Two weeks ago, residents at Aspen Place Apartments in Gardner, Kansas were given a mere 48 hours’ notice by the City of Gardner to vacate their homes due to unsafe conditions at the complex. The city finally made the decision to condemn the property after its private roadway crumbled under a firetruck that was responding to an emergency at the property. Directly below the road was the property’s 70-year-old outdated plumbing system which was irreparably damaged by the firetruck.
The condemnation was necessary, but its consequence is clear: 600 to 700 people have now been displaced. Thankfully, it appears that many of the displaced residents have secured temporary shelter either provided by family or charities. However, we must resist the temptation to accept these temporary band-aid solutions. Charitable donations will not last forever and families can rarely support additional household members for long without significant strain. It is admirable to see the Gardner community come together to temporarily help these families. But it is not enough.
It is not enough to just provide temporary support until these families find permanent housing. This should never have happened. Now is the time to fight to make sure it never happens again. We must recognize that this displacement of hundreds of Kansans was inevitable under our current system of housing. Particularly, the treatment of housing as a for-profit commodity, real estate as an investment, and lax code enforcement by cities, including the City of Gardner, are to blame.
City officials failed the former residents of Aspen Place a long time ago by failing to properly enforce the law while they were abundantly aware of the issues at Aspen Place. This did not begin when the street crumbled under the firetruck. In December 2023, residents at the complex had no running water for days, including during the Christmas holiday. The City had responded to issues with the property’s plumbing multiple times on other occasions, yet never took action to hold KDR Group accountable.
To be clear, the situation at Aspen Place is not unique. This is not the first time tenants in Kansas have been displaced and it won’t be the last unless we do something about it. Throughout Kansas and throughout the United States, it is commonplace for landlords to allow rental properties to fall into unsafe and uninhabitable conditions while cities either fail completely to enforce the law, or enforce it by punishing the tenants, as happened at Aspen Place. Such lax enforcement of habitability requirements leaves tenants to fend for themselves. The only legal recourse for tenants is to sue the landlord, which is not a realistic option for many tenants lacking time and resources to file and prosecute such a lawsuit.
We must call out the bad actors and demand new protections for tenants including but not limited to rent control, mandatory and robust code enforcement, harsher penalties for noncompliance by landlords, and guaranteed shelter for all Kansans with a simple approval process!
The Kansas Green Party will be hosting a community education presentation on tenant rights at the Merriam Plaza Library on June 8th at 3pm. We encourage tenants in Kansas to attend, learn their rights, and organize to win these reforms!
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Kansas Green Party. Email: ksgreenparty@gmail.com
Social Media: @KSGreenParty; Website: kansasgreenparty.org
Kansas Green Party 