KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Families already living in questionable conditions at an apartment complex in northeast Kansas City, Missouri, were given a month's notice that they need to leave, or pay a much higher rent.
Work on the buildings has already started. It's work that is badly needed, but the problem is once it's finished, the people who live there won't be able to afford to stay.
Conditions inside are shocking, but the largely refugee population has nowhere else they can afford to go.
"If I want to stay, I'm supposed to pay $1,000 month," said Rose Desir a tenant at the apartment. "That's too much money."
It's more than double what she pays now, but Desir isn't the only one facing a huge rent spike.
The buildings on the corner of 146 N Lawn in KCMO's historic northeast neighborhood house 15 families.
They say the increase is effectively a mass eviction notice.
“We want to stay here," said Sophie Be, another tenant.
The property was recently bought. The new owners plan on renovating the building and charging more rent.
They blame conditions in the building on the prior owner, FTW Investments.
When KSHB 41 spoke to a representative of that company in January, they blamed conditions on break-ins, and the owners before them.
Tenants like Be and more than 400 other people signed a letter to the building's current owner.
They're demanding conditions be filed and rents kept affordable.
"So we want to stay here. So, this is our home," Be said. "They cannot throw us out like trash."
Others can't afford to fight it.
"Me, I don't want trouble," Desier said. "I'm moving."
KSHB 41 reached out to the new owners of the property but did not hear back before this story was published.
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