If Sen. Hawley, Mayor Lucas want to punish deadbeat landlords, there’s more they can do
Sen. Josh Hawley wants to protect prospective tenants from deadbeat landlords.
The Missouri Republican has written a bill that would create a database of landlords taking part in the Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher Program. The measure also calls for a list that would include code violations by those landlords, providing transparency to tenants and local enforcement agencies.
Hawley’s proposal is a good first step. Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas has applauded Hawley’s efforts to focus on housing for the working poor, and the senator deserves credit for making this issue a priority.
But the legislation is not nearly enough. And there are additional steps both Lucas and Hawley can take to further protect the rights of tenants in Kansas City and all of western Missouri.
Each year, Legal Aid of Western Missouri represents hundreds of low-income tenants involved in disputes with landlords. The cases involve evictions, poor quality and unsafe housing, utility shutoffs and other, similar issues.
Legal Aid is drastically underfunded, spending roughly $9.8 million a year. By some estimates, it declines more than half the cases it gets. That means fewer tenants get the legal help they need to contend with neglectful landlords.
On Tuesday, Legal Aid will ask Kansas City for an additional $250,000 to represent tenants during the coming fiscal year.
It’s a reasonable request. If the mayor and his colleagues want to address poor quality housing in the community, they must give tenants and their lawyers the muscle to fight landlords in court, where penalties matter.
The city’s budget has enough flexibility to provide those funds.
Hawley can do his part, too. This year, Legal Aid will get about $2.3 million in funding from the Legal Services Corporation, a nonprofit set up by Congress to help fund low-income legal services across the country.
President Donald Trump’s 2021 budget eliminates the Legal Services Corporation. All of it.
Hawley has voiced concerns about slum landlords in Kansas City and St. Louis, particularly those connected with TEH Realty. “You look at the conditions that they’re making people live in and they’re still taking their rent,” Hawley said.\u0009
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He’s right. That’s why the senator should publicly reject eliminating the Legal Services Corporation. Taking those funds from lawyers representing the poor would immediately cripple efforts to hold landlords accountable, not just here but across the nation.
Hawley’s bill creating a landlord database drew qualified support from both sides of the landlord-tenant divide Monday. “I’m surprised they don’t already do that,” said Dan Kelly of Landlords Inc. “That’s something they should be doing.”
In an email, Tara Raghuveer of KC Tenants called the measure “a good step towards holding bad actors accountable.”
Yet listing bad landlords in a database is just one step. Kansas City cannot protect tenants if it underfunds lawyers who advocate for tenants’ rights, or if Washington decimates legal services for the poor.
Lucas and Hawley can make that point explicit in the next few weeks. Together, the conservative senator and the progressive mayor could be a powerful and effective team on this issue.