Debate is on: How do we protect tenants, landlords from post-pandemic evictions, debt

Google Maps image from March 2019

Evictions may be banned for now, but fear is building over what peril awaits both tenants and landlords on the other side of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Will there be landlords, swamped by debt, who clear out tenants who find themselves unable to recover from their own financial hardships?

The Heartland Center for Jobs and Freedom plans to hold a live virtual session on its Facebook page.

Tara Raghuveer, director of KC Tenants, and Stacey Johnson-Cosby, realtor for ReeceNichols and board member of Landlords, Inc., debated the hard questions facing the community with Steve Kraske on KCUR Wednesday.

Get your LINC COVID-19 updates here.

Raghuveer said the state needs to enact a suspension on rent and mortgage payments during the pandemic to protect both renters and landlords from crippling debt — a move that Johnson-Cosby said was unrealistic and would cause too much harm on landlords who have many more bills beyond mortgages.

There is a “humane and gracious” way about this that both Raghuveer and Johnson-Cosby said comes from tenants talking with their landlords, and landlords talking with their mortgage creditors — a sympathetic community of people working out agreeable payment plans. No surprises.

“During this extraordinary time we’re all in the same boat,” Johnson-Cosby said. “Money comes later. We need people taken care of.”

But the concern, Raghuveer said, is not with responsible landlords, but with those — including many corporate landlords far away from the Kansas City region — who are disconnected from their tenants and who may be focused on bottom lines.

“We can’t rely on the goodwill of landlords as a public policy solution,” Raghuveer said. The moratorium on evictions is protecting tenants now, she said, “but I’m worried after the state of emergency is over there will be a tidal wave of evictions and displacement.”

Johnson-Cosby said that the KC Tenants’ call for a suspension of rent and mortgage payments would make demands of landlords regarding housing that is not expected of providers of other essential needs like groceries.

No one expects grocery stores to let people in during the pandemic “to eat whatever they want,” she said.

“We need to be careful how we manage the effects of this crisis,” Johnson-Cosby said.

Both of their represented organizations are offering help: Landlords, Inc is gathering and sharing resources like rent assistance. KC Tenants has legal partners that are helping protect tenants.

Both agree this is a frightening time for everyone.

“Folks are losing work,” Raghuveer said. “Folks are getting sick.”