RESOLUTION NO. 210318, AS AMENDED


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Supporting and encouraging the City's efforts to the Land Bank of Kansas City to identify, create, and implement processes and procedures that effectuate the streamlined transfer of property owned by the City's Land Bank to non-profit organizations and incremental developers to provide affordable housing for Kansas Citians.

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WHEREAS, the nation's housing crisis has reached emergency levels, in that, in 2019, a fulltime worker earning minimum wage could not afford a two-bedroom apartment in any U.S. county, more than half of all Americans spent over 30 percent of their income on housing, only one in five households qualifying for federal housing assistance received it, leaving more people to rent from private landlords when many people-especially low-income people and communities of color-live one emergency away from an eviction or homelessness; and

WHEREAS, the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated the housing crisis by exponentially increasing job loss and financial struggle, particularly in communities of color and for those living at or near the poverty threshold established by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; and

WHEREAS, forty-six (46) percent of Kansas City residents rent their homes, a historically high rate, with half of the City's renters being "cost burdened," spending over 30 percent of their income on rent, and tenants earning minimum wage would have to work over 92 hours a week to afford an average two-bedroom apartment; and

WHEREAS, the intersecting and sometimes competing costs of housing and health costs place an undue burden on our city's poorest and most vulnerable tenants; and

WHEREAS, tenants who experience eviction exhibit higher rates of depression, anxiety, psychological distress, and physical health problems than others; and

WHEREAS, on average, in 2019, landlords filed 42 formal evictions per business day in Jackson County, Missouri, and those evictions were filed for no...

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