They endured days without heat at a KC apartment complex. Now they’re being kicked out
Chaw Noud has lived in her apartment in Northeast Kansas City for close to nine years.
Her children grew up here, just down the street from their elementary school. She reminisces about the days she spent watching them play on the grass in front of the apartment complex at North Lawn and Scarritt avenues. She is saddened by the thought that they’ll soon have to leave.
On Feb. 15, she was given a letter from her new landlord at Rubicon Realty, an Arizona-based real estate company. Printed across the top were the words: “30-day non-renewal of lease.”
The neighbors, some of them sick, disabled and unable to work, received the same letter, telling them they would have to find new housing. The letter explained that, after extensive construction of the complex is completed, tenants can sign a new lease. But by then rent will have at least doubled, from the $500 per month or less tenants are paying now to $1,000.
Noud says the news sent a wave of confusion and fear across the complex. The neighbors ask each other: “Where are you going to go?”
“They are really upset,” Noud said. “I have to do it day-by-day. If I have to move out and I cannot find a place, then I have to stay there.”
The news comes after the apartment complex has been beset by problems and controversy for months.
Noud’s building, previously owned by FTW Investments, was sold around the same time a small fire broke out in one of the units.
When firefighters arrived, they discovered rows of broken windows and doors repaired with wood planks and scraps of cardboard. Ceilings sagged, and extension cords ran from apartment to apartment.
Conditions were so dire, crews determined it would be dangerous to turn the gas back on. Noud and other families were left without heat for several days until it was finally turned back on.
Help arrived in the form of city inspectors and the fire department. With a resident acting as translator, crews knocked on every tenant’s door, offering them a temporary place to stay at a hotel room.
After reports of the run-down conditions of the apartment buildings, it was announced that the former owners, Parker Webb and Logan Freeman of FTW Investments, would no longer serve on the board of directors for the local nonprofit reStart.
Noud and other residents, meanwhile, are scrambling yet again to make arrangements. Some will be relocated thanks to help from various social services, Noud said. But others, including her, aren’t sure what they will do yet.
“They have to wait,” she said. “They can’t kick us out if we’re paying on it.”
‘We won’t go’
Tara Raghuveer, director of KC Tenants a local tenants rights activist group, said many residents have told her, “Ngarthoet m swarr bhuu” and “No nos iremos.”
“We won’t go.”
KC Tenants held a meeting this week with residents, and together they compiled a list of demands for the owners and the city, including asking Rubicon to withdraw their 30-day notice and maintain the tenants’ current rent.
Raghuveer said tenants are continuing to press demands in hopes they’ll be able to stay.
“There’s still a chance that they still do the right thing … but we aren’t holding our breath,” she said.
“They know what they’re doing,” Raghuveer said. “They’re mass evicting a building full of tenants who have been there for years so they can flip the property for higher-income earners.”
Raghuveer said she sees what’s taking place at the complex frequently in Kansas City. Buyers will renovate properties in lower income neighborhoods and drive up the rent, displacing current residents.
The building’s new property manager, Shawn Johnson, told The Star the renovations were immediately necessary because some units are uninhabitable. Some of the needed upgrades are so extensive they aren’t possible while the tenants are inside, he said. Repairs will ultimately bring the units to $1,000 per month, what he says is a proper market price.
Johnson said the previous owners didn’t tell Rubicon that families still lived at the complex, and the company is now working with the city to find placement for each of the residents.
Noud said she’s been encouraged with the response from the community over the past month. When they were left to freeze in their apartment, strangers brought coats and mittens.
Now, she firmly believes things will turn out for good – though she’s not sure exactly how.
“With all the people working together in the community, something will work out.”
This story was originally published February 24, 2023 at 12:31 PM.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story named the wrong state as the location where the real estate company Rubicon Realty is based. The company is based in Arizona.