Cricket Wheeler remembered receiving the sudden news; one Friday morning, a Kansas City Police officer knocked on the front door of his apartment and said he had to leave immediately.
“We couldn't stay,” Wheeler said.
Wheeler was one of 24 people who were relocated from two North Lawn apartment buildings without warning on Aug. 21, after a Kansas City task force determined the buildings were unsafe to live in. Residents had to leave the structures so electrical repairs could begin, according to a city spokesperson.
But Wheeler said the relocation was so abrupt that he and other residents were unable to grab most of their important belongings.
“I barely grabbed my cat as I was going out,” he said, “and then I lost her, on top of that.”
Asia Jones, spokesperson with the city’s Housing and Community Development Department, said immediate health and safety concerns at the property drove the relocation.
"When residents face potentially dangerous living conditions, the City's first priority is ensuring their safety while connecting them with available resources and support services," Jones said in an email to KCUR.
For almost a week, Wheeler and the others waited for a long-term relocation plan. On Thursday, the North Lawn Tenant Union secured one with Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas and city staff.
The agreement includes support for three months rent, storage units, moving costs, groceries, and security deposits, according to citywide tenant union KC Tenants, and covers the tenants displaced Aug. 21 and two other households displaced since May because of deteriorating conditions at apartments in the Historic Northeast. The plan will be funded with $500,000 City Council allocated for relocating residents.
The agreement came in the nick of time for Wheeler and the tenants staying temporarily in a duplex in Kansas City, Kansas. They can only stay there until Sep. 4, per an agreement they signed with a local service provider.
“We have very little belongings,” Wheeler said.
Their forced relocation followed weeks of uncertainty over how city officials would address the condition of the complex, and left some wondering how and when the city can remove and relocate people from their homes.
What city code says about relocation
Under most circumstances, Kansas City’s Healthy Homes Rental Inspection Program regulates health and safety standards for rental housing, including a process for relocation if a property must be vacated.
Naser Jouhari, deputy director of the Kansas City Health Department, said, if the city finds an imminent health hazard or a life-threatening violation, the department will offer relocation assistance to affected residents so the landlord can fix the issue.
“We give them vouchers, we relocate them to a hotel, temporary relocation, until the problem gets fixed at their rental property,” Jouhari said. He noted the city will also make sure people have access to food and transportation, and that children can get to school.
Jouhari has been aware of the problems at North Lawn for at least the last three years, and this summer, as tenants dealt with electricity outages, a lack of hot water, and standing sewage, Healthy Homes staff remained on-site.
Kansas City’s code stipulates that the health director can provide emergency housing and relocation assistance to “qualified tenants whose incomes are so low as to prevent them from accessing affordable relocation options.”
Under city code, a relocation cannot last longer than three months, and Jouhari said, since the program began in 2018, most relocations have lasted for only a few days. Usually, residents are relocated to a hotel, he said.
A portion of the city’s rental permit fees that landlords pay goes into a Healthy Homes fund for emergency relocation.
“It's not an easy decision,” Jouhari said. “For many, it's not such an easy option to just leave their living quarters, their apartment, and go and live in a hotel for a few days.”
Why North Lawn was different
The recent relocation of North Lawn tenants was not conducted solely by the Healthy Homes team. In fact, Jouhari said Healthy Homes offered relocation to North Lawn tenants, but they refused.
“They did not want to move out because they were worried to lose their units,” he said.
At that point, concerns at North Lawn grew to become a nuisance issue, Jouhari said, so the relocation fell into the purview of the Public Safety Task Force, made up of staff from across city departments, including the Kansas City Police Department.
The task force addresses issues impacting public safety and quality of life, which can include disruptive street events, nuisance businesses and poor housing conditions.
“It became a bigger issue that fit better under the Public Safety Task Force, which includes health and water and neighborhoods — more of a collaborative effort,” Jones with the city’s Housing and Community Development Department said.
In social media videos posted by KC Tenants, yellow police tape ran across the front lawns of the complex that Friday morning as Kansas City police officers and city staffers entered the buildings. Tenants who had to leave their apartments sat on the curb with what they could gather on short notice.
Joe Williamson with the city’s Public Safety Task Force said social workers were at North Lawn on Friday to assist tenants. City staffers with the REACH program, a public health initiative focused on nonviolent crime, were also onsite. Jones said community partners were also onsite to provide semi-permanent housing options, hygiene kits, transportation help and storage options for household belongings.
Decarcerate KC, an advocacy group that worked with the city to create the REACH Program, condemned the presence of REACH staffers in the North Lawn displacement as an unacceptable overstep.
The leader of the citywide tenants union KC Tenants, Jenay Manley, said there was no follow through from the city on the day of the relocation, and, in an email to KCUR, KC Tenants said the city did not notify anyone nor coordinate relocation for any resident immediately following last Friday’s events.
Jones said the property owner is responsible for communicating directly with tenants. That would have fallen to Shawn Johnson, whose real estate investment company Vital20 LLC recently bought the property. Johnson did not respond to KCUR's request for comment.
Jones said the Public Safety Task Force notified Johnson after determining that conditions at North Lawn posed serious safety risks.
This month, City Council backed out of a previous legislative commitment to complete the long-awaited repairs without displacing residents, and instead passed new legislation putting that responsibility on to Johnson. Officials also allocated $500,000 to assist with relocation costs at that time.
Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas met with the North Lawn Tenant Union on Aug. 23, days before the long-term agreement was made.
“To the extent that there are people right now that have nowhere to go or (who are) instead living in deplorable conditions — getting them to places where they need to be is key,” he said on KCUR’s Up to Date on Aug. 26. “That's something that I'm pushing at the city.”
Chaos of relocation
The abrupt news of relocation set off a chain reaction for North Lawn residents: Where would they go? What would happen with their items? How long would they have to live somewhere else?
Members of the North Lawn tenant union met with KC Tenants after the relocation, and coordinated between a local service provider and the complex’s landlord to find a temporary place to stay.
The meeting lasted until 10 p.m. that Friday, said KC Tenants Director Jenay Manley, so that tenants did not end up sleeping on the streets. But Manley said the unit Wheeler and others ended up in was not prepared for them.
“No one knew this was happening,” Manley said. “So there was no gas, no hot water, the place has not been cleaned.”
The union also organized mattresses, bedding and other emergency supplies for displaced residents.
KC Tenants worked with another service agency to find housing for two other families to share an apartment, but that unit ended up being in worse condition than their North Lawn apartments, so they moved into a motel instead. Another tenant was placed into an already-occupied unit at North Lawn, and KC Tenants said another displaced family secured their own housing, while three other families still have not been relocated.
The North Lawn Tenant Union had its first formal bargaining session with Johnson, the new landlord, on Aug. 26, according to KC Tenants. The meeting ended with a signed agreement covering leases, a major repairs schedule and the future sale of the property.
Johnson was given until Aug. 31 to address major electrical issues at North Lawn, according to Jones the housing department. The Public Safety Task Force will then return to the property to assess those updates. Johnson must also make repairs addressing structural issues, mechanical units and smoke detectors.
The agreement with the city also includes a follow-up meeting, so that tenants like Wheeler can discuss returning to their homes at North Lawn once repairs are completed.
“If it wasn't for all of us that got put out, that place wouldn't be home for none of us,” Wheeler said. “We made it home.”
