$1,200 rent, no electricity: KC family says landlord forced them to sleep in car
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- A Kansas City family slept in their car for nearly a month after their apartment lost.
- Tenant says landlord ignored calls and texts, and six units lacked power.
- KC Tenants is working with the city to pressure landlord Yisroel Levovitz.
Richard Flores and his young family were recently forced to live out of his car for nearly a month because their apartment building had lost power and their landlord had yet to fix it.
Flores said he and his family made the drastic decision to sleep in his four-door, midsize SUV after the power line to his apartment building on North Lawn Avenue was seemingly cut in early June.
Without electricity to provide air conditioning, Flores said he needed to find another way to keep his two toddlers cool while temperatures were rising in the area. He said he was doing everything he could, but his children were experiencing heat exhaustion.
“This all happened in the middle of the summer,” Flores said. “It’s simple things that a three-year-old and a four-year-old shouldn’t have to go through.”
Flores’ solution was spending $300 a week to run his car at night, where his family would sleep. That’s on top of the $1,200 a month he was paying in rent for an uninhabitable unit.
The residents of the complex and KC Tenants are currently in a dispute with the landlord, Yisroel Levovitz of Wiser KC LLC, over the living conditions of the complex in the North Indian Mound neighborhood of Northeast Kansas City.
KC Tenants says it’s now working with the city to beef up accountability efforts on Levovitz, who is already facing dozens of municipal housing court cases.
Mary Allison Joseph, an organizer for KC Tenants, said Flores shared his experience with city leaders on Thursday to show how bad living conditions have gotten. She said the city has committed to put more pressure on Levovitz to make necessary repairs.
Meanwhile, Joseph said Flores’ family is one of six that lived in the apartment complex that still doesn’t have power.
Flores said Levovitz could have moved his family and his neighbors to other units with electricity, but their calls and texts were ignored. He said Levovitz’s inaction put his children at risk.
“At that point, it’s just a standard of morals and a standard of being a decent person,” Flores said. “I’m obviously aware now that he is definitely not.”
Longstanding issues
Flores said he and his family lived at the North Lawn Avenue property for two years and it never had centralized heating or cooling during that time.
He also had to make certain repairs to the unit himself, which led to a small deduction in his rent charges to $950. But after six months, the landlord increased it to $1,200, Flores said.
Now, after weeks of sleeping in his car, Flores said his family was able to move to a new apartment. He said that was only possible because the United Way covered the first month of rent and security deposit.
Flores said his family is lucky to move while others are still suffering. But the ordeal has still taken a toll on his family.
“It still affects me to this day,” Flores said. “It drained my savings. I had to pick up a second job.”
KC Tenants and the residents have been protesting landlord neglect at the property for years.
Flores said he’s glad the city may step up efforts to force Levovitz to take better care of his properties, but he believes it should have happened sooner.
“It feels good to be acknowledged, finally, after four weeks of going through hell,” Flores said. “At the same time, it’s definitely not enough for the rest of the families. It’s definitely not enough support as far as there should have been.”
