Kansas City Has A Housing Crisis. Why Does The Housing Policy Committee Rarely Meet?
One of the few unilateral powers the mayor of Kansas City holds is the organization of city council committees.
Mayor Lucas (and many of the council) was elected, arguably, because he focused heavily on the housing crisis.
So when he created the Special Committee on Housing Policy to complement the Big 3 council committees, I was more than ecstatic.
A group solely dedicated to housing policy?
I think people were ready to go.
Kansas City has a deficit of thousands of units for low income people, an aging and extremely inefficient housing stock, blighted areas, and rising housing costs for most everyone in the city.
But as the council was getting organized, the pandemic hit and everyone was adjusting and putting out fires.
By mid-late last year, council was rolling again but the Special Committee on Housing Policy only met sporadically.
In 2021, they have only met 3 times with agendas (3 other times are on the calendar but don’t have any details). And when they have met, it has often been to just pass contracts for specific projects.
Big, bold, sweeping reforms and minor but consequential changes have not taken center stage.
Much of the housing policy so far has been shepherded through the other committees by mainly councilpersons who aren’t on the committee.
This has been surprising because there were several major areas of interest before the pandemic, which have only been complicated and exacerbated by it.
These include:
tenants rights,
the creation and funding of the affordable housing trust fund,
unhoused solutions,
requiring incentivized projects to include affordable housing,
making it easier to build housing and reevaluating some city requirements,
re-examining zoning,
the Healthy Homes program,
energy efficiency,
new pathways to homeownership and gaining equity,
and an entire housing policy with specific tasks created back in 2018.
And even recently, groups like KC Tenants and Promoting Equitable Neighborhoods have put together lengthly documents with research, proposals, and support for the formation and funding of the housing trust fund.
All for free—departing from the tradition of hiring highly paid consultants.
It just seems that the Housing Policy Committee should be the hottest ticket in town.
But it’s not even on the calendar.
To me, much of the hard work has been done.
The ideas are there.
The community is engaged.
The need is real.
All the Housing Policy Committee needs to do is pick something to start with and work to make it a reality.
For many Kansas Citians, there is a housing crisis. Unlike many other metros, Kansas City can turn the tide to address this existing crisis and help to prevent an absurdly unaffordable future.
We are wasting precious time.
The Committee on Housing Policy needs to lead on this issue and start by meeting more often.
If you’d like to subscribe to more analyses, hot takes, and amateur citizen reporting about Kansas City, Missouri politics and other musings please consider subscribing.