Members of KC Tenants held a picket event outside Quality Hill Towers on Oct. 4, 2024 (Mili Mansaray/The Beacon).
Hell Woods has been couch-surfing between two friends’ apartments since their landlord refused to renew their lease in November.
A former two-year resident of Quality Hill Towers, Woods joined the building’s tenant union and its now-paused rent strike after months of unresolved bedbug infestations and maintenance issues. Frustrated by the lack of action from management, Woods stopped paying rent for two months.
“I don’t know how many bug treatments I’ve requested at this point,” they said. “I’ve gone through three mattresses. I spent hundreds of dollars doing every treatment I can afford to all the cloth items in my home.”
Woods moved in with a former neighbor in Quality Hill Towers in December. But by the time a blizzard blanketed Kansas City in ice and snow on Jan. 5, they found themselves trapped indoors with limited supplies.
With the building’s tap water brown and undrinkable, they rationed almond milk, which ran out the next day, Woods said. They went without anything to drink until they could leave for another friend’s apartment downtown on Jan. 7.
Tenants at Quality Hill Towers say they continue to grapple with persistent maintenance issues into the new year. A Kansas City Beacon investigation found that Kansas City’s Healthy Homes Rental Inspection Program documented 74 health code violations during October inspections of 20 units.
Pest infestations, chipped paint, plumbing backups and structural safety issues like water damage were among the most common violations. However, none was deemed a life-threatening hazard requiring tenant relocation and revocation of the landlord’s permit, according to Naser Jouhari, deputy director of the Kansas City Health Department, which runs Healthy Homes.
Instead, most violations were classified as health hazards, which gave the landlord between 24 hours and 10 days to address them.
Representatives from Sentinel Real Estate Corp., the owner of Quality Hill Towers, stated that most pressing maintenance issues have been resolved, claiming these efforts were planned before the tenant union’s involvement. Sentinel said a third-party environmental firm tested the water systems at 929 Jefferson in November 2024 and found no health issues.
But some tenants say otherwise. Residents who had their units inspected report little to no improvement and believe Healthy Homes is too lenient on landlords. They argue that the current system doesn’t go far enough to protect tenants.
“They very rarely, if ever, use the accountability mechanism that is available to them,” said Tara Raghuveer, the director of KC Tenants. “In order for tenants to take Healthy Homes seriously they need to see results.”
In response to the KC Tenants rent strike, City Council members have met with Health Department leaders to discuss strengthening the Healthy Homes program.
Here’s the latest on the KC Tenants rent strike
The Quality Hill Tenant Union has 163 members as of Jan. 13, representing 70% of the building’s occupied units, according to KC Tenants. At Independence Towers, where tenants also launched a rent strike in October, 76% of residents are union members, and 64% are actively striking.
Members of the Quality Hill Tenant Union voted to pause their rent strike in November after striking residents began receiving lease nonrenewal notices, with deadlines to vacate between Dec. 31 and Jan. 19.
Raghuveer said the pause is intended to show good faith in negotiations with Sentinel. Meanwhile, the Independence Towers Tenant Union is continuing its strike to demand a role in selecting a new landlord and securing a collectively bargained lease after a lawsuit against 728 N Jennings RD Partners LLC placed the property in receivership.
On Dec. 10, Sentinel filed 16 eviction cases against striking tenants, followed by four more on Christmas Eve, tenant union representatives said. Those eviction filings do not immediately remove the tenant, but they initiate legal proceedings. The first court hearing took place on Jan. 9, with another scheduled for Jan. 23.
Dani Powers, a Quality Hill Towers resident, received an eviction notice in early December after two months of striking. Like many others, Powers joined the tenant union because of ongoing maintenance issues.
She has lived with a roach infestation since moving there in February 2023.
“I used to live in the woods and this was the most amount of roaches I’ve ever seen in my life,” she said.
Powers has reported the roaches to management, as well as the holes in her bathroom ceiling, water stains and a sink that is coming loose. While Sentinel claims to conduct weekly pest control, Powers says she hasn’t seen pest control workers in over a month.
Woods has witnessed new maintenance issues in their time with their neighbor, including a shattered entrance door at 817 Jefferson St., which remained unrepaired for a week in January. Tenants also reported heating issues and poor insulation during the storm.
Sentinel representatives said the corporation spent $2 million on repairs in 2024. Improvements included a new boiler for 817 Jefferson and servicing boilers at 905 and 929 Jefferson. Water heaters were replaced in two buildings, flush valves were upgraded in 200 units, and over 30 long-standing in-unit maintenance issues were addressed.
Additional measures included dismissing pre-strike evictions, providing $8,000 in rent forgiveness and distributing $40,000 in gift cards.
KC Tenants view these repairs as a victory of their strike, but they argue the improvements only scratch the surface.
Sentinel denies the union’s influence, claiming major repairs were planned before the strike.
“Most of the big-ticket items relate to scheduled maintenance and replacement of building infrastructure… as well as addressing real-time issues,” representatives said in an email to The Beacon.
While Sentinel officials say they began discussing their 2024 repair plans with the tenant union in 2023, tenants dispute this. They say repairs only began after they announced their union in September 2024.
What will happen to evicted tenants?
Lease nonrenewals and evictions are two ways landlords can end a tenancy.
In Missouri, landlords are not required to provide a reason for the decision not to renew a tenant’s lease when it expires. According to Jaden Powell, a tenant attorney working with KC Tenants, this method can effectively evict a tenant without going through the formal eviction process.
“The folks who got their leases terminated were up in two months,” Powell said. “The leases of the folks they filed evictions on keep going.”
In Woods’ case, they received a lease nonrenewal notice in November, requiring them to vacate by Dec. 31. If a tenant does not leave after their lease expires, the landlord can file an unlawful-detainer case in court, a type of eviction proceeding.
The other common type of eviction case is rent and possession, where a landlord sues a tenant for unpaid rent. If the tenant pays the rent owed, the case is resolved. However, tenants can also use their living conditions as a defense in these cases.
If tenants win rent and possession cases, their owed rent can be reduced or even refunded.
For example, tenant Keyon Hardin was awarded nearly $20,000 in a judgment against Quality Hill Apartments last year. Hardin had counterclaimed against an eviction case, arguing that his unit was uninhabitable due to severe cockroach infestations. He described being awakened at night by roaches crawling on him.
The court ruled that the property violated the warranty of habitability, requiring Quality Hill to refund all rent Hardin had paid. Quality Hill has appealed the judgment and has not yet paid the $20,000.
Powers plans to fight her eviction in court. Her lease is up in February and despite the risk of a lease nonrenewal, she does not regret participating in the rent strike.
“It was a calculated risk and we knew what could happen,” she said.
According to Powell, KC Tenants is still working on seven of the 10 lease nonrenewals. Of the 10, only three were legitimate, forcing those tenants to vacate by Dec. 31, Powell said. For the others, Powell claims that the tenants had signed lease renewals that were not properly countersigned by management, meaning their leases may still be valid.
What health code violations were found at Quality Hill Towers?
Healthy Homes conducted an inspection of Quality Hill Towers in early October after receiving multiple tenant reports. The inspection was initiated at the request of City Councilmember Johnathan Duncan, according to Jouhari.
“I’m hearing two sides of the story,” Jouhari said. “My staff are telling me one thing, and I’m hearing something completely different from the council and tenants. So I went on-site myself.”
Out of 230 occupied units at the time, Healthy Homes inspected 12 units during the sweep. A total of 20 units were inspected in October, with three undergoing reinspection. Jouhari said that inspectors knocked on multiple doors, but only a dozen tenants answered or allowed entry.
The inspections uncovered a range of health hazards, all of which required 24 hours to 10 days to address. Common issues included pests, peeling paint, water damage and other structural concerns. One unit at 817 Jefferson had suspected mold in the bedroom, bathroom and hallway closet.
Some units had insect infestations, while others did not. Some units were not as bad as described in the report, Jouhari said. He described one case where a tenant expressed extreme frustration over an issue that wasn’t a safety risk.
“The coat closet at the entrance of one unit gets jammed and that tenant made it sound like someone will lose his or her life over that,” he said. “These are paying tenants that deserve to live with habitable conditions as a minimum standard. But I did not see any violations at these properties that required me to vacate them.”
Three units had to be reinspected. But Jouhari reported that management eventually addressed all cited violations.
“We created a detailed report for each unit and shared it with the management company,” he said. “As far as I know, every violation identified during the inspections was corrected.”
Sentinel representatives stated that pest control is on-site weekly and that they have addressed the problem to the fullest extent possible. However, they noted that poor cleanliness in some units has contributed to persistent infestations.
A Healthy Homes report on one of the inspected units cited poor housekeeping and clutter as factors that worsened pest issues. Inspectors educated the tenant on the importance of proper trash removal to help reduce infestations.
What does it take for Healthy Homes to deem a place uninhabitable?
Jouhari said inspectors found no life-threatening health hazards at Quality Hill Towers.
He said that moving tenants out of buildings with dozens or hundreds of units is not a decision the department takes lightly, as it comes with significant challenges.
“What are we supposed to do with all these people? Where are they supposed to go?” he asked. He said some tenants even resist relocation when their homes are deemed unsafe.
“In some cases, we’ve had to force tenants to relocate because the property wasn’t safe for them or their kids,” he added.
Housing violations are categorized into three tiers based on severity:
- Non-imminent health hazards are minor issues, like damaged walls or broken cabinets, that do not pose a risk to residents’ health or safety. Landlords are given a timeline to address these violations.
- Imminent health hazards, such as contaminated water, insect infestations or rodent problems, can cause harm or illness and require immediate attention. Landlords are notified and will have to resolve these issues in up to 24 hours.
- The most severe category — life-threatening violations — includes major hazards like major sewage backups, flooded basements or widespread mold that could endanger lives. In these cases, the department takes immediate action by vacating the property and relocating tenants to ensure their safety while addressing the issue on-site.
Healthy Homes uses several enforcement measures to ensure compliance with its rules. The department has the authority to take landlords to court, but it rarely does so due to the lengthy process. Instead, Jouhari said the Health Department issues notices of violation, sets deadlines and imposes escalating penalties, such as fees for reinspections.
“In one instance, one property was charged 30-something thousand dollars in less than a few months,” he said.
If violations persist, the department can “pause” a property by suspending the landlord’s permit to rent in Kansas City until the issues are resolved.
In extreme cases, Healthy Homes can revoke the permit entirely, forcing the landlord to sell their properties and barring them from operating in the city. But Jouhari said that this measure has not been invoked for apartment properties yet because landlords sell their properties before reaching this stage.
Healthy Homes has conducted over 10,200 inspections since its launch in 2018, according to Health Department data. The program has received nearly 13,000 complaints and cited around 27,600 violations.
KC Tenants argues that the program needs to take a more proactive approach to addressing housing issues.
Raghuveer said that the bar for deeming something life-threatening is set too high.
“There’s a long history at Quality Hill Towers of losing heat during the winter,” she said. “That may not be life-threatening for everyone, but it is for some people,” she said.
Raghuveer said it took the tenant union organizing a supermajority at the building and initiating a rent strike before the city and the landlord started taking complaints seriously.
“We need city policy and procedures designed around proactive and aggressive protection of our neighbors,” she said. “We don’t want to have to go on a rent strike every time we need something done.”
Raghuveer acknowledged that the Healthy Homes program has potential, but stressed the need for reform. She criticized the department for rarely using its strongest accountability mechanisms, like suspending or revoking rental permits for repeat offenders.
“Without consequences, it’s discouraging for tenants,” she said. “The lesson landlords learn is that they can keep getting away with treating tenants like subhumans.”
Hell Woods, the former tenant at Quality Hill Towers, said they filed four complaints with Healthy Homes during their tenancy, but issues like pest infestations and water damage persisted.
Last year, when pest control came in to address her bedbug infestation, Woods had to call off of their shift as a bookkeeper. When their job found out why Woods was calling off, they were told not to come back until the bedbug issue was solved.
“I lost pay for three weeks,” they said.
To push for better results, the tenant union now files separate reports for each issue rather than grouping them together, Woods said.
Could the rent strike bolster changes to the KC Healthy Homes program?
Duncan said he and other City Council members have been meeting with Health Department officials to discuss strengthening the Healthy Homes ordinance. The inspection program currently handles complaints individually, relying on internal policies for determining when to inspect an entire building.
Duncan said that the current system needs codified language requiring building-wide inspections after multiple complaints from a single property. He said it shouldn’t take a City Council member to make a special request to incite larger investigations when there are multiple reports.
“We need clear rules,” Duncan said, “like requiring a building-wide inspection if there are four or five complaints from the same property. That should be in the municipal code — no wiggle room, no gray areas, and not dependent on the director’s discretion.”
Duncan also pointed out that the Healthy Homes program is limited in its ability to assess the full scope of an issue by relying on reports from discouraged residents.
Jouhari described the discussions with City Council members as productive. He said that they have explored ideas like implementing random inspections instead of relying solely on complaints, funding relocation fees and increasing staffing to support proactive enforcement.
A recurring topic is enhancing enforcement measures, he said. However, he believes the current penalties, which include revoking a landlord’s permit, are sufficient.
“What else can we do to enforce the ordinance other than kicking the landlord out of the city?” he said. “I don’t think it can get any worse than that.”
Duncan disagrees, arguing that the system’s leniency allows some landlords to exploit gaps and delay critical repairs.
He thinks properties with a history of persistent code violations, such as Quality Hill, should face stricter timelines and penalties for compliance. He said that landlords with repeated violations should face expedited deadlines for repairs and additional accountability measures, including mandatory education on property maintenance and tenants’ rights, fines and restrictions on renting units to new tenants until issues are resolved.
He also supports a policy allowing Healthy Homes to hire contractors to address unresolved issues, such as pests or plumbing problems, and then bill the landlord.
“There are certain bad-actor landlords who take advantage of the gaps in our Healthy Homes code,” he said. “If we know there are ways to game the system, we have a responsibility to update the code, close those gaps and protect tenants.”
This article first appeared on Beacon: Kansas City and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.