Kansas City needs affordable housing, not out-of-town landlords raising the rent | Opinion

I am a retired registered nurse and have spent years volunteering in community organizations for social justice. Most recently, I have worked with the nonprofit KC Tenants, which focuses on my primary interest of truly affordable housing.

Over the past five years, I have met and worked with many individuals who have either been evicted or are living in uninhabitable living units as was so accurately described in a recent Kansas City Star story, “A Kansas City ‘slumlord?’”

I have seen slumlord apartments firsthand, and know the emotional and physical abuse and impact that the tenants living there experience through no fault of their own.

It has been through the hard work of KC Tenants that landlords and owners are forced through legal and civic action to start stepping up to the plate, but not nearly enough and not soon enough.

There are not enough affordable and livable apartments in Kansas City for people of lower and middle incomes to live in.

The average monthly rent of an affordable one-bedroom apartment in Kansas City is more than $1,150 per month, according to Apartments.com — and that is more than teachers, social workers, most nurses and most other non-degreed workers can afford.

Truly affordable housing is what is needed, and that would be rents of $600 to $800 a month, which would help stop the large number of evictions that are currently happening in Kansas City due to lack of affordability.

I have a good friend who up until about five years ago was living in an apartment on Armour Boulevard at a rate he and others could afford — until it was purchased by an out-of-town company. The new landlord increased rents, forcing tenants out with eviction notices and sending several to court.

My friend was finally able to find another apartment and was doing well there until a similar situation occurred. And now he is homeless, living in a tent in a park.

This ain’t right.

There are many reasons this is happening, including developers coming from out of town and applying for tax incentives and abatements to construct large apartments buildings and charging high rent prices. The incentives divert funds that could be used for schools and libraries, and do nothing to create affordable housing.

This is wrong on so many fronts.

I ask: Why do we not hear more from our politicians and government officials about public health — and that includes affordable housing and so many other issues important to our lives.

It is time we do not turn our cheeks to this immediate problem, but instead meet it head on.