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Frank Williams

In Frank Williams’ short time on Earth and as a case manager for Wyandot Center in Kansas City, Kan., he had a strong impact on those around him.

“Frank Williams was a case manager who kind of exemplified the kind of services we want to provide people,” Pete Zevenbergen, Wyandot Center’s president and CEO said of Williams, who died in 2001 at age 32 of an abdominal aneurysm. “He was very compassionate and very passionate about delivering services to people who are part of the homeless in our community.”

Williams’ impact on others will have a more lasting effect than even he could have imagined during his tenure, 1997-2001, at Wyandot Center, Wyandotte County’s designated community mental health facility. In Williams’ name, Wyandot Center soon will open a new resource facility for both the homeless and nonhomeless of eastern Wyandotte County. In addition to mental health services, the Frank Williams Outreach Center will provide free amenities that include a computer with Internet access, telephone, showers and laundry machines.

Homeless community members can also receive assistance with finding permanent housing through the Frank Williams Outreach Center, said Therese Horvat, communications director for the center.

“The whole purpose of our homeless outreach is to try to get people to move from homelessness into being housed and into more independent living,” Horvat said.

Mental health services through the outreach center will include one-on-one therapy, group therapy, drug and alcohol treatment and crisis intervention.

“(There’s) going to be people who walk into the door in crisis,” and staff members will be able to help them, Zevenbergen said.

For about seven years, Wyandot Center’s homeless outreach has operated, on a much more limited scale, out of a house about a block from the building that will house the Frank Williams Outreach Center. Zevenbergen said the decision to move to a larger space was based on community needs greatly outweighing capabilities at the current facility.

“I didn’t think we were adequately meeting the needs of consumers on a variety of fronts. So when this building became available, we decided to renovate it” in such a way that it would address those needs, Zevenbergen said.

The building, which has formerly housed a clothing store and plasma donation center, became available for purchase about a year ago, Zevenbergen said. Renovations have taken place the past six months. When all is said and done, the purchase of the building and renovations will cost in the vicinity of $400,000, all of which will be privately funded by Wyandot Center, Zevenbergen said.

Naming the outreach center after Williams, whom Zevenbergen described in a press release as “a man with a big heart,” was an easy decision. Zevenbergen still remembers the day in 2000 when Williams gave him a tour of Kansas City, Kan., shortly after Zevenbergen, had taken the job as Wyandot director. In addition to showing him around, Zevenbergen said Williams explained “why the community was divided the way it was and why certain communities were more impoverished” than others.

“And I became really fond of him,” Zevenbergen said. “And he really cared about people.”

Through the Frank Williams Outreach Center, the hope is that people feel as cared about now as they did when Williams was alive.

A dedication and open house of the Frank Williams Outreach Center will take place from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. Friday, Nov. 4, at the center, 1201 N. Seventh St., Kansas City, Kan. Zevenbergen said, however, he didn’t expect the facility to actually be up and running until mid-November.

For more information, contact Wyandot Center at 913-328-4600.

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