Month: September 2021

Thousands of Kansans face threat of eviction as pandemic exposes housing crisis

by Noah Taborda and Shelton Brown, Kansas Reflector

Topeka — Sheena Mooney has spent the past year without a job or a safety net living in a trailer park a few miles from Washburn.

Mooney lost her job at Frito-Lay in March 2020, a job she enjoyed, fell behind on her rent and was evicted that August. She applied for unemployment but did not qualify, and her eviction was subsequently approved between May 26, 2020, when the state’s eviction moratorium expired, and Aug. 17, 2020, when Gov. Laura Kelly’s new order went into effect.

“I don’t like telling people my business, you know. This was something that needed to be heard,” Mooney said. “How did this happen? How was I able to fall through the cracks and get no help?”

Mooney is one of the thousands who have been evicted or are facing the threat of eviction during the pandemic in Kansas. She joined Kansas housing advocates on a new episode of the Kansas Reflector podcast to discuss the realities of renting amid COVID-19.

Estimates from the Kansas Housing Resources Corporation indicate more than 27,000 Kansas are currently behind on their rent, and estimates from Zillow show about 14,600 renters are at risk of eviction.

Federal and state moratoriums have provided temporary relief for those who can prove they are unable to pay rent because of COVID-19 related circumstances, but the narrow scope has left many without protection. Even during the moratorium period, evictions proceeded in some areas.

Dave Patel, who comanages the Motel 6 in Topeka with his wife, said he has seen an influx of people staying at his hotel because of lost housing.

Vince Munoz, an organizer for the tenant advocacy group Rent Zero Kansas, said without substantive change, many more will be removed from their homes with nowhere to turn.

“Even those of us who do have a little bit of stability, we’re all just kind of teetering on the edge and we really deserve to be in a place as people where we’re not just one emergency or social issue away from losing our housing,” Munoz said.

One option available to both renters and landlords looking for relief is the Kansas Emergency Rental Assistance program. The initiative led by the Kansas Housing Resources Corporation is intended to provide rent, utility and internet assistance to households experiencing hardship because of the pandemic through a joint tenant-landlord application process.

Whether it’s an unwillingness from landlords to collaborate or the slow processing pace of applications, Munoz said, the program is insufficient. Recent KHRC data shows 6,593 of 14,607 applicants have been served so far.

The U.S. Treasury last month said just 11% of the $46.5 billion approved by Congress for emergency rental assistance had been allocated. Of the $5.1 billion that was spent, $1.7 billion was doled out during July.

KHRC executives said they are processing applications in seven to 10 days.

Ryan Vincent, KHRC’s executive director, said the organization is seeking feedback to inform a new housing initiative, this time for homeowners. The Kansas Homeowner Assistance Fund, established by the American Rescue Plan Act, will aim to prevent the displacement of homeowners experiencing financial hardship associated with the COVID-19 pandemic.

“In less than a year, we’ve provided almost $50 million in emergency rental assistance to Kansas renters, landlords and service providers,” Vincent said. “We’re proud to have helped more than 15,000 Kansas households avoid eviction and remain stably housed during the pandemic, but we know our state’s housing needs don’t stop with tenants. Kansas homeowners: Help is on the way.”

Kansas Reflector stories, at kansasreflector.com, may be republished online or in print under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.

See more at https://kansasreflector.com/2021/09/06/thousands-of-kansans-face-threat-of-eviction-as-pandemic-exposes-housing-crisis/.

Bank of Labor invests in affordable housing fund


The Bank of Labor, headquartered in Kansas City, Kansas, is one of six large institutional investors that have invested in the IMPACT Mortgage Opportunities Fund.

The fund exceeded its initial capital target and raised $210 million in recent weeks, according to a news release.

IMPACT seeks to make positive social change in America’s underinvested communities by preserving existing affordable multifamily properties and providing investors market rate returns, the news release stated.

The fund’s successful close signifies the impact financial institutions can make on affordable housing. Investors joining Bank of Labor include Farmers Insurance, Nationwide and Pacific Life Insurance Company.

“IMPACT’s mission aligns well with our Bank’s efforts to support the working class in Kansas City and across the country,” noted Joe Schoonover, first vice president, at Bank of Labor. The bank formerly was known as Brotherhood Bank.

Since 2001, IMPACT has invested over $1 billion in affordable housing. Unfortunately, the nation’s housing crisis faces an immediate threat: affordability restrictions on hundreds of thousands of federally assisted homes are set to end over the next several years, placing these properties at risk of becoming market-rate rentals, according to a bank spokesman. In 2021 alone, affordability restrictions on more than 123,000 federally assisted units are due to expire.

The fund helps address this need by providing high-quality, short-term bridge loans to developers and owners of affordable housing who want to preserve their properties’ affordability status. The loans provide borrowers time to apply for permanent financing and government subsidy programs.

“IMPACT will bring tremendous value to developers from the Kansas City region who are seeking bridge or permanent financing on affordable housing projects,” Schoonover stated. He added, “Bank of Labor has the know-how to assist with scoping local projects and helping developers successfully navigate the funding.”

Over the lifespan of the fund, IMPACT expects to preserve over 5,000 affordable units across the United States.

“To address the critical need for quality, safe, and affordable housing across the country, we have to meet the short-term challenge of preserving the current at-risk housing supply,” said Jeff Brenner, IMPACT’s president and chief executive officer.

“IMPACT’s Mortgage Opportunity Fund means funding for developers that will result in thousands of more affordable homes from the Midwest to the coasts,” Schoonover stated. He added, “It’s exciting to be behind this effort to provide new housing opportunities to families ready to settle into a community.”

Kansas AG aides attended ‘war games’ summit where group planned response to Biden win

More than 30 staffers in attorneys general offices around the country gathered in Atlanta for the September 2020 event

by Allison Kite, Kansas Reflector

Kansas City, Missouri — Two top aides in Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt’s office traveled last year to a summit where staffers of conservative attorneys general participated in “war games” to plan how they might respond to the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.

Records obtained by Kansas Reflector show the two aides — Clint Blaes and Jeff Chanay — were approved to travel to Atlanta for a summit of senior staff members of attorneys general offices put on by the Rule of Law Defense Fund, a group associated with the Republican Attorneys General Association. The group paid for the two aides’ expenses.

And while the travel authorization records from Schmidt’s office referred to the event as training, records obtained by a former Democratic candidate for attorney general in Missouri show the September event included a “huddle” referred to as “war games,” where attendees planned how they might respond if Donald Trump lost re-election. It’s not clear what discussions Blaes and Chanay participated in.

“32 AG Staff Members are huddled in Atlanta for a series of conversations planning for what could come if we lose the White House,” said Adam Piper, then the RLDF’s executive director, in an email addressed to “generals” on Sept. 24, 2020.

The Rule of Law Defense Fund was established in 2014 as a “forum for conservative attorneys general and their staff to study, discuss and engage on important legal policy issues affecting the states.” The organization has been criticized for its role in the runup to the Jan. 6 mob attack on the U.S. Capitol, the first time the building has been stormed since the War of 1812.

In a robocall, the organization gave out details on the timing and location of the march protesters took from the White House to the Capitol.

Schmidt distanced himself from those robocalls in the aftermath of the attack and condemned the riot. His spokesman, John Milburn, told the Kansas Reflector in January he had not participated in any decision-making with the group since August of 2020 when he stopped serving on its board. In an email last week, Milburn said Schmidt told the organization he was disappointed in the robocall.

In response to a Kansas Open Records Act request, Schmidt’s office provided a handful of emails showing two staffers were approved to attend the September event. While RLDF funded all their expenses, Schmidt’s office found their attendance would serve “a legitimate state purpose and interest,” meaning that if RLDF didn’t fund the trip, Schmidt’s office would have, according to an email from Chanay.

Chanay, chief deputy attorney general, and Blaes, director of communications, also were allowed to consider those days in Atlanta as working days and were not required to use vacation time for them.

Milburn described RLDF in exactly the words the organization uses on its website — but left out “conservative.”

“The purpose of the staff meeting in September was to discuss potential legal responses of state attorneys general offices to regulations or similar federal government actions that were likely to occur in a potential Biden administration, just as state attorneys general were active in defending the authority of states against unlawful federal power-grabs during the Obama-Biden administration,” Milburn said.

Kathleen Clark, a professor at Washington University in St. Louis, said the wording of emails provided in response to the Missouri records request — describing war games as exercises in how to respond to the election if President Joe Biden won — raise questions about the accuracy of Milburn’s description.

Regardless, she said, the major issue is that RLDF is a “fundamentally partisan” organization.

“The whole point is that when government officials are acting in their official capacity, like the folks at the Missouri or Kansas attorney general’s office who, on government time, were attending this summit — they’re not supposed to be thinking about whether we lose the White House in the sense of President Trump or we Republicans or, for that matter, we Democrats,” Clark said.

Milburn didn’t respond to a follow-up email asking whether the “war games” exercise included any planning concerning how to contest the election.

The RLDF did not respond to a request for comment.

Elad Gross, a former Democratic candidate for attorney general in Missouri, acquired thousands of pages of documents related to Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt’s participation in the RLDF through a Missouri Sunshine Law request.

An identical request from Schmidt’s office in Kansas turned up far less communication.

In response to his sunshine request, Gross received an initial 90 pages of communications between Schmitt’s office and RLDF. Records showed more than 30 representatives from attorneys general offices met in Atlanta for “war games,” which Piper wrote would “hopefully … not have to be utilized in November.”

Gross said Schmitt’s office in Missouri is still supplying records, so there’s more analysis to be done.

“There’s no question that there was a pretty obvious coordinated effort between these different offices to challenge the election,” Gross said.

Both Schmitt and Schmidt joined a lawsuit by attorneys general seeking to overturn President Biden’s victory. It was quickly dismissed.

Kansas Reflector filed open records requests in March and May and asked for updates via email over the summer. KORA requires that public agencies provide an explanation and an estimate of how much time the records will take to produce if officials expect it to take longer than three days.

The 15 pages of records were supplied last week.

Max Kautsch, an open records attorney in Lawrence, called it “unfortunate” that the office fails to give requesters an approximate time at which their records requests will be fulfilled, as required by law.

“I don’t understand why the attorney general’s office cannot more promptly respond to KORA requests,” Kautsch said.

Kansas Reflector stories, kansasreflector.com, may be republished online or in print under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.
See more at https://kansasreflector.com/2021/09/08/kansas-ag-aides-attended-war-games-summit-where-group-planned-to-combat-biden-win/.