A troubled Kansas City apartment complex has left residents to deal with pests, mold, vandalism and years’ worth of intermittent power and water outages. City officials are back to the drawing board, trying to figure out how to step in to fix the complex without displacing the residents.
Kansas City Manager Mario Vasquez, six city council members and a number of city staff visited the three apartment buildings Thursday off North Lawn Avenue in Kansas City’s North Indian Mound neighborhood.
That’s where multiple residents have been living without air conditioning for a month during dangerous heat. They accuse Yisroel Levovitz, an out-of-state landlord who owns the buildings through Wiser KC LLC, of neglecting the properties.
A city deal subsidized rents in exchange for guarantees from the landlord to fix the complex and leave the tenants in place. Three years later, that hasn’t happened. After a recent escalation in issues, city officials are considering different ways to get the building fixed without condemning it and displacing residents.
“The key player in all of this is the landlord and he's nowhere to be found,” Vasquez said. “That is the problem when you have something like this: it's comprehensive and you need all the players at the table. He doesn't want to engage, and we got to find a way to accomplish what needs to be accomplished.”
A lawyer representing Levovitz declined a request for comment Thursday.
Tenants at the North Lawn properties feared that the city was going to kick them out of their homes Tuesday when Kansas City employees posted “do not enter/occupy” warnings on the door. Residents said the city gave them just 24 hours to vacate, an order the city denied.
Win Say has been living at the complex for six years. She and her husband deal with health and mobility issues. Say brought city officials to tears when she told them about how terrified she was from the encounter.
“That day was extremely scary, exhausting and panicking as well,” Say, who speaks Burmese, said through her granddaughter, who was interpreting. “I don't want to go through that kind of day again.”
Officials said the visit was a joint commission from different city departments to inspect the property — the first step in holding the landlord accountable. That inspection found all three of the buildings owned by Wiser KC LLC in violation of multiple city codes.
In one building, inspectors found standing sewage in the basement, open junction boxes and exit doors that do not freely open. It also found that exhaust from the furnace was disconnected and doesn’t empty on the outside of the building. In another, inspectors cited the building for not having electricity and having the service entrance conductors cut. The third building was unsecured and had more standing sewage and multiple holes in a hallway firewall.
Officials have taken the first step toward changing the property. Kansas City suspended Levovitz’s permit, which means he cannot offer new units up for rent. City officials said they’re also in the process of seeking fines for code violations at the property.
Meanwhile, Levovitz has listed the properties for sale.
These are just the latest of violations on the property. In 2023, residents at the complex were left without heat in the middle of winter after an electrical fire. The former landlord sold the property to Wiser KC LLC and the city made a deal to subsidize the rents in exchange for Levovitz making crucial repairs and ensuring the tenants remain in their homes.
Council member Eric Bunch visited the property in 2023 and helped arrange the deal between the city, Wiser KC and KC Tenants, which made the residents the most protected tenants in Missouri. After Thursday’s visit, Bunch said the city should investigate clawing back the funding it gave to Levovitz.
“The improvements did not happen here and the conditions have gotten substantially worse, which they were already bad to begin with,” Bunch said. “No one should be forced to live in conditions like this.”
A majority of the residents are unionized through KC Tenants. They reached a tentative deal with Levovitz last month that required fixes to the property and relocation assistance to the residents. Mary Allison Joseph, an organizer with KC Tenants, said they hadn’t heard from Levovitz after the negotiations.
The original tenants included in the 2023 deal have filed multiple lawsuits against Levovitz for a breach of contract, and others plan to file more. The union also mass filed 20 healthy homes complaints, which added to the dozens of others already on file for the apartment buildings.
City officials said they will explore multiple options to secure the building and make it habitable.
That could include moving the tenants to better units in the complex while repairs are done or even supporting the neighborhood association taking receivership of the property. The latter move would give the Indian Mound association control of the complex to pursue debts from Wiser KC LCC, rehabilitation and a new owner.
Despite the mounting issues and safety concerns at the North Lawn apartments, Win Say doesn’t want to leave.
She said she wants the city to work with the tenant union to make it safe to stay in the area where she’s made her home over the years — where there’s a large Burmese community and strong connections with other tenants.
“I feel safer here because I can speak my own languages if I need anything,” Say said through her granddaughter’s interpretation. “If I move out somewhere, there's going to be strangers, and I don't speak English at all. I just want to stay here with my Burmese community and whoever lives in this apartment.”
