The Inside Job

sign for nana's place pocket park

The Marlborough Community Coalition’s Facebook page recently featured a newspaper story documenting the surprising luxury housing and commercial development boom taking place a few miles north in Kansas City’s Beacon Hill neighborhood. The story was accompanied by a message: “Change can happen!” In fact, a different kind of change already is happening in Marlborough, the…

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The Faces of Eviction

In January, together with the Kansas City Public Library, we hosted a live public town hall to talk about evictions, gentrification and affordable housing in the metro. The standing room only-crowd heard from and asked questions of the six panelists, Tara Raghuveer, eviction researcher; Terrence Wise, community member; Jacob Wagner, co-founder of Center for Neighborhoods…

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Five Things You Can Do To Protect Your Rights As A Tenant

Flatland sat down with Gina Chiala, executive director and attorney for the Heartland Center for Jobs and Freedom, to see what advice she offers to rental tenants in Kansas City as part of Public Works? A Level Foundation, our in-depth series on eviction, gentrification, and affordable housing in the metro. This is the transcript for…

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The Cost of Churn: Evictions Hinder Classroom Progress for Kids

Tameko Davison helping with homework

Tameko Davison’s children were well into the routine of a school year when turmoil intervened in the form of an eviction notice. Davison fell behind on payments, and the gas was shut off to her government-subsidized apartment in Kansas City. That violated a Kansas City Housing Authority rule and caused her to lose her rent…

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Vote! What Would You Like Us to Cover in Our Reporting?

Image of new development

As we dig into housing issues in our months-long Public Works? A Level Foundation reporting initiative, we want you to share your questions with us and weigh in on what you think we should tackle. Below is our first voting round with three questions from curious Kansas Citians. Tricia Bushnell asked what percentage new developments…

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