Residents of 3 Kansas City buildings to protest lack of hot water, other problems
Residents of three Northeast Kansas City apartment buildings are rallying after they say the property owner has failed to improve conditions in three years.
KC Tenants announced a new campaign against landlord Yisroel Levovitz of Wiser KC LLC, who owns three apartment buildings in the North Indian Mound neighborhood in Northeast Kansas City, according to a KC Tenants news release. The properties are located at the intersection of North Lawn and Scaritt avenues.
Wiser KC could not immediately be reached by phone Tuesday.
“Today, tenants in all three North Lawn buildings have come together to form a supermajority tenant union with 94% union affiliation. All tenants battle pests, a lack of maintenance, and unsecured exterior doors; many tenants have not had working heat for years; some tenants have sewage in their basement.”
Residents recently went for two weeks without hot water, according to the release.
On April 15, city records indicate an inspector found, “Trash/debris throughout exterior of property including sidewalk and rear parking area. Unprotected surfaces – unpainted plywood covering window and door openings.”
Photos uploaded to CompassKC from an April 2025 inspection show plywood over three of the same windows as in 2026.
Problems on North Lawn Avenue
In November, the building at 148 N. Lawn was found to be in violation of building code, with an unsafe electrical system. The issues with the basement breaker box were not fixed at the follow-up inspection a month later.
A two-bedroom apartment in these buildings was available for $900 a month at the time of publication, according to the Northland Asset Management website.
Based in New Jersey, Wiser KC LLC owns eight multifamily houses in the Scarritt Point and North Indian Mound neighborhoods, according to the Kansas City parcel viewer. The company, which registered in Missouri in late 2022, planned to increase rent from $400 to $1,200 in 2023.
After residents were left without heat in 2023, KC Tenants organized to get eight households protections including rent stabilization, with the city paying $450 per month and tenants paying $400 per month.
However, KC Tenants said other residents had their rents raised and maintenance requests ignored.
Wiser KC bought the buildings from Prairie Village-based FTW Investments. The company owns Independence Towers, the 10-story low-income apartment building where tenants withheld eight months of rent to get a cap on rent increases and repairs to the building.
The rally is scheduled to take place at 6 p.m. Wednesday, May 13 at 148 N. Lawn Avenue.
