate a crisis today, but if the rules and structures around housing, benefits, and basic needs remain broken, that crisis will keep repeating for the next neighbor, and the next.
That’s why we’ve started leaning into something that’s newer for us, but essential to fulfilling our mission: advocacy.
What Advocacy Means for United Way
Advocacy, as we mean it, is not partisan. It’s not about picking sides. It’s about standing up for practical changes that remove barriers and help families stay stable. It’s showing up in the rooms where decisions are made and bringing real community stories, data, and solutions with us.
What we’re watching right now: ALICE and household stability
One of the tools informing our advocacy is the ALICE Watch, a Kansas legislative policy tracker (a partnership between the United Ways of Kansas and Kansas Action for Children) focused on households that are Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed. In other words: people who work hard, often full-time, but still can’t consistently afford the basics.
Policy Issues Affecting Families Right Now
During the week of Feb. 9–13, the ALICE Watch highlighted hearings on multiple issues tied directly to household stability, including:
- Housing protections like SB 369 (late fees and pre-rental disclosures) and SB 415 (stronger remedies in extreme uninhabitability cases).
- Public assistance changes like SB 363, a wide-ranging bill impacting SNAP, Medicaid, TANF, and child care subsidies.
- Food access for kids like HB 2637, encouraging eligible school districts to consider participation in a federal free-meals option.
You don’t have to track bill numbers to understand the point: policy choices shape whether families can stay housed, keep food on the table, access health care, and keep working. That’s why we’re paying attention.
Real-Life Example: Housing Advocacy at the Kansas Capitol
On Tuesday, February 17, we went to the Kansas Capitol to speak with legislators about housing bills that affect communities like ours. Housing has become one of the clearest pressure points for working families, and when housing becomes unstable, everything else gets harder: job performance, kids’ school attendance, mental health, finances, and physical safety.
We were there to advocate for practical reforms that can reduce avoidable evictions, strengthen basic habitability standards, and make the system more fair for renters and responsible landlords alike.
Here are three examples of what we supported:
HB 2357: Due process in evictions
In Kansas, an eviction filing can follow someone for years even if the case is dismissed, resolved, or filed in error. That record can become a major barrier to finding housing later.
HB 2357 would shift the public record toward judgments, not allegations, by keeping eviction filings sealed briefly until there is a judgment for the landlord, encouraging mediation, and allowing expungement in certain situations.
This isn’t about ignoring accountability. It’s about preventing long-term harm from a process that can move fast and leave a permanent mark.
HB 2768: Timely payment and income consideration
This bill addresses a very real modern issue: automated screening and payment systems that ignore lawful income (like VA benefits or SSI/SSDI) or block multiple payments even when families are trying to pay rent on time.
HB 2768 would require landlords to consider all lawful income and accept multiple timely payments (for example, split payments from a renter and a helping family member or a local charity), while still preserving landlords’ ability to enforce lease terms when obligations aren’t met.
The goal is fewer preventable evictions and more stability for working households.
HB 2634: A basic habitability standard where none exists
Kansas law requires landlords to provide safe, habitable housing, but many places lack clear local maintenance standards, creating confusion and inconsistency for renters, landlords, and courts.
HB 2634 would use the 2012 International Property Maintenance Code (IPMC) as a default standard only in communities that haven’t adopted their own local standard. This is a baseline expectation: a rental should meet basic safety and functionality standards, no matter your ZIP code.
Why advocacy belongs in our work
If you’ve supported our work, you probably did it because you care about stability and opportunity for people who live here. You want families to be able to work, raise kids, and build a life without getting knocked down by one crisis after another.
Advocacy is how we tackle the “one crisis after another” part.
Direct service, like our resource navigation program, meets needs today. Advocacy helps change the conditions that create those needs in the first place. We’re still growing into this work, but we’re committed to doing it the right way: nonpartisan, respectful, and grounded in what our communities are actually experiencing.
Want to learn more?
This post is the high-level version. If you want to learn more about the specific bills we’re tracking, or if you’d like to engage alongside us in a deeper way, we’d love to talk. Some people want the overview. Others want the details. We can meet you where you are.
Because at the end of the day, this is what we’re trying to do: make sure the systems around working families support stability instead of eroding it.
The United Way 
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