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Kansas City

This Kansas City Neighborhood Is Transforming Neglected Housing

January 26, 2026 Hope Davis, Next City. , , ,
In Northeast Kansas City, Missouri, one working-class neighborhood is using a multi-pronged approach to take control of its housing supply. Since 2018, the Lykins Neighborhood Association has been taking on ambitious projects including using a state law to take control of abandoned homes, establishing a mixed-income neighborhood trust and partnering with Habitat for Humanity to construct 15-20 new houses. Their goal: enhancing the neighborhood’s livability, not maximizing property values. As one of the most diverse sections of Kansas City, the Lykins neighborhood wants to revitalize its housing stock while preserving its blue-collar heritage.

Striking Tenants Withhold Rent For 247 Days And Win

June 6, 2025 Rebecca Burns, In These Times. , , , , ,
Tenants in Kansas City are declaring victory after eight months on rent strike—the longest such action in the city’s history. Residents of Independence Towers, an 11-story building with a troubled history, won a contract with their landlord that stabilizes rents and imposes deadlines to complete plumbing and other major repairs. To reach the deal, tenants formed a union, waged a months-long pressure campaign and, ultimately, negotiated through an elected bargaining committee — an outcome that lends momentum to efforts to adapt labor union strategies for housing fights.

Elon Musk And DOGE Slash Funding For Major Black KC Neighborhood Councils

February 27, 2025 Ryan S., Black Agenda Report. , , , , , ,
At exactly 7:17 p.m. on Valentine’s Day, Ivanhoe Neighborhood Council Executive Director Alana Henry received a terse notice from the USDA: the agency was canceling its three-year Farmer’s Market Promotion Program (FMPP) award to Ivanhoe Neighborhood Council. The cut was swift, shocking, and, for those who’ve been paying attention, all too predictable. The Ivanhoe Neighborhood Council (located in one of Kansas City’s historically Black neighborhoods) had already launched a visionary plan to boost food sovereignty and economic power in the community. Their programs offered training for local growers—many of them Black, brown, and small-scale—so they could sell fresh, affordable produce at neighborhood farmers markets.

Kansas City’s Striking Tenants Want Biden To Act Fast On Rent Cap

January 12, 2025 Roshan Abraham, Next City. , , , , ,
On Oct. 1, 2024, tenants at two Kansas City, Missouri, apartment complexes started a rent strike. Residents of Independence Towers and Quality Hill Towers, organized under KC Tenants and a newly formed national coalition known as the Tenant Union Federation, had been asking their landlords to fix their dilapidated buildings for two years. They demanded repairs, called for collectively bargained leases, and agitated for the federal government to force the sale of the apartment complexes to more responsible owners.

Hundreds Of Kansas City Tenants Will Strike

September 29, 2024 Rebecca Burns, In These Times. , , ,
Fed up with paying escalating rents in buildings whose conditions they say range from dirty to dangerous, tenants at two Kansas City-area apartment complexes have voted to launch a rent strike on October 1 — a coordinated action that could soon spread to other cities, as a new national tenants union flexes its muscles. Anna Heetmann, 29, says she has spent three years trying to secure a fix for the gaping hole in her living room ceiling caused by water damage in the unit above. Earlier this month, Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, II, the Democrat who represents Missouri’s 5th Congressional District, toured the building and pledged to support tenants should they strike. 

Voters Reject Stadium Sales Tax To Help Fund New Royals Ballpark

April 3, 2024 Celisa Calacal, Flatland - Kansas City. , , , ,
Jackson County voters handed the Kansas City Royals and Chiefs a major setback on Tuesday, rejecting a stadium sales tax extension that would fund a new downtown baseball stadium and renovations at Arrowhead Stadium. Question 1 would have repealed Jackson County’s existing 3/8th-cent sales tax and replaced it with a tax at the same level until 2064. The results mean that the existing sales tax will end in 2031, when the Royals and Chiefs’ leases expire, and can only be used on the existing Truman Sports Complex properties.

KC Tenants Announces Launch Of Citywide Tenant’s Union

May 8, 2022 Aarón Torres, Kansas City Star. , , ,
Kansas City, Kansas - Pat Lucas received the notification last August: She would have to vacate the Armour Flats building in the 3400 block of Holmes Street in Kansas City — her home for more than 17 years — by November. The management company was going to renovate the property, causing her rent to shoot up, from a little over $500 a month to more than $1,000. She was priced out and had to move. Lucas shared her story Saturday as KC Tenants, a local organization advocating for housing rights, held a rally to announce it was creating a citywide tenant’s union. The organization will work with every local neighborhood association with a goal of getting 10,000 union members.

DOE Officially Marks SunShot’s $1 Per Watt Goal For Utility-Scale Solar

September 14, 2017 Julia Pyper, www.greentechmedia.com , , , ,
By Julia Pyper for GTM - It's official. The solar industry has met the 2020 utility-scale solar cost target set by the Energy Department's SunShot Initiative -- three years early. The DOE's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) released new research today that shows the average price of utility-scale solar is now under $1 per watt and below 6 cents per kilowatt-hour. That’s higher than the record-breaking project bids we’ve seen in the U.S. and abroad in recent years. But that’s because DOE calculations for levelized cost of energy (LCOE) do not include subsidies -- such as the federal Investment Tax Credit -- and are based on the average climate in Kansas City, Missouri. (Note: GTM documented the sub-$1 per watt milestone earlier this year, but the department is using its own metrics.) “Our mission is to make solar affordable for all Americans, and so our goals are defined for average U.S. climates. We use Kansas City as that example,” said Becca Jones-Albertus, acting deputy director of the SunShot Initiative. “Hitting a 6 cents per kilowatt-hour target for Kansas is a more significant metric than hitting 6 cents in sunnier parts of the country.” GTM Research reported that U.S. utility-scale fixed-tilt system pricing fell below $1.00 per watt earlier this year using a different methodology.

Google Fiber Isn’t The Only Revolution In KC

June 25, 2014 Carl Franzen, www.theverge.com , ,
Kansas City, a metropolitan area of about 2 million that straddles the border between Kansas state and Missouri, seems an unlikely place to see what the future of internet connectivity could look like. But nearly three years after Google announced that this midwestern metropolis best known for jazz and barbecue would become the first place in the world to get the company’s experimental, ultra-high-speed broadband internet service — Google Fiber — Kansas City is looking more futuristic. Just not in the way Google or Kansas Citians originally anticipated. That’s because Kansas City is also home to another experimental broadband internet service effort that hasn’t received nearly as much international attention as Google Fiber. Just over a year ago, right around the same time Google actually began installing Fiber here, a ragtag alliance of affordable-internet advocates including a jazz club proprietor, a Pentecostal Christian minister and a former Occupy Wall Street protester began building their own nonprofit wireless internet service specifically designed for low-income households, a system they call the KC Freedom Network. Even though it can’t match Google Fiber in terms of raw speed, the KC Freedom Network offers something to users they say Google does not: truly affordable internet.
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