PROVEN PROGRAMS HELP FAMILIES ON THE EDGE. When families are financially secure, children experience stability and can grow with the support they need to thrive. For too long, Kansas parents have had to navigate a system that works against them — child care that is sparse and unaffordable; rising costs for housing, medical care, and groceries; and stagnant wages.
These factors lead to thousands of Kansas parents struggling to ensure their kids are cared for while at work, feed their families, provide a safe home, and access critical health care.
Several programs exist to help parents make ends meet. SNAP (called food assistance in Kansas) lifts tens of thousands of Kansans out of poverty each year. Access to concrete supports, including SNAP and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), are correlated with decreased instances of child neglect and interaction with the child welfare system. Free and reduced-price lunches (FRPL) reduce food insecurity and increase health outcomes. WIC participation leads to healthier outcomes for parents, infants, and children. The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) makes taxes fairer, improves families’ mental and physical health, and increases employment.
These programs support the families who need them, help them transition into financial stability and self-sufficiency, improve our state’s economy, and lead to a brighter future for all Kansas kids.
Kansas Families Are Quickly Losing Access to These Programs
KAC and our partners have worked hard to make it easier for Kansans to access programs that are proven to lift people out of poverty and temporarily help those experiencing hardship. Instead of making it easier for working families to access temporary help, Congress and the Kansas Legislature have passed several measures that make it harder for low-income Kansans to make ends meet.
New work requirements at the federal level in 2025 and new paperwork requirements at the state level in 2026 have caused tens of thousands of Kansans to lose SNAP in the past year alone. These new requirements are also resulting in mounting burdens for the agencies tasked with implementing them, resulting in lengthy processing backlogs, which in turn cause thousands more to go without much needed benefits because applications are not being processed.
In the past year alone (July 2025-August 2026), more than 41,000 Kansans and around 25% of TANF recipients across the state have lost access to assistance.
Kansas is not doing all that it can to give children and families the support they need to grow up healthy and thrive, and leaders are leaving millions of federal dollars unspent in the process. Kansas has some of the most restrictive food assistance rules in the country, which are punitive to people with more than one drug felony, single parents, and working adults with unstable, unpredictable schedules.
Kansas spends significantly less than the national average of its TANF dollars on helping families living on low wages who qualify through direct assistance, work activities, and child care. Instead, most of our TANF dollars go to activities that do not directly contribute to TANF’s core purpose of reducing poverty.
Kansas has still not raised its minimum wage above the federal level of $7.25 per hour, and lawmakers have implemented policy that prevents cities and counties from requiring employers to pay a living wage. Low-wage workers often turn to safety net programs, like food assistance and TANF, to help them get through the month. Kansas makes it difficult to access these crucial safety net programs while also allowing employers to pay poverty wages, leaving thousands of Kansans stuck in a cycle of financial instability.
Kansas has done little to address skyrocketing rents and housing prices and has even created barriers to addressing the housing crisis. Kansas is one of just a handful of states that bans inclusionary zoning, keeping cities from requiring developers to include affordable units in their developments. In 2026, Kansas lawmakers prohibited cities from requiring housing providers to accept Housing Choice Vouchers, a federal subsidy that helps low-income Kansans pay their rent.
For Kansans who rent, the affordability crisis is even more acute. Renters are more than twice as likely to be housing cost-burdened as homeowners, spending more than 30% of their monthly income on housing costs.
Policy Solutions
To improve the well-being of all Kansas families, lawmakers must focus on policies that put more money into Kansans’ pockets. From food to housing to wages, Kansas has made life more difficult for families struggling to get by. Ensuring more Kansans facing hardships can keep their families afloat while they regain stability is good for all Kansas communities.
The Kansas Legislature should ensure kids have the nutrition they need to grow up happy and healthy.
- Reverse SNAP losses by rolling back the ban on self-attestation, implementing broad-based categorical eligibility, and properly funding state agencies so applications can be processed in a timely manner.
- Keep kids fed by including the reduced-price copay in the 2027 budget and funding relatively inexpensive technology upgrades that will automatically enroll kids on Medicaid into the Summer EBT program. Childhood food insecurity increased 13% between 2023 and 2024. We anticipate that number will increase even more due to the 18,000+ children who have lost their SNAP benefits. Given these developments, the Legislature should do everything they can to prioritize feeding kids.
The Legislature should address barriers to safe and affordable housing.
- Tax sale mitigation. While the Legislature struggles to find the best plan to address rising property taxes, it can ensure Kansans on a fixed income don’t lose their homes when those taxes become too much to keep up with. Kansans who rely solely on social security or disability income should be exempt from tax sale eligibility. Lawmakers should also create mechanisms for fines, fees, and abatements to be appealed and repealed when they are inherited by a new owner.
- Affordable Housing Trust Fund. Renters and homeowners alike would be more secure if an Affordable Housing Trust Fund were created to fund programs like rental and property tax assistance, home repair, and shared equity housing development.
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Implement policies that will provide more safe and affordable housing options for renters, including:
- Tenant protections against retaliation. Renters should have legal avenues to enforce property maintenance code violations. If they file a complaint, they should not face retaliatory evictions or rent increases. Lawmakers can prevent retaliation by shifting the balance of power and creating a presumption that the landlord’s conduct was retaliatory when there is evidence a complaint had been filed against them in the previous year.
- Right to Repair legislation. In the event a landlord is not responsive to a tenant’s maintenance requests, an alternate path must be allowed to ensure the home is a safe place to live. After a renter has made reasonable attempts to contact their landlord regarding a maintenance request, Kansas law should allow renters to hire a contractor to perform maintenance at market rate and require reimbursement from the landlord.
- Require landlords to accept partial payments. This would give renters more flexibility in how they pay rent each month. There are multiple reasons why a renter might need to make partial payments, including two or more roommates splitting rent, paying a portion of rent out of each bi-weekly paycheck, or asking a charitable organization for help with a portion of rent when a family falls on hard times.
- No hidden fees. Landlords should be required to disclose all fees to a potential renter before any money is exchanged, including utilities, pet deposits, late fees, and any other payments that could be required over the course of the lease. This would set expectations up front to help renters understand what types of expenses they might incur, allowing them to put a little money away for when that rainy day occurs. It will also help landlords avoid adversarial conversations and turnover, since expectations had been made clear from the beginning and renters will be better educated and prepared.
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