KC Council group approves housing protection for domestic, sexual violence survivors
Survivors of sexual assault and domestic violence could soon have a better shot at finding safe, affordable housing under an ordinance a Kansas City Council committee passed Wednesday.
Kansas City’s Housing Committee voted unanimously to extend fair housing protections to those who have been victims of domestic or sexual violence or stalking. The full City Council will likely consider the ordinance Thursday.
Kate Heinen, of the Metropolitan Organization to Counter Sexual Assault, said the protections would help domestic or sexual violence victims who may struggle to find safe stable housing.
“People end up staying in unsafe situations because they can’t find a landlord who will rent to them and they can’t find a shelter that will provide them safe emergency housing because they’re all full,” Heinen said.
She said in 2014, 23,000 families were turned away from domestic violence shelters because they were full. Every summer, she said, all the shelters around Kansas City fill up.
The ordinance bars landlords from refusing to rent to tenants who have experienced domestic violence, sexual assault or stalking. Protections already exist for those discriminated against based on race, color, religion, national origin, sex, disability, marital status, familial status, sexual orientation and gender identity.
Heinen said it can be difficult for survivors to find housing when they leave a shelter — either because of the history of domestic violence against them or because they’re paying for housing with a voucher they received from a shelter.
“Families ... end up stuck in shelter a lot of times because few will rent to them after they learn — either through admission or calling previous landlords — that there was domestic or sexual violence that occurred in the home,” Heinen said. “So they do experience some discrimination and it does create a real clog in the shelter network that we have in the city.”
MaryAnne Metheny, CEO of Hope House, said she was “very excited” about the new ordinance.
“Survivors often struggle with obtaining and maintaining housing due to the abuse that they have endured and this level of protection can be lifesaving,” Metheny said. “I applaud the committee members for taking this very important step in protecting survivors.”
This summer the council voted to give victims of domestic and sexual crimes the ability to terminate their leases without penalties from landlords.
Several landlords who testified before the committee supported the protections for survivors of violence, but they pushed back against a provision in the ordinance that would have extended the same protections to those who are receiving government vouchers, often called Section 8, for housing.
They argued the inspections and regulations that come with participating in voucher programs make it cumbersome to rent to voucher recipients and increase their costs.
The provision extending protections to voucher recipients was stripped from the ordinance, but Committee Chair Councilman Quinton Lucas, 3rd District at-large, said members will continue to work on a way to help voucher recipients access more housing options.
Committee members discussed the ordinance as part of a greater push to make housing more affordable in Kansas City.
They put off voting on several measures, including requiring developers who get incentives to build more affordable housing, easing parking and density requirements for developers who build affordable housing and raising property taxes to fund affordable housing programs.
They did, however, pass an ordinance to start studying how the city could adopt inclusionary zoning, which would overhaul the city’s zoning laws in the hopes of spurring more affordable housing development.