rental housing

KC Tenants say they want Healthy Homes to enforce consequences for landlords who fail to address health code violations. Kansas City Health Department representatives say all documented issues at Quality Hill Towers were resolved, but tenants report little to no improvements.

Your landlord is required by law to provide heat and utilities like hot water in cold weather. Here’s how to make sure that happens.

Kansas law prohibits landlords from retaliating against tenants for reporting poor living conditions. But it lacks enforcement and leaves tenants compromising their health and safety to avoid eviction, a new survey shows.

Tenant unions in Kansas City and Independence started a rent strike in October in response to deteriorating living conditions that went unaddressed by landlords. There have been some small improvements since, but residents have also experienced what they consider retaliation.

Home and rental prices have skyrocketed in recent years because of a housing shortage. That’s leading to a rise in homelessness and could be hurting the economy.

At the risk of eviction, tenants at Quality Hill Towers and Independence Towers launched a coordinated rent strike over what they say are poor conditions and rising prices. They're recruiting more residents to join, and pushing for help from federal housing authorities.

Tenants at two apartment complexes in the Kansas City area are now withholding rent payments, in the city’s first rent strike since 1980. Rent strikes are illegal in Missouri, but residents say it's worth the risk, after dealing with deteriorating living conditions and a lack of maintenance.

Tenants in Quality Hill Towers and Independence Towers have dealt with deteriorating living conditions that have gone unaddressed for years. With no commitments from their landlords, the two tenant unions voted to begin withholding their rent this month.

Many of the people in Kansas who are homeless do have an income, but housing is simply too expensive to afford a place to live. Plus: Missouri law doesn't clearly IVF, so what's the risk of the procedure being outlawed?

KC Tenants announced this week that it is a founding local of the Tenant Union Federation, a national union of unions that aims to organize for renter protections at the federal level.

The Kansas City, Missouri-based tenants rights advocacy group joined other tenants unions in Illinois, Connecticut, Kentucky and Montana to form the Tenant Union Federation. TUF hopes to create more effective organizing practices among tenants nationwide and push for federally regulated rent control.

Jenny Schuetz, a senior fellow at Brookings Metro, says that changes to zoning laws and more action at the state and federal level could help address Kansas City's housing problems. Schuetz will speak at the Kansas City Public Library this coming Wednesday.