Artemio Barrera and his neighbors said they’ve been living without hot water for two weeks. The tenants, who live on North Lawn Avenue in Kansas City’s North Indian Mound neighborhood, have been trying and failing to get the landlord to fix it.
They gathered Wednesday in front of their apartment complex to demand change from their landlord.
The broken hot water is just the latest in a host of problems that Barrera said he and his neighbors have had to fix themselves. The tenants, many of whom are refugees and immigrants on fixed incomes, said they’re also dealing with broken windows and appliances, bugs and other pests, and safety issues. On top of that, the tenants are facing massive rent increases.
“I want them to get this place into shape,” Barrera said. “I want them to actually fix up and take care of the building, and I want us to still be able to live here. I don't want them to raise the rent. I want our rent to stay affordable.”
Yisroel Levovitz, the landlord of the North Lawn properties, did not respond to KCUR’s request for comment.
The tenants live in three different buildings Levovitz owns through Wiser KC along North Lawn. They have a supermajority union they organized through the citywide tenants union KC Tenants. After trying and failing to negotiate with Levovitz, they’re giving him until May 15 to meet with the union at the bargaining table.
Resident Luna Nelson Serna said at the rally that if the union doesn’t hear from Levovitz, they’re prepared to escalate measures.
“The strength of our union is a testament of how determined me and my neighbors are and how bad the conditions are,” Serna said. “We take care of each other here. We want safe, healthy and affordable places to live, but Yisroel has never provided that.”
“Even stronger than we were last time.”
Despite accusations of bugs, cold water and broken appliances, the residents in Barrera’s building used to be some of the most protected tenants in Missouri.
More than three years ago, the eight families that live in the building were left without heat during one of the coldest weekends of the year after an electrical fire knocked out the utilities. The residents organized with KC Tenants and got the utilities turned back on.
The property was sold to Wiser KC LLC shortly after, and the tenants faced lease nonrenewal notices or more than doubling their rent. The tenants went back to the negotiation table, and were able to keep their rent at $400 per month and move into newly renovated units across the street instead of paying the $1200 the landlord proposed.
Through its rental assistance program, Kansas City agreed to subsidize the rent of the eight households and pay $450 a month per family.
But that deal has run out, and tenants were notified that Wiser KC wants to raise the rent again. The tenants argue they can’t pay the increase, and won’t do so while they said they live with sewage seeping into their apartment, leaks, an unsecured exterior door and a slew of pests. Some are heating water on the stove to bathe; others say they have lived without heat for two years.
Wiser KC LLC owns two other buildings on North Lawn, including the one Barrera and his neighbors used to live in, which is partially condemned. Families in the other buildings do not have the same rent protections and pay $1,200 a month.
Those original eight families in one North Lawn Avenue apartment building expanded their union and organized with their neighbors across the street earlier this year. They’re relaunching the North Lawn Tenants Union with 94% membership in the 31 occupied units.
Council members Andrea Bough and Johnathan Duncan attended Wednesday’s rally. Duncan said the city held up its end of the 2023 deal to subsidize rents, but the landlord never made complete repairs or maintained the buildings.
Duncan said the tenants at the North Lawn properties are living in “squalid conditions.” He believes the city should take a larger stake in stabilizing rents for them and others like them.
“I look forward to working with the housing authority, with tenants from across the city, and with my colleagues and the mayor, to look at what we can do to realize municipal social housing,” Duncan said. “That means that rents are deeply affordable for the lifetime of the property, and not subject to the whims of a landlord who wants to make a quick buck on the backs of our residents.”
According to Kansas City’s parcel viewer, the three North Lawn buildings have collectively received 40 complaints to Kansas City’s 311 since Wiser KC took over ownership in 2023. That includes 12 complaints of property violations, including an active electrical code violation in one of the buildings; six board-up requests for open exterior windows and doors; and three Healthy Homes complaints.
Barrera is on dialysis and gets tired easily. Still, he’s said he’s become the de facto handyman for the building because he said maintenance requests go unanswered. He estimates he’s spent more than $1,000 fixing critical issues in his and his neighbors’ homes.
Despite that, moving isn’t an option. Barrera can’t work with his health issues, and said he and his wife can’t pay any more in rent. If they can’t stay in this building, they expect to become homeless.
Barrera said he believes “we’re going to be even stronger this time than we were last time.”
“This home should be a safe place for my wife and me,” Barrera said. “It's not my job to maintain it, that's Yisroel’s job.”
