As evictions resume after COVID-19 shutdowns, Kansas City funds tenant attorneys
Kansas City will fund a third attorney to provide legal assistance to low-income tenants facing eviction, City Council members decided Thursday after deadlocking over the issue in committee a day earlier.
The $65,000 contract for the Heartland Center for Jobs and Freedom didn’t have the votes to pass the city’s Neighborhood Planning and Development Committee Wednesday. Members instead passed it out with no recommendation and sent it to the council’s June 4 docket.
But in the meantime, eviction cases are resuming, and in the months since coronavirus, or COVID-19, shuttered nonessential businesses, vast numbers of Kansas City residents have lost jobs. Jackson County Circuit Court held an in-person housing docket Thursday for the first time in weeks.
“We as a council will not meet next week, and it will be several weeks before we can provide funding … or legal representation for those in our community that are facing financial crisis, the inability to pay rent,” said Councilwoman Andrea Bough, 6th District at-large, who pushed the council to advance and approve the contract Thursday.
Some council members were hesitant to approve the funds for the Heartland Center, though they voted last month to fund two attorneys from Legal Aid of Western Missouri for similar services. The city had a longstanding relationship with Legal Aid, they said.
But in an email Bough presented to council, the nonprofit said it was supportive of Heartland’s contract. Unlike Legal Aid, Heartland has looser income restrictions and is allowed to represent undocumented immigrants.
Councilman Brandon Ellington, 3rd District at-large, who opposed the contract in committee, said he thought Legal Aid could provide the needed services.
Councilman Dan Fowler, 2nd District, was also hesitant about the contract in committee Wednesday — and objected to the advance at Thursday’s full council meeting. He said he was confident in Legal Aid’s work but wanted more time to learn about the Heartland Center.
“Maybe Heartland Center does a great job, but I know nothing about them,” Fowler said, “I had never heard of them until our meeting yesterday.”
Mayor Pro Tem Kevin McManus urged his colleagues to support the contract, saying that early in his law career he had mediated conflicts between landlords and tenants. He reaffirmed the argument made by supporters of free legal representation for tenants — that in many cases, you can work out deals to avoid evictions, which make it harder for tenants to rent in the future and contribute to their economic instability.
“While you’re not going to make everybody happy in every situation, there were situations where you could come to an agreement, avoid an eviction, make some lesser payments or extend out the term,” McManus said. “And then you’re avoiding, really, the social cost, the economic cost and the turmoil to the family of someone having to get uprooted.”
Fowler, Ellington and Councilwoman Heather Hall voted against the contract. Councilwoman Teresa Loar was absent.
