‘Not my problem’: Landlord representative says in video of Kansas City eviction
A video of an Independence landlord’s representative saying a woman’s eviction is “not (his) problem,” posted by KC Tenants on Twitter has garnered thousands of views.
The video shows the representative saying he thought the woman spent her stimulus check on a flat-screen TV, not her rent for her rental property in Kansas City.
In the video, now with more than 18,500 views, the man says: “I don’t have any feelings for these people. None.
“I was raised you pay your way. You don’t pay your way, you pay the price. That’s it. But today people are so privileged; they don’t feel they have to do anything.”
KC Tenants campaign manager Wilson Vance tells the man that hundreds of thousands of people have lost their jobs and can’t pay rent simply because they don’t have the money.
“The most disturbing thing to me,” Vance said, “was the way that it seemed like the people who were executing the eviction, they just wanted to cross another family off their list for the day.”
The woman who was evicted was Krisi Eiland, a single mom of three. Eiland moved into the Reliable Properties home in February after paying $6,000 in deposits, including first and last month’s rent, Vance said. Her life had turned in the right direction.
When the pandemic began, she lost her job. But Eiland wanted to do the right thing instead of waiting for unemployment to kick in, Vance said, and got a new job, taking a $4-an-hour pay cut.
She fell behind on rent and tried to develop a payment plan that her landlord didn’t accept. When the eviction moratorium was lifted, she was given an eviction notice.
Eiland sent her kids to stay with their father so they wouldn’t have to watch the eviction happen.
“Her main concern was her kids, Vance said. “She was like, ‘Even if I don’t get to see my kids for weeks, at least they won’t have to see someone carrying their toys to the curb.’”
The Star left a message for Reliable Properties, but its office was closed.
Vance said that as soon as Eiland began carrying out the last of her possessions, the landlord representative began changing the locks.
On Thursday, KC Tenants sent a letter to Presiding Circuit Court Judge David Byrn, Mayor Quinton Lucas, and city council members demanding the reinstatement of the eviction moratorium — which the organization has been calling for since May.
In a statement issued Thursday in response to KC Tenants’ request to reinstate the moratorium, the Jackson County Circuit Court said the court can’t “selectively choose which laws and statutes are to be enforced and which laws and statues can be ignored.”
The statement says the court would enforce a moratorium order if given by the executive branch of government.
At the end of July, KC Tenants disrupted eviction court and demanded relief for tenants.
Vance said Bryn is not the only person who could do something to help.
“It just feels like on every level our (politicians) are failing us,” Vance said. “They’re all passing the buck off to one another. ... At some point, something just has to get done because in the meantime people are dying.”
This story was originally published August 14, 2020 at 7:49 PM.
