One of the best lines in the 2019 Kansas City mayoral race was when the council member, now-mayor Quinton Lucas said, “City Hall should not just be the chamber of commerce.”
The line was catchy. It also reflected a savvy politician’s ability to translate what the voting public was feeling.
It was a sharp but concise rebuke of the prevailing neoliberal orientation of Kansas City and cities across the country. Neoliberal is a catch-all term for some but I like to think of it as city governments deciding their primary purpose is to grease the wheels of private capital and business interests. “Economic development” is the primary goal and basic and social services for citizens are after thoughts and are debated in terms of “return on investment” and other business terms.
Arguably, the reliance on The Free Market (aided by lots of government subsidies and tax incentives) has helped deplete City Hall of adequately paid staff, empty the city coffers used to pay for basic and public services, and privatized public dollars cutting off that benefit to the vast majority of citizens.
The backlash to this system has been growing across the country in recent years.
Lucas tapped into that bubbling anger and frustration.
In the 2019 campaign, he and other Kansas City candidates were pushed in large part by KC Tenants, the relatively new tenants organization in town that is loud, well-organized, and unafraid.
Over the few years since their founding, they have helped push through the Tenants’ Bill of Rights, funding of the Office of Tenant Advocate, have shut down eviction proceedings that violated the CDC moratorium, and been an invaluable advocacy and support group for tenants, especially during the pandemic.
But their recent publication and push for the People’s Housing Trust Fund is an impressive articulation of their vision for housing in Kansas City and the public dollars that will make it happen.
KC Tenants vision and the details included in the People’s Housing Trust Fund represents a 180 degree turn from the neoliberal orientation. And they identify the root cause of the neoliberal priorities: racial capitalism.
It is important that we recognize that these problems are neither natural nor accidental, but rather the product of the City’s longstanding prioritization of profits and private property over people. The root cause: racial capitalism. Racial capitalism is a system built on race and class in which wealthy people, who are overwhelmingly white, gain wealth, profit, and power from the exploitation and oppression of the working class and poor people. This theory suggests that race and capitalism are not separate systems, but that race is fundamental to capitalism and vice versa.
Diving deeper into the proposal that rejection takes form with their recommendations, which include:
A governing board of a city council member, two KC Tenants representatives, four tenants union members, one school district representative, and one representative from a community organization. Noticeably, there are no for-profit developers, bankers, etc.
The board disqualification includes: “any party with a profit motive related to housing will be disqualified from participating in the Housing Trust Fund Board.”
The use of trust fund dollars should mainly be used for cooperatives, social housing, tenant assistance, etc.
Rejecting public-private partnerships and philanthropic dollars since they aren’t accountable to the public and will not align with the fund’s priorities.
Funding through cuts to the police department
Taken as a whole, KC Tenants envisions housing (or at least right now housing funded by the housing trust fund) to be removed from the private market and function as a social good for tenants and working class Kansas Citians.
But what does it matter?
A lot of people talk about these ideas. The difference here is:
KC Tenants is highly organized.
No one votes in municipal elections giving a highly organized group of tenants a shot at actually disrupting the status quo on the inside and outside. In the contested 2019 mayoral election, only 68,000 people voted. In-district council races, which make up half of the council, didn’t top 12,000 votes total.
Backing out a bit, there are a lot of groups and factions that are working on housing in the city that believe in much of what KC Tenants is advocating for and overall a strong role for government and public dollars.
And a lot of people who lean leftward and have been crunched by the housing market at all levels would like more options not or loosely tied to The Free Market.
Even private developers have said essentially that government should provide low-income housing and they’ll do market rate even as they utilize public incentives that decrease the government’s ability to do just that.
The for-profit housing market is brutal for any normal person and family. KC Tenants is bringing a challenge to that system and there are parts of their ideas that a lot of people will be interested in.
And that’s where people are getting uncomfortable.
Those people who agree with some of KC Tenants ideas or even just one are and will have to contend with their ideological challenge to the status quo. This became evident to me when I had several people who are sympathetic to KC Tenants ideas express concern about the implementation, practicality, etc.
You could sense they were working through how to translate their own values into solutions.
How will it work? Do I actually agree with these ideas? Are they moving too fast? What’s a middle ground to move the needle?
I can only imagine that will continue to happen as KC Tenants continues to push, disrupt, and potentially sway future elections.
KC Tenants is an activist group. They push their vision as ideologically pure as possible while presenting an implementable solution. They are pushing their ideas forcefully and unapologetically. Some people forget that. But they are pretty clear about the political reality.
We are not under the impression that we will win our demands in the immediate short term, but we are motivated by our conviction that our vision for a People’s Housing Trust Fund is worth the fight.
We know that our vision is bold, that it intervenes in the way things are done today. That’s the point. We know that the politics of today do not favor our vision. That’s because the politics of today serve our oppressors. Filled with conviction and undeterred by the political challenges that we may face, we will continue organizing, until we win.
People, including myself, have been working solutions but often not questioning the underlying roots of systems that don’t seem to be working.
KC Tenants is forcing those questions and will continue to do so.
People will be uncomfortable and that’s a good thing.
Kansas City should be thinking about these things because things haven’t and aren’t working.
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Who's going to pay for 'any destruction' that may be caused by Tenants- ie: like when they tore down walls between adjoining rooms in the hotels theCity paid to have them "temporarily housed" in but few made their own effort to get their own place till just before the program closed instead of immediately when they got that 90 day only place. No respect ~