Kansas City Missouri introduced its Ordinance 231019 mid December 2023. Commonly called the Source of Income Ordinance, when discussed at a December City Council Meeting, was held over until January 25th. Below is the video of the discussion at the January 25th city council meeting.

Kansas City Missouri’s Source of Income Ordinance #231019

Presented as the most restrictive in the country and as being written 100% by KC Tenants, 231019 was initially a few lines in the Tenant’s Bill of Rights several years ago. Back then, the concept of forcing a US Citizen to take part in a Voluntary Government Subsidy Program like Section 8 was objectionable to the several 100 housing providers in the room and Mayor Lucas lined it out. Based on his statements in the video above from the 25th, it seems that he has been working since that time with KC Tenants to bring this ordinance to the table.

Since the introduction in December, housing providers have been working hard to defeat the ordinance but learned that we were not going to have much luck defeating it completely. But with all the emails, phone calls, and meetings held, we were able to get a lot of the more objectionable items removed or changed and now we have a repair fund that they are working on.

Highlights of the Changes Made to the Source of Income Ordinance

There is a lot in this ordinance, and many of the original aspects of the ordinance have changed in almost two months of intense negotiations since it passed the committee in early December. Those changes are reflected in the ordinance that passed today. Councilmembers representing both sides worked very hard to coalesce around common goals that each side shared, with many of us offering support, assistance, and guidance along the way. 

• Created a $1 million Landlord Risk Mitigation Program to provide landlords money offsetting costs associated with accepting voucher tenants.
• Created a landlord liaison position in the City’s Housing Department
• Clarified that landlords can deny rental applications based on individualized factors about criminal convictions, credit score, evictions, alleged damages, rent-to-income ratio, etc., and clarified that violent and sexual offenses are grounds for denying an application.
•  Permitted consideration of recent evictions and alleged damages, within a year. Older evictions and alleged damages may be considered holistically.
•  Prevented publication of landlord names if landlords were the subject of disciplinary action or conciliation agreements.
• Publication of names is allowed only if a permit is suspended.
• Excluded property sales from source-of-income discrimination protections.
• Removed the ability of CREO director to conduct audits with testers.
• Limited systematic investigations to only landlords who have been investigated and found to have committed discrimination and failed to reach a conciliation agreement.
• A delayed effective date of the policy until 6 months after passage.
• Clarified that investigations can end without prosecution of a complaint.
• Clarified that all consideration of a prospective tenant’s application must be consistent with fair housing laws and all other state and federal laws.  
• Created exceptions for old houses with architecture that cannot be easily brought into compliance with code, which are not required to abide by source-of-income rules.
• Provided that landlords are not responsible or liable for relying on third-party information to reject a tenant.
• Empowered CREO director to direct how tenants shall be informed of their rights under the ordinance.

Read the Full Copy of Ordinance #231019

We Need a Closer Look

We all need time to digest what this document says. There may be more changes coming as some sections might need some adjustment and we would like to have our leaders and legal advisors to digest the document and tell us what we need to do to comply this summer.

Many Thanks to All Who Took Action

Many thanks to the 100s of people locally who sent emails and made phone calls. Many thanks to the 100’s of people nationwide that send an email. Many thanks to those who took surveys to help us find the data needed. Many thanks to the people who put in countless hours in meetings and kept everyone else engaged. And a huge thank you to Stacey Johnson-Cosby for never taking no for an answer.