Residents at Kansas City apartments in struggle between health department, new property owners
By KMBC Staff
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KANSAS CITY, Missouri (KMBC) — With a leaky ceiling and a lease termination, Dorothea Johnson needs a new place to live. Johnson said the new property managers, Iron Door Management, are trying to force her and others out.
“They’re shutting the place down because it’s in need of repair,” she said.
While new property managers and owners have made an official announcement about a closure of the apartment complex, residents like Johnson have told KMBC 9 Investigates their leases are not getting renewed.
That is leaving people scrambling to find new places to live in a tight housing market. At the apartments, transients have broken down doors, leaving shopping carts, and everything else behind.
The Kansas City Health Department has labeled the property non-compliant. Department workers recently forced the landlords to relocate a family with raw sewage that backed up into the apartment.
“The property manager on site, clearly told our staff, that they want us to vacate the property,” said Naser Jouhari, deputy director of the Kansas City Health Department Deputy.
Jouhari said Kansas City’s Healthy Homes Program has tools to make sure the new owners are accountable, including billing owners for repairs, placing a lien on the property, or relocating tenants and sending a bill to owners.
Jouhari also said the health department does not want to shut the property down.
“After this new ownership took over, pretty much they walked away, they turned their back to the property, and everything went down the drain,” Jouhari said.
KMBC 9 Investigates tried to talk to the new managers of Harvard Court. A regional manager said she wasn’t allowed to talk.
“We are refugees, so to speak,” Johnson said.
Johnson said she has a new place to live but wonders how others will fare as they may have to move out, too.
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