Flooding, mold, broken appliances: UMKC students unionize for better living conditions
More than 100 student tenants at the University of Missouri-Kansas City are unionizing as they seek better living conditions and restitution for students who were required to relocate due to flooding in residence halls.
Several students allege that they are living in student housing that is dirty and not well maintained, and that flooding and water damage have plagued their dorms in recent years.
Tylan Olamiju, a freshman and a leader with the union, said that in January, Oak Street Hall dorms flooded, displacing more than 100 students. Olamiju said that he was relocated to Hospital Hill Apartments and that his belongings were moved to a unit there without him being notified first.
University spokesman John Martellaro said that a water pipe broke in the attic of Oak Street Hall during winter break, causing extensive water damage.
“We immediately moved the students’ belongings out of affected areas at the university’s expense and into alternative Residential Life housing,” he said in an email. “Then we initiated repair and restoration activity that is ongoing. We are working to ensure that Oak Street Hall is restored fully and properly in time for students to begin the fall semester in August. We take the same approach to any issue or concern a student might report.”
Martellaro said that roughly 800 students are living on campus.
He added that “UMKC is committed to providing safe, comfortable and inviting living spaces for Residential Life students. Maintenance issues inevitably arise for any building, and ours are no exception ... The concerns students brought to our attention this week will be fully looked into, working transparently and collaboratively with students on the elected Residence Hall Council.”
Some students argued that many living spaces on campus are in poor condition.
“Our dorms did have mold in them. The washer and dryer units were constantly broken. And there were things like drains that wouldn’t be cleaned,” Olamiju said.
Maddy Bremer, a UMKC sophomore and another leader with the tenant union, said Johnson Hall flooded last year and when her dorm room’s “ceiling caved in, I lost irreplaceable personal items, and I paid out of pocket to get back on my feet.”
“The university shields themselves from any accountability from protecting tenant rights,” Bremer said in a statement. “This is shameful.”
In 2018, UMKC closed the Oak Place Apartments building. Two years later, university officials determined it was beyond repair after being open just 10 years.
The apartment building was shut down after a series of student complaints of major leaks from pipes, sagging floors and mold problems. University of Missouri curators filed a lawsuit against the construction company and others, and the building was later demolished.
The effort to unionize among UMKC student residents mirrors tenant organization efforts in Kansas City and elsewhere in recent years, including at some universities across the country.
KC Tenants, an organization fighting for renters’ rights in Kansas City, announced on Friday that 111 student tenants at UMKC were unionizing and had provided the administration with a list of demands, including a new lease agreement and commitments to regular housing maintenance.
About a dozen students on Thursday evening met with Dean of Students Michele D. Smith and Director of Residential Life Kristen Temple to discuss their concerns, Martellaro said.
UMKC’s contract with students residing in its dorms, provided by KC Tenants, states that it is “not a lease. UMKC is not a landlord, the student is not a tenant, and nothing herein is intended to create such a relationship or is otherwise subject to any landlord-tenant laws or requirements.”
The students are demanding a formal lease agreement for all students living on campus, to define students as tenants and grant them rights under Kansas City’s Tenants Bill of Rights.
In 2019, the City Council passed the Tenants Bill of Rights, advocated for by KC Tenants. The bill establishes seven rights for tenants: the right to safe and accessible housing; the right to freedom from discrimination and retaliation; the right to fair compensation and restorative justice; the right to organize and bargain; the right to safe, healthy, accessible and truly affordable housing; the right to privacy and self-determination; and the right to justice and access to fair, equitable treatment under the law.
Martellaro said that UMKC “offers students residing on campus a license, not a lease, because this relationship is consistent with the purpose of on-campus housing: to enable students to be part of an academic community in connection with the educational experience.
“This is typical for most on-campus housing at U.S. public universities; campus living spaces are generally more consistent with a license than a lease because a dorm room in on-campus housing is not a self-contained living space in the same way as an apartment or single-family house.”
The students’ list of demands also asks for restitution for all students forced to relocate due to flooding in dorms, including providing $10,000 in reimbursement for flood-related expenses.
They also are requesting that the university stop requiring students to purchase a meal plan with their housing contract. And they want the university to provide more transparent communication about extra fees that students must pay.
Other demands include requiring the university to improve its disclosure procedure for student tenants, by providing immediate notice when a maintenance problem occurs or when administrators are considering relocating residents. The students also want the university to hire more staff for maintenance and cleaning, upgrade amenities such as laundry units and broken beds, provide ventilation units for dorm showers, regularly check for mold, plus provide gender inclusive housing.
“We are not a ragtag group of kids who are trying to get attention for ourselves or serve our personal ambitions. We are organizing as a collective to win the things we can’t obtain when we perform as individuals,” Lucas Rodriguez, a freshman and a leader with the union, said in a statement. “We are organizing to win what we are owed, the same things that student tenants everywhere deserve: safe, accessible, and affordable student housing.”
Students are requesting that university administrators accept their demands by May 13, to be implemented by the beginning of next school year.
