KC tenants call out Mayor Lucas for ‘broken promise’ on affordable housing plan
The fight for affordable housing in Kansas City is heating up again. A group advocating for low-income tenants rights accuses Mayor Quinton Lucas of breaking a promise to support their plan for governing and funding a housing trust fund for the city — and to make sure residents have a say in that.
The group, KC Tenants, wants the City Council to vote no on Lucas’ proposed ordinance, which they say fails to give tenants a voice in how affordable housing dollars are spent.
Lucas’ plan for governing the Kansas City Housing Trust Fund looks different from The Peoples’ Housing Trust Fund that KC Tenants designed in August, at the mayor’s request. They proposed a fund “administered by the city and overseen by a community-led board.”
While the mayor says his plan is in line with what the group wants, the group sees a major omission. The group also disagrees with the city’s definition of “affordable,” arguing it allows for rent — such as $950 for a studio apartment — that’s out of range for many Kansas Citians.
The ordinance Lucas is bringing to the council Wednesday leaves out setting a governing board made up of tenants and affordable housing advocates, a key component in the KC Tenants’ plan. And that, in their view, is “a broken promise,” said Jenay Manley, a KC Tenants organizer.
What the Mayor is putting forth, she said, “is no governing structure at all — it is just him telling the city staff that they can make the decisions,” on how any housing trust fund money is spent.
“There is no way for a tenant to interject in the process,” Manley said “No way for tenants to say, no, that is not good for us.”
Tenants deserve a space to advocate for themselves. So yes, Lucas should keep his promise and include them.
Lucas has been in talks with KC Tenants for months about amending the 2018 housing trust legislation. But, he says he never promised to “just take a copy of an ordinance written by any group and propose it.”
Of course he’s not. The legislation proposed by KC Tenants also wants to use money from the Kansas City Police Department budget to help fund the housing fund. That’s not going to happen. A Jackson County judge ruled last week that the council violated state law with its plan to reallocate millions in police funding to be spent on community-based, police-related initiatives.
The city’s housing trust fund includes a first transfer of $12.5 million in COVID-19 relief money that was allocated in May. The city expects another one-time infusion of federal cash to total $25 million. But it has no continued funding stream and no governing structure.
KC Tenants proposed a nine-member board that would include two people from their group, tenants, a mayor-appointed council person and Kansas City Public School Board member and exclude anyone “with a profit motive related to housing.” Banks or developers for example.
“I can’t give all the appointments to just one group,” Lucas said.
”There is a need for individuals with expertise in building/property management, construction law, etc to help review projects,” his administration said in an email on Monday. “Politically it is exceedingly unlikely that Council will vote to delegate its authority away… .”
OK, but to fail to give them a seat on the board would be a mistake, too.
Advocates for low-income renters should be included on the board to make sure there is long-term affordable housing. After all, the people searching the city for decent places to live know best what that looks like.
Lucas said he moved on his ordinance, which puts the Housing and Community Development Department in charge of receiving applications for funds and recommending them to the City Council, because “I don’t want to see us spend up all of the money without rules.” Council already has spent about a third of the housing trust money on some affordable housing projects.
The ordinance is “not set in stone,” Lucas said. He says he’s happy to work with KC Tenants “on what a governing board looks like.”
In 2019, Lucas, then a mayoral candidate, wrote in a KC Tenants questionnaire that, “different stakeholder groups serve on a citizens’ review board.” He said the board should include “residents within affordable housing, those from different backgrounds than just the development or government administration side...”
That sounds a lot like a campaign promise that, so far, the mayor has not kept.
Kansas City tenants deserve a say in how housing trust fund money is spent. The fund has to work for the people who best know their needs. Otherwise, what’s the point?