Housing
Exploring Frank Lloyd Wright’s Naturalistic Legacy
By Christopher G. Olszewski Our area certainly has some distinctive architecture, including the art deco Power & Light Building in downtown Kansas City and the massive new Church of the Resurrection sanctuary in Leawood, Kansas. Before those bricks were laid, one of the world’s most famous architects left his mark on Kansas City. During a…
Changed Locks: Getting Evicted in Wyandotte
It takes two minutes for the woman in the wheelchair to roll in front of Judge R. Wayne Lawson. It only takes another two minutes for her to be legally evicted. “You have to leave, just not today,” Lawson tells her. The plaintiff’s lawyer asks her to wait for him in the hallway. He still…
How’d We Get This Data? See the Human Side of Records Analysis
44 days. That’s how long it took our research intern to obtain all the eviction information for Wyandotte County. Across that month and a half, Flatland’s Ryan Hennessy spent about six hours a day combing eviction records the only place they were available: on one of three public computers on the first floor of the…
Affordable Housing: The Apartment Fight
When the Kansas City Housing Authority won a coveted $30 million federal grant in 2015 to tear down Chouteau Courts, a low-income housing project east of downtown, and replace it with mixed-income housing, housing advocates were thrilled. But when the Northland was proposed as a location for one of the new properties, area residents took…
Affordable Housing: Pricing Out Workers
If working two full-time jobs isn’t enough to make rent in the city, Kimberly Lawson wants to know what is enough. This video, part of a larger project from Kansas City PBS and Flatland looking at gentrification, affordable housing, and evictions in the Kansas City metro, delves into whether the downtown boom is driving out…