(suspenseful music)
- A recent survey finds that
nearly one in three of us is struggling
to make the rent or pay the mortgage,
or knows someone who has in the past year.
As you might expect, it's an issue most keenly felt
right in the heart of the city
where 42 eviction notices every day
are being filed in housing court.
This hour, in a special edition of the program,
we raise the roof on housing,
we track down landlords, and we look for answers.
- Lost my job, I went a few months late on my rent.
- I'm late on my rent, so I'm getting evicted.
My car had broke down, and I needed a car
to get back and forth to work,
so I went and got a car payment,
and was late on my rent.
- I'm here today because I haven't been served,
but they said that they served me for an eviction.
- I was in a car accident on September 25th,
so I haven't paid November or December,
and they're going to evict me,
or at least, they're threatening to evict me.
- I didn't pay my rent because
I wanted them to come fix some things in the house.
My water even got cut off due to they part.
- My income used to be good
with the old employment that I had,
but the new employment I have now,
I'm getting paid eight dollars an hour,
so it's not really enough to be able
to afford that and a car payment.
- Because I was homeless for a couple of months,
and so my mother in law went
and got my son's social security,
which is causing my rent to be delayed.
They all know this.
- They didn't even do what they needed to do.
- This is the sink falling apart,
and he knows that, and I've been telling him
since we moved in there.
- This is annoying at this point.
- I was given time to not only
talk to an attorney, but to negotiate with the landlord.
- In a week, there's no way that
I'm-a come up with, they say I owe $2,000.
- I don't want no eviction on my record,
so hopefully, they can take that off.
- Finding a home is almost impossible at this point,
outside of taking my 15-month-old daughter
and wife to a weekly hotel or motel.
- I just have to find a place
for me and my kids to stay.
That's all I can do.
- [Nick] Some of the local faces
and voices of eviction.
Tonight, KCPT begins a six-month
reporting project on housing.
- Parts of the city are in crisis
when it comes to eviction.
Creeping gentrification as well,
driving up house prices, perhaps,
which is good for house-owners,
but also driving out low-income families.
Where do they move to?
- [Nick] From evictions, to gentrification,
to the fight over apartments,
to the pricing out of workers in downtown's housing boom,
but we begin at the Plaza Library,
where we brought together landlords
and those who have been evicted
with legal and housing experts, and you.
- We do not have to have this going on.
- Living in an apartment that was
infested by roaches and rats.
- Landlords hate evictions.
They're horrible.
- It's a story about a failing system.
- I sat on the couch with somebody
looking at their 72-inch Rent-a-Center TV
talking about, no, it's real.
- This is actually turning not into
a public television program.
This is now a reality show, ladies and gentlemen.
- [Announcer] Week in Review is made possible
through the generous support of Dave and Jamie Cummings,
Smithfield Foods, Haas and Wilkerson Insurance,
The Healthcare Foundation of Greater Kansas City,
and by viewers like you.
Thank you.
- It's very appropriate that we
have Nick Haines here tonight because
he was evicted from Wales.
(audience laughs)
I was happy to partner with Nick Haines.
- Crosby, thank you so much
for that incredibly true and not fake news introduction.
It is so gratifying, ladies and gentlemen,
that you think about all the topics
that we could be dealing with in this community,
and we have said we're gonna tackle housing and eviction,
and we get more than 600 RSVPs, and I know,
over there, you're uncomfortable because you're standing,
but what an incredible problem,
that people care enough about this issue
that there is standing room only at the library
to hear about it. (audience claps)
Thank you.
We're about audience engagement too,
and let me tell you, it is very important to me,
and this lady over here told me,
"You're in for an ear full tonight."
I love to engage with audiences,
and that's gonna be a big part of our program.
Let's get straight to it and introduce our panel.
With us today, we're thrilled to have Tara Raghuveer,
who is the Harvard-educated researcher
whose comprehensive examinations of evictions in Kansas City
is cited in the recent bestselling
Pulitzer Prize-winning book Evicted by Matthew Desmond.
She now works on housing policy
for the People's Action Institute in Chicago.
Terrance Weis is with us.
He has first-hand knowledge of what eviction means,
and what its impact is on families.
He was evicted.
Professor Jacob Wagner is right over here.
He examines the wider implications of all of this.
He is the director of urban studies
and co-founder of the Center for Neighborhoods at UMKC.
Gina Chiala left private law practice
to help provide legal aid to low-income Kansas Citians.
She is the founder of
the Heartland Center for Jobs and Freedom.
You can't talk about evictions
without talking about landlords.
Chuck Schmitz is a landlord.
He is the former president of Landlords Inc. of Kansas City.
To our right is Dan Kelly,
an attorney specializing in landlord tenant law.
He's a board member with Landlords Inc.,
the organization that advocates
for the interests of landlords in Kansas City.
I want to pull through some of the data
with Tara Raghuveer first of all,
what you have actually learned along the way
that helps set up our conversation.
First of all, Matthew Desmond,
and the book is right here, where he did the book Evicted
that became the bestseller,
looked at the city of Milwaukee,
and really dug deep into what was happening
in the city of Milwaukee.
You focused on Kansas City, why?
- I grew up in Kansas City.
I love this city.
I studied with Matthew Desmond in college.
I was confused about why all the literature I was reading
was about public housing and project-based housing.
For the most part, it was written in the 1980s,
so when I read Matthew Desmond's then dissertation,
which was about the private rental market,
I had a light bulb moment because
I understood that that was actually the venue
where people who have the hardest time
finding housing are now housed.
I went to him at school, and I asked him, basically,
if I could replicate his study in Kansas City.
He said yes, and five years later,
this is the issue that keeps me up at night.
- But you pull through more than 173,000 eviction records
right here in Jackson County over a 17 year period.
This is one of the largest examinations
ever done of an individual city in the country.
What do you actually discover, Tara?
- What we find is a bleak story.
Just in those formal filings,
we get to a crude average of about 42 evictions
filed per business day in Jackson County alone.
- 42 every single business day,
which is why, by the way,
on this blue door behind us is the number 42.
- 42 filings per business day,
and then we've done some further analysis
on what actually happens in court,
which gets us at another approximation
of about 25 eviction judgments made per business day.
Literally, the judge says a person is evicted
25 times per day, and I think it's really important,
when we're talking about these numbers,
that we understand, of course, that they aren't numbers.
They're people, right?
There are humans and families who are impacted
by every single one of those judgments,
and I think it's really critical,
whenever we're talking about the numbers,
and I'm the one who brought the numbers,
but I'm also the first one who will tell you
that any data that we have on this problem is limited
because it only captures the formal evictions
that make it to landlord tenant court.
There are many, many more that happen informally,
outside of the courts, and with no data to represent them.
The number 42, I think, is very conservative,
and beyond the numbers, the data also tell
a pretty bleak story about
who's actually impacted in this city.
There's a disproportionate impact on poor people
and people of color in Kansas City.
When my team ran a multi-varied analysis,
what we found was that, even when we hold income constant,
race is the biggest predictive factor
that tells you whether or not someone
will be evicted in Kansas City.
- Tara is articulating all of the statistics,
but as she points out, this is about human lives,
lives like Terrance Weis.
You're working full-time, you found yourself evicted,
you and your family.
- I'm a 38-year-old fast food worker.
I've had 20 years of experience in the industry,
and not only that, my fiancee Mo
is a home healthcare worker,
so these are two people, two individuals,
that are up working hard every day.
To experience evictions with my three girls,
it's just been traumatizing.
We're among the 64 million in this country
that make less than $15 an hour,
and there's a series of things, y'all,
that lead to eviction, a series of things.
We can have our hours cut at work,
which I've had experience with in the past,
going to work, working 18 to 40 hours a week,
and then going in one week,
and only getting 20 hours.
Can you imagine your income cut in half,
and what that does?
- When you were evicted,
what happened to you and your family?
- One of my earliest experiences with eviction
was simply living in an apartment
that was infested by roaches and rats,
it had a rat infestation.
At that time, me and my fiancee refused
to pay the rent until it was fixed.
It never was, and we were eventually evicted.
We didn't know anything about it.
Even more recently, in 2015, renting a home.
I'd lived in apartments my whole life,
so to have a home for my fiancee and my three girls,
never had one growing up, renting that,
and to be evicted from that property
for being $200 behind on rent.
It's worse than that.
Coming home from work after picking up
the kids from daycare to find all of our belongings,
everything, on the curb, out in the rain,
and the locks changed, which forced us
to sleep out of our minivan.
Ironically, right in front of my job
is where we slept, inside of our vehicle.
Me, adult man, cool.
Me with my family and my three girls,
and the way that it's traumatized them
even 'til today, it's somethings that
none of our children should ever had to go through.
- Gina, you gave up private law
to help people just like Terrance,
but this is not an isolated case.
- The data that Tara talked about
is exactly in line with what we see in the courts every day.
There are huge numbers of tenants who are facing evictions,
and they don't have access to counsel.
Many of them aren't coming to court,
and those that do come to court don't know the procedures.
Of course, nobody knows the procedures
unless you've been trained on those.
Because of that, they're not able to raise defenses,
and they're not able to engage
in other possible solutions that would help them
avoid those evictions.
I've looked at the case that Terrance had,
and I believe that, had he had access
to counsel at that time,
we probably could've counseled him
and figured out a way to avoid that eviction.
I would also mention that I helped Terrance
earlier this year when his landlord sued him,
and he wasn't behind on the rent.
There was just a mix-up in the paperwork.
We were able to get that case dismissed,
but had he not had legal counsel,
he may have ended up evicted for that.
- Tara, is Kansas City, though,
any worse than anywhere else in the country?
- At this point, it's really hard to say.
Anyone who says that Kansas City
is or isn't worse than another city
really isn't telling you the truth
because the problem is just so understudied.
Matthew Desmond calls eviction
the most understudied problem contributing
to the reproduction of urban poverty.
I sort of punted on your question,
but my analysis, after looking at my research
and studying the rest of the country is that,
Kansas City is actually not the exception.
- But Jacob over at UMKC,
aren't we supposed to be one of
the most affordable cities in America?
Why are we having this problem here?
- Because market conditions change dramatically,
rapidly, very quickly.
We've seen quite a bit of interest
in folks moving back into the city.
We see a increase in speculation on property
that would drive up the cost
to maintain, and buy, and sell properties,
so we see costs going up
while the issue of wages is not keeping pace
with the changing housing conditions.
It'd be one thing if the wages
were keeping up with the situation,
but they're simply not.
That, in addition to, we've been investing in demolition
for the last 10 years or more.
We continue to spend money on demolishing housing,
not replacing one-to-one
those units we're demolishing,
so we have less housing stock, and the stock that
we do see come online is more expensive,
and obviously aimed towards the market.
There are key issues around public subsidies,
but that would require people
to take my class at UMKC to talk about.
(audience laughs)
- Who could afford that these days, ladies and gentlemen?
Chuck Schmitz over at Landlords Inc.,
you are a landlord.
I don't know if you fit the stereotype of one.
- Sometimes, I ask people to close your eyes,
and think the word "landlord," and the image
that comes to your mind,
it's Mr. Potter from It's a Wonderful Life,
or the guy with the big bulged keys on his belt,
but it's easy to demonize landlords.
In this economy, we need landlords,
and we need rental property.
- You're not in the charity business.
You're not in the nonprofit business.
But when you're hearing about 42 eviction notices
in Kansas City every single business day,
something is going terribly wrong here, isn't it, Dan?
- I think the biggest issue for that is economic.
I think $15 minimum wage would solve
most of the eviction problems in Kansas City,
but I think it's important to keep in mind
that it is just an economic issue.
I don't know if you meant to,
the implication that white people aren't being evicted
when they're not paying they're rent.
If anybody doesn't pay their rent,
the landlord is gonna evict them.
It's a circumstance that happens to be more black people,
but white people aren't living rent-free in Kansas City.
- So you're saying this is not a race issue,
but this is a non-payment of rent issue,
as to why people... - From the landlord's
perspective, yes. - Are being evicted.
What are the reasons?
You looked at all of the reasons.
Is it just non-payment of rent,
as to why people are being evicted, Tara?
- I'd love the opportunity to respond quickly.
The implication that I was trying to make,
and maybe not clearly enough,
is that, when we hold income constant,
still, disproportionately, eviction is affecting
black and brown people in this city.
That's when we hold income constant.
To your question, the vast majority
of eviction cases that make it to the landlord tenant court
are non-payment of rent cases,
not all of them, but I think we have to understand this
in the context of an affordable housing crisis
that is really national.
In the United States in 2017,
there's not a single county where
a person earning minimum wage and working full-time
can afford a two-bedroom apartment.
(audience claps)
I think the thing that I've started to understand is,
this is not a story about all landlords being bad,
and all tenants being good or right.
It's a story about a failing system.
It requires a government solution,
and the government has failed us.
(audience claps)
- Chuck.
- Terrance's eviction was illegal.
If you're just $200 behind, and you didn't get notice,
that's not a legal eviction.
- But you didn't get any help?
You didn't know what your rights were,
is that the case, Terrance?
- Another thing I feel strongly about,
tenants need access to counsel.
They need access to counsel, and like Gina mentioned,
she stepped in for us last year
to clear up a mix-up, but to have it happen again
at the end of December, deputy knocking on my door
only to be a mistake again.
- I want to take your questions.
We're gonna bring the microphone out in a moment
because I really want to get to you,
but let's just understand a little bit
actually how this works.
We'll pull this a little bit more.
First of all, let's understand how it actually works.
What notice does a landlord actually
have to give before they can evict a tenant?
- In Missouri, it's different than Kansas,
but in Missouri there is no notice that's required.
- None at all?
- If you're behind on your rent,
and the landlord has asked you for the rent,
and you haven't paid it,
he can file an eviction.
- Tara mentions the 42 eviction notices
in the housing court every business day.
Do you have to go to court
to evict somebody from a property?
Is that a requirement?
- It is.
- But the tenant doesn't know that.
- I don't know what the tenants know
and what they don't know.
- [Man] Boo.
- No, that's fair enough.
He is representing landlords.
Gina, would the tenant know?
- One of the missions of our organization
is to get out in the community
and provide tenants with the information
that they need to enforce and protect their rights
because, just like everybody else,
if you're not a lawyer and you haven't gone to law school,
you would have no reason to know those rights
unless someone is out there doing the outreach.
- [Nick] Tara.
- Legally, a landlord, when they're evicting a tenant,
has to take the tenant to court.
In my qualitative research,
I spent time and built relationships
with both landlords and tenants,
and both parties informed me that
a lot of evictions don't ever touch the court system.
Landlords themselves told me stories
of taking doors off of apartments,
turning heat and water off.
One landlord told me, and I quote,
"Oh, I shouldn't tell you.
"I bring a revolver around with me.
"Her name's Maggie, and if anyone gives me trouble,
"like if I need someone to be out
"and they're not cooperating, I'll just give them a peek.
"Nothing too bad, just a peek."
It's these types of threats and self-help evictions
that are rampant.
- What is your perspective on that, Chuck Schmitz?
Are you horrified to hear those types of scenarios?
- That was an old technique
that landlords would laugh about
that they would do in the '50s,
to take the doors off.
- [Tara] I wasn't born.
- I am not aware of any landlord that's done that,
but it might be helpful
to walk through the eviction process.
Typically, there's a lease and a contract,
and the rent's due on the first.
Most landlords will say,
"I'll give you notice that you're late.
"It's due on the first.
"If I don't have it on the fifth,
"I'm gonna let you know."
Then, they would wait 'til the 10th
or the middle of the month
before they would file an eviction.
One of the reasons that landlords file quickly
is that it takes a long, long time to get someone out.
- But it didn't require any notice.
That's why I was thinking this was a fast process.
How long does this take?
- You file the eviction, you usually get a court date
within 28 days of when you file it.
Then you go to court.
If the tenant asks for a trial,
they'll be given a trial, and that can be
anywhere from a week to three weeks
from the original court dates.
Now you're looking at seven weeks.
If you get your judgment at seven weeks,
they have 10 days where they can appeal,
or they can pay the judgment,
and then they won't be evicted.
After those 10 days expire,
you can file a writ with the sheriff's department,
and they generally take 10 to 20 days
to come out, and post the property, and say,
"We're coming out to put your stuff out."
Within 48 hours of it being posted,
they'll come to put your stuff out.
You're looking at two and a half months
without any rent during an eviction process.
- That's one of the reasons they file quickly,
is that it takes a long time.
Second thing I want to say is,
landlords hate evictions.
They're horrible, and the landlords
in the room would second that.
I lose tons of money.
Most landlords in our organization,
especially newbies, will give people another month or two.
Sometimes, they're six months behind on rent
by the time the tenant's out.
Then the tenant might be living in the house,
not taking care of it for that time.
It's a painful process to go down to court.
Most landlords know that it's a very bad thing.
Glad we're having this discussion.
- Gina.
- The process actually moves extremely fast.
(audience laughs)
Unfortunately.
- [Man] You wouldn't think that if it was your money.
We're talking about housing here.
We're talking about shelter.
We're talking about putting families
like Terrance's out on the street.
I would talk like that, and I think
we should all be concerned about the speed
with which these cases are happening.
When the tenant receives the summons,
typically, they have about a week
before they have to get to court.
We're talking about people who may work two jobs,
and need to try to figure out
how they're going to miss work and get to court.
It's not easy.
- We hear about the eviction, eviction.
Who does the actual eviction?
Terrance, you went through this,
not just once but more than once.
Who actually is doing the evicting?
- I can tell you, even the revolver thing
really isn't quite funny 'cause
one of my landlords was a elderly lady,
and she actually sent her kids over,
her sons, to intimidate, and they were actually
the ones that hauled all of my stuff
out of my house.
- [Nick] It wasn't a sheriff's deputy?
- Oh, no.
- We see the image behind us,
you see law enforcement there,
you get the impression this is
law enforcement that does this,
but that's not always the case.
- According to law, it should be,
but those are unlawful.
- Dan.
- What happens is, the deputy from civil process
meets the landlord at the property,
but he doesn't provide any labor.
The landlord has to provide the labor,
but he stays there and keeps the peace
while the locks get changed
and the property gets removed.
- Tara.
- I'm glad we're talking about the formal process.
This is the stuff that we actually have data on.
What the data tell us is that tenants,
70% of the time, don't show up to court.
They know what's gonna happen when they show up to court,
or they don't even know that they're being evicted.
When they do show up, tenants are represented
1.3% of the time by counsel,
whereas landlords are represented 84% of the time.
When a case makes it to the landlord tenant docket,
there's a 99.8% win rate for the landlords,
and a 0.2% win rate for the tenants.
- I'd just like to point out that
an absolute defense to any eviction
is to pay your rent in full.
That's why people aren't showing up,
because they know, "I don't have the money.
"If I go, and I say I don't have the money,
"I'm gonna get a judgment against me."
That's why the landlords are getting so many evictions.
- Madam, you've been incredibly patient.
We are thirsting for your question.
- I have several questions.
(audience laughs)
My heart is pounding.
I was a housing counselor
from 2008 to 2013 in Denver, Colorado.
There was a tenant landlord line
we could give people to get information.
Is there any such thing like that here?
- That's something that
the Heartland Center for Jobs and Freedom has started.
We need the help of the audience,
and we're thankful to be on this panel
so that we can get the word out.
- I have a question for this gentleman.
What percentage of your income goes towards your rent?
- I don't have a fair answer
of what percentage of my income goes to my rent,
but we're here as a community.
- The reason I'm asking this question is,
I'm from the mortgage industry.
You have to show the ability to repay,
that if somebody's gonna rent a property,
they have to be able to pay the rent.
- I understand what you're saying,
and I understand the gentleman up front's frustration
when he said, "What if it was your money?"
We're not in a debate about that.
I just want to say that, we want to pay our rent.
Everyone in this room wants to pay their rent.
(audience claps)
I know you have a family that you have to take care,
and that you're responsible for,
but all we expect from our landlords, seriously,
is number one, respect,
clean living quarters that are maintained, simply put.
I'm not on the panel to ask for free rent
or any of that. - The reason I'm
asking you this is for your protection.
It's all a housing issue.
- Madam, I totally love your passion.
We've got so many people, we have to be respectful.
Thank you, you've been an incredible job.
- Why is it all luxury housing?
Where's the affordable housing?
- Because we don't invest in affordable housing
as a society, as a state, as a city
compared to the amount of need.
This is clearly a critical issue.
It's not just these guys over here
that are feeling the heat.
We have shifted the public policy responsibility
to the private sector,
so they now have a much larger challenge
in terms of providing the stock,
providing the units, that used to be publicly provided.
We've gone a completely different direction as a society
from providing affordable housing.
- Gina.
- Very quickly, I just wanted to not also that,
similar to how our legislature has preempted cities
from being able to raise the minimum wage,
our legislature has also preempted cities
from being able to engage in rent control,
so that's one policy that we don't have
because of the legislature's policy decision there.
- So we have pithy, one question from our fabulous audience,
and it comes next from you, madam, thank you.
- Right now, in the property where I am,
I have all kinds of issues with maintenance,
and there's no power for me
to actually force those to be happened.
- Can she withhold rent to force the landlord to fix those?
Is that allowed by the law?
- By state law, if you've been a tenant for six months,
and you've paid your rent,
and you're not behind on your rent,
you're allowed to withhold one half of one month's rent
and spend that money on maintenance issues.
- [Nick] Gina.
- We don't suggest that any tenant ever withhold rent
without getting legal counsel first.
- How do we actually access your facility?
- Low-wage workers are free to call us,
and contact us, and if you're not a low-wage worker,
we may be able to give you a referral.
Do you want our phone number?
816-278-1092.
We also have a website that has a section on it
on tenants' rights, so that is www.jobsandfreedom.org.
- My question to you is,
what is a bad landlord?
As with tenants, we have the court proceedings,
and then they get that permanent record
that they were evicted.
Does that go on a record of the landlord?
Like, a bad landlord, repeated revolving door evictions,
making money, is there data on that?
Do you see that?
(audience claps)
Shouldn't this be a process that goes both ways?
It goes on my record, so it goes on your record as well
because we both participated in this process.
- Is there some database of bad landlords out there,
Chuck Schmitz, that you look at?
- I'm not on it.
- Scornfully look at these people every day
when you get your coffee in the morning.
- You know, on Zillow, you can rate your landlord.
I suspect that there will be landlord rating sites
of that sort that will evolve very quickly.
I just want to say, people think that
landlords benefit from evicting.
We don't.
It's a horrible process, it costs us money,
I gotta pay Dan.
This is my apartment that I worked really hard to make nice,
and I've got a tenant trapped in there
for two months who's gonna be angry at me for evicting them.
There's gonna be holes in the walls.
There's gonna be things torn up.
There's no benefit to me to evicting someone
except to get them out so I can get
someone in who's gonna pay.
That's the only benefit to me.
I've heard people say, "Well, there's landlords
"that make a living evicting people."
Somebody tell me how you do that,
'cause you can't make a living --
- [Woman] I'm gonna tell you.
(Chuck laughs) (audience claps)
- Continually evicting people.
It's a horrible process.
- This is actually turning not into
a public television program.
This is now a reality show, ladies and gentlemen.
Tara.
- We do actually have a list.
Evictions are part of the public record,
so in my dataset, what we've been able to do
is see the plaintiffs that show up
time and time again, and there are
some individual landlords who float
to the top of our list, competing with
major property management companies,
who do seem to rely on evictions
as part of their business model.
- [Nick] More audience questions
from the Truman Forum at the Plaza Library straight ahead.
You're watching Evicted in Kansas City,
but first, who's hurt most by evictions?
What about children?
Two mothers who found themselves
at the City Union Mission tell their stories.
- I tried to get housing,
tried to get on with the Housing Authority,
and found out it was a three year waiting list.
I wound up taking one of the first places we could get,
thought it was an okay situation.
Turned out to be kind of a slumlord situation.
She said there was heat and air,
and summer hit, there was no air.
I wound up having a stroke,
and while we were in the hospital,
the landlord had changed the locks,
and dumped all our stuff.
I came out of the hospital
with no place to put my children.
It's very, very scary, as a child,
to not know where you're gonna sleep,
or where you're gonna eat,
or if you're gonna have clean clothes
when you're getting ready, and if you're gonna
be able to go to school.
- It's been really, really hard,
being a single parent, and then you can't
find a decent enough place for
you and your kids to live in.
You have to deal with these slum landlords.
It's just quick to take your money,
but they're not worried about
how your living status is.
It's been probably about five or six moves I've done.
- [Interviewer] In how many years?
- In the last five to six years.
They've had to go into different schools.
We had to do those moves,
and we had to end up in places like this,
shelters and stuff.
It was kind of like their pride was gone.
My daughters were real rebellion towards me
and everything because of having to be here,
not understanding why they can't be in a house
and had to live here.
- My children were very afraid that
they would lose their school, their friends
'cause, of course, that's their first priority,
is their friends, and what their friends
will think and do.
Being in high school is hard enough,
so the fact that they could go back there
and be with the friends they'd already established,
and the teachers they know, gave them a sense of normalcy.
We were just one health problem away, you know,
one bad car repair away from being here,
and I have found so many others just like that,
where some small difficulty has spiraled
into becoming homeless,
and where are my children and I gonna be?
- Sir, we're ready for your question.
- Wow, so much.
First off, landlords doing repeated evictions
are not making money, I assure you.
They're perhaps giving people second chances
because they're willing to lease
to people that have evictions.
On the 20th of this month, I had had a tenant
who I had texted, emailed, called,
and still had not responded to, "Where is your rent?"
I'm begging her to let me know,
to let me help her, but she's not responding.
If you bury your head in the sand,
yes, I have to go do something.
It's not like I'm just going to file
without having begged you for your rent.
- Do you have a question too,
or just the observation?
- My question to Tara is, I saw in your research
that you stated that evictions cause the poverty
and the perpetual cycle that it throws us into.
I've sat on the couch with somebody
looking at their 72-inch Rent-a-Center TV,
no, it's real.
Have you looked at the tenant's choices
that got them in the position to evicted?
- Thank you for your courage to state the question.
What about that?
People are making other choices.
- I said it earlier, no one wants to not pay rent.
It's not a battle between landlord and tenants.
As a community, we gotta get to the root causes
of why evictions are costing you,
hurting my family, and how we're gonna fix it.
I don't think poor choices
is a majority of a reason why we're not paying rent.
I don't think that's a good one.
- Tara.
- Eviction is actually a cause and a condition of poverty.
Eviction causes poverty, but it throws the person
who's evicted into a cycle.
An eviction is not just a forced move.
An eviction has an impact on mental and physical health,
has an impact on people's ability
to reach their healthcare providers,
transportation to their jobs.
It has a big impact on kids' ability
to stay in their seat in school,
and they lose instruction time.
An eviction then goes on someone's record,
which makes it harder to rent again.
- Harder to rent again, but not impossible to rent again,
because we've heard from some landlords who say
they're giving people second chances.
Chuck.
- I talked to a landlord that manages 800 units.
He said, if someone files for an eviction,
he does not consider that an eviction.
Only when there's a judgment
does he consider that an eviction.
If someone's been evicted, he probably won't
rent to them unless it was 10 years ago.
The second thing is, just because someone's been evicted
doesn't mean they were actually set out.
I've set out one person in 15 years.
The others, when we got to the unit,
and the sheriff was there, we unlocked the door,
they were gone, and only their trash was left.
- I am left wondering, though,
with all of these people who are being evicted,
what actually happens to them, Gina?
- I think Terrance's story talks about
what happens to them.
People end up literally on the streets.
They end up in homeless shelters.
They end up crammed into family members' houses
and straining those relationships.
I know many workers who, because they have
that eviction on their record,
ended up being in chronically homeless states
for years on end.
I can identify two workers right off
the top of my head who spent two years
with no stable housing because
those evictions were on their records.
- Sir, we're ready for your question.
- Are there some economic policies
that would at least help level the power disparity
between tenants and landlords
who make profits off of us simply living?
- Tara.
- I think there are some policies
that can be pursued in the system as it is.
Some of those include rent regulations.
Some of those include the mandatory construction
of affordable units, and mandates put on those units
so that they remain affordable as times change.
Some of those include an increased minimum wage
so that we can solve some of
the other parts of the equation.
There's inclusionary zoning, there are taxes
that we can put on some of the demolition
and gentrification forces that affect our neighborhoods.
We can tax demolition to help pay for new housing.
I think there are all sorts of ideas,
and I actually think Kansas City,
starting with kind of a blank slate,
has an amazing opportunity to lead the country
in the direction or really just housing policy
that no one is doing.
(audience claps)
- Do our landlords see themselves
as part of that solution?
- Most of the landlords I know, my clients,
feel like they're providing houses,
for the most part, that they would live in themselves.
- [Woman] No.
- Yes, they do.
They're not heartless people.
They're waiting four or five months
without any money, any income on that investment.
- There was a solution that Kansas City
itself was proposing, which was a rental inspection program
that was going to look at charging a fee to landlords
to have city inspectors come in
and look at rental properties.
Didn't Landlords Inc. fight that?
- We did.
I don't know if you're surprised to know this or not,
but Kansas City does have a rental inspection program
currently in the ordinances.
The city does not have the will or the money to do it.
We realize, if they implement a system
where the landlords are paying,
they're still not gonna have the will
to go after the bad landlords.
What they're gonna end up doing is
getting revenue from the landlords
that don't really need the inspections,
and you're still gonna have the landlords
that don't do any repairs, and the city
isn't gonna pursue them at all.
- I spend a lot of my personal time on this,
and I called all over the country,
and hired a graduate student to help me
research rental inspection programs.
It sounds like a great thing.
We'll go in every little rental house in Kansas City,
and we'll inspect it, we'll make sure
it's safe and clean, and what I found was that
the programs started out strong,
and then they went down, and that the bad landlords
figured out ways around it.
I got a dozen or so properties.
It would cost me a week of my life
to let the inspector into the property,
and deal with all of that,
so it's not the $25 fee.
It's a huge burden on landlords,
and I think the people on the council were worried
about anything that would slow down growth.
- [Nick] Tara.
- Independence has an inspection ordinance,
and they've implemented it.
It's fully funded, and the city manager
has told me recently that he's having inspectors
calling him personally to thank him
for enforcing the inspection ordinance
because some of the properties that they're inspecting
are so uninhabitable.
(audience claps)
- Sir, it is your turn.
Thanks for your patience.
- I'm an attorney in Kansas City.
I've been representing landlords for 42 years.
I know there are a number of cities
that have enacted everything you all are proposing.
Tenants have every kind of protection you can imagine.
You can't do an eviction in less than six months.
The landlords are greatly regulated.
There's only one little problem, is,
you can't afford to live in any of those cities
because what that's done to the cost of housing.
Boston, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Seattle.
San Francisco, $2,000 a month
will get you the back seat in somebody's car.
All I'm saying here is, be careful what you wish for.
- We don't necessarily want to have
the unintended consequences of rents going up,
but we don't want to have units
that are so substandard that they're a health problem.
This is the classic challenge of governance,
the classic challenge of,
how do we provide safe housing that's also affordable?
- Chuck is a perfect example of that
because he buys the apartment buildings
that people complain about, he fixes them up,
he gets awards from the governor for doing it,
and it's no longer affordable housing.
You can't rent it for less than, what,
800, 900 a unit?
- Yeah, I'm exhibit A of why we have a housing problem.
I bought a derelict building where,
people were living in there
for three or $400 a month,
and I moved them out, I fixed it up.
It was a beautiful piece of architecture.
It won the Missouri Historic Preservation award.
I went to Jefferson City and got an award
from the legislature, but the reality is,
I took 30 affordable housing units off the market.
All the neighbors thanked me,
are very happy about that, the neighborhood's excited,
but as Jake said, that's just a natural thing
that's gonna happen in the city, that's re-gentrifying.
- It's not natural.
It's political, right?
It's political and economic in the sense that,
we can create the policies to support
what you're doing, but then have ways
to subsidize on the renters' side
so that they can come back to that unit.
There are ways to address these issues,
but it requires good research,
proper understanding of policy
and the market changes that are happening.
We don't have that investment in what's going on,
let alone, what are we then gonna do
to actually make housing affordable.
- Just to be clear, I can't afford
to rent that for $300 anymore.
It's a $900.
- I don't believe that there's a silver bullet
solution to this problem.
I don't think that regulation of the landlord industry alone
is ever going to solve the massive crisis
that we have across the country
when it comes to housing.
You're right, sir, to say that
New York and San Francisco, when it comes to housing,
are beyond help in some ways.
Kansas City's not, but we will be
if we don't implement innovative, just solutions now.
I think there are actually a lot of assets
that this city has that bear mentioning.
We have space.
Drive around this city, and it's not as dense
as some of the other cities that are facing
some of the problems that you talk about.
We have homes, but some of them are not habitable.
I totally agree with Jake,
that a program that the city, or the state,
or one day, the federal government can do
to subsidize the rehabilitation of rental units
so that people can still afford to rent
in habitable, safe, affordable apartments in this city,
I think, is one thing that could speak
to that first asset.
The second asset that we have here in Kansas City
that we can't take for granted
is the concentration of philanthropic
and private capital that, in the world as it currently is,
needs to be leveraged in the direction
of solving this critical problem.
- Madam, you've been very patient.
We're ready for you.
- I came up short on my rent for one month.
It went for $50 for the late charge,
and five dollars a day.
They filed the eviction charges.
The notice was on my door to go to court in a week.
I know that this is what happens to a lot of people.
After they slap on all those extra charges and everything,
then you're always trying to play catch-up.
Then they want it by a certain time, and you don't have it.
The statement that you're making about,
that it takes months for them to go through the process,
I know that to be not a true statement.
As the gentleman said, we want to pay our rent.
Most people want to be able
to pay their rent on time.
Things happen sometimes that I think,
maybe, you guys need to start looking at it
on an individual basis.
- Let's get a response from our landlords.
Dan.
- There are late fees and court costs
that can be added to the amount,
but to avoid eviction, all you have to do is pay your rent.
If you pay your rent, you will not get
a judgment for possession.
- I want to continue on that conversation because
we talked a little bit about some of the solutions,
and Tara talked about some of those.
- I think that the prospect
of facing eviction is frightening,
and that a lot of tenants,
when they see that posting on their door,
they assume the worst, and oftentimes evict themselves
without checking with an attorney first
because they didn't have access to one.
Now they can contact us.
- But if you knew you're already gonna be
falling back on the rent, is there anything
you could be doing to help assist in that situation?
Even our landlords, what?
- If you agree to move out before the landlord files,
you do not get an eviction on your red.
- For some people, obviously, that's not an option.
- Nick, they can communicate with their landlords.
- He says communicate with the landlord.
If somebody communicates with you
and say, "I can't pay the rent,"
do you say, "Tough luck, I'm sorry,
"I have to make my money too,
"and I'm looking to put gas in my car this week"?
- A small landlord, he's got a tenant
who's been there for a long time,
always paid, they get behind, you work with them.
A big operation has to have standards.
You can't tell your property manager,
"If you like them, let them stay longer."
You have to have a standard for everyone,
so most of the large property managers
have a set in stone cold sort of thing.
Our landlords that have a few properties,
and it's a part time thing for them,
will often wait people out.
Often, they wait too long, and get behind.
- I want to go through a couple of scenarios with you,
just get your yes or no reaction to them
because they came up to us at the station.
You're the landlord.
Your tenant reports you to the health department
because of a mold problem in their unit
that is caused by a roof leak you have not fixed.
Can they be evicted?
- They can't be evicted for complaining.
If they're behind on their rent,
they can be evicted, but the cannot be evicted
for reporting a mold issue.
There's two ways to evict someone in Missouri.
One is the straight you're behind on your rent,
and that's probably 96% of the evictions.
The other is for an action that the tenant takes.
If the tenant takes an action
that violates one of the clauses in the lease or state law,
then the landlord is required to give them
a 10 day notice terminating the tenancy.
If they don't vacate within those 10 days,
at that point, the landlord can file
an unlawful detainer action.
- You're the landlord.
A young couple moves into
a two-bedroom apartment in your property.
You find out that the wife is pregnant.
You don't want a screaming newborn
disrupting the other tenants,
so you file to evict the couple.
Is that legal?
- No.
Again, there has to be cause,
or they have to be behind on their rent.
Plus, it's a fair housing violation.
You'd face federal fines.
- My question is, in 2007, 2008,
they had a housing collapse,
and millions of people got foreclosed.
Did the influx of millions of homeowners
who probably fell back onto the rental market,
did that cause an inflation in rental property,
having all these ex-homeowners who are now renters
coming into the market?
- Tara.
- Yeah.
- [Nick] Excellent, thank you very much, sir.
(audience laughs) We're ready for you.
- If we keep looking at it
on a landlord tenant issue, we lost anyway
because it's way bigger than that.
70% of the black people live east of Troost.
Where the jobs at though?
Not east of Troost.
Once you have to drive to Leawood,
you're falling victim to all the police harassment.
When you think of the people that try to go work,
they can't even work.
Ain't nothing you gonna be able to do
to save this landlord tenant situation
short of reparations.
(audience claps)
- Thank you.
We're gonna take one more question here,
and then I'm gonna wrap it up.
Yes, sir, good to see you again.
- Here's my question, Chuck.
Out of all those properties that you have,
is any of that hands-on?
I mean, do you...
- Oh, I show every apartment.
Early on, I did all the maintenance myself.
- In Oak Park alone, most of our landlords
live in California.
We have more vacant houses in the inner city than anybody.
When you evict somebody, that's another empty house.
- It's easy to communicate with a Chuck Schmitz
who lives in Kansas City,
but many of these landlords,
as you found out in your research, Tara,
have no connection with Kansas City at all,
other than that they own the property here, right?
- Right, and this relates to
the gentleman's question from before.
Especially after the financial crash in 2008,
a lot of the housing stock
that was previously owner-occupied
or at least owned by an instate landlord
has been bought up by speculators.
Now, it's managed by property management companies locally,
but the owners either live somewhere out of state,
or they might still be instate,
but there's a rampant problem of property owners
owning property under LLCs.
They all have these shadow companies so,
even though I have the data
that tells us who's responsible for most of this problem,
honestly, it's really hard to get
even a semblance of an understanding
of who the worst actors are because
all of the worst actors have all of these different LLCs
that hide the actual footprint
of their evictions in the city.
- That's all we have time for on questions.
I really appreciate you doing it.
Thank you, I really have to move this on.
I have to be very respectful of this huge audience's time.
Thank you, thank you.
I want to ask, solutions.
Can you come up with a solution, Dan,
that we can take home with ourselves
and feel like we can go to sleep
a little better tonight,
thinking that there may be something?
- I think the important things is
to get your council members to make...
Neighborhood Preservations knows who the bad actors are.
They just don't have the will to shut them down.
They take them to court, they give them a ticket,
they'll issue a warrant, but that's where it ends.
They could do a lot more, and they're not doing it.
- [Nick] Chuck Schmitz.
- I'll second that.
There's bad actors in this city.
There's out of town landlords,
there's bad management companies.
It's, a couple of bad apples spoil the mix.
My second thing is, we need more affordable housing.
It's drying up very quickly.
We're gonna have to do something
about affordable housing in this city.
- [Nick] UMKC, Jacob Wagner.
- I wanted to support Mr. Pat Clark
and make sure that his point,
which I think where he was heading is,
we have to direct this to our political leadership
at every level, and that we have to be careful
in neighborhoods where there's already
a ton of vacancy, to directly look
at the underlying causes of vacancy as well,
and make sure that people are not taking advantage,
and letting things go, and letting
existing housing stock just fall apart.
It involves codes.
It involves community policing and engagement.
It involves that hands-on approach
that I think Mr. Clark was trying to say.
That's what we need to see in Kansas City,
is more engagement between landlords,
neighborhoods, renters to work together
to find better solutions.
If we don't have the city's Housing Department
and some key legal advocacy,
then it all falls apart.
- [Nick] Tara.
- I think we're facing a question around the country
about who can continue to afford
to live in American cities.
I think, as Kansas City grapples with that question,
it is incumbent on our city leadership,
the landlord community, the tenant community,
and importantly, all of you
to take the issue of housing extremely seriously
because it shapes how all of us live,
even if we're not pressed to pay the rent.
I think it's incumbent on all of us then
to demand of our elected leaders
and all of the stakeholders in the community
to put forward a comprehensive housing strategy
that's gonna make sure that tenants
who are living in the city can stay in the city
and live with dignity in safe and habitable places,
and that we don't go the way of other cities
like New York and San Francisco
that have completely priced out
people of color and poor people.
- Terrance Weis.
- I'll say, tonight, it's great we're talking about housing,
but let's be clear, we gotta stand up,
and we gotta fight to make change because,
if we continue to be divided,
black, white, brown, latino, Hispanic,
native-born, foreign, if we don't come together and demand,
it's more of us than it is landlords.
We need to vote too as well.
If we don't bring our power together,
and march in these streets of Kansas City,
and take it to the ballot box,
if we don't build power, and come together, and organize --
Sister, you said you're an organizer.
We gotta organize in this city
if we're gonna win anything or get anywhere.
- Thank you.
Gina.
- I don't think I could say it
any better than what Terrance just said,
and what Tara has stated as well.
We need access to affordable housing.
To get that, we've gotta fight for it.
Tenants needs access to counsel,
and we need $15 an hour for our workers.
(audience claps)
- Thanks to Gina, Terrance, Tara, Jacob, Chuck, and Dan,
and thanks to you for your excellent, passionate questions,
and for being caring enough about this issue
that you wanted to be here tonight.
Thank you very much from all of us here at KCPT,
and the public library.
Good night. (electronic music)
- [Announcer] Week in Review is made possible
through the generous support of Dave and Jamie Cummings,
Smithfield Foods, Haas and Wilkerson Insurance,
the Healthcare Foundation of Greater Kansas City,
and by viewers like you.
Thank you.
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