When you walk into the back entrance of Independence Towers, you’re met with a foyer filled with dust, debris and cobwebs.

Two rust-coated elevators loom against the back wall. Peeling paint and caution tape line the dirt-ridden hallways on either side.

Diasha White said it wasn’t always like this. She’s lived in the building for six years and described the first three as “beautiful.”

But she said everything changed when a new owner purchased the building and a company owned by FTW Investments LLC took over management.

“You knew he was a different type of landlord who did not take care of the property,” she said. “We’ve got holes in our walls with rusted pipes exposed, vermin falling out of those holes, water creating soft spots in the ceilings and mold.”

Independence Towers is owned by a limited liability company, 728 N Jennings Rd Partners LLC. FTW Investments said in a statement it managed the LLC as a service.

After losing hot water for weeks, White joined the Independence Towers Tenant Union in May. That union accounts for 65% percent of the 63 occupied units in the building.

In mid-May, a Jackson County judge appointed Trigild Inc. to manage the property after the Federal National Mortgage Association, known as Fannie Mae, accused the owners of failing to keep up with repairs and payments.

But tenants say that essential repairs have not been addressed. They said Trigild’s Vice President Nancy Daniels has not communicated with the union since a meeting in June.

Trigild Inc. did not respond to The Beacon’s request for comment.

The Independence Towers union — together with the Quality Hill Towers Tenant Union — launched a rent strike Oct. 1 to demand better living conditions. The strike is organized by KC Tenants. The unions are advocating for maintenance improvements, collectively bargained leases and national rent caps on federally backed buildings.

KC Tenants says both properties were purchased with multimillion-dollar loans backed by Fannie Mae in 2021.

The tenant unions want a national rent cap of 3% for all buildings that receive loans backed by Fannie Mae, which is regulated by the Federal Housing Finance Agency. They also seek repairs and maintenance for their respective buildings, as well as collectively bargained leases for residents.

Sentinel Real Estate Corp,, which owns Quality Hill Towers, said in a statement that it’s been “working with the union in good faith for more than a year,” respects tenants’ right to organize and is in the process of completing requested repairs.

The Quality Hills Towers strike will ultimately harm tenants because it will make it harder to complete repairs, the statement said.

The company gave tenants until Oct. 3 to submit their rent before issuing a total of $2,750 in late fees to residents in the 55 striking units, according to an Oct. 5 KC Tenants press release.

Tenants said they taped their late fee notices to management’s door and burned several outside their offices.

What are the living conditions?

Many residents at Quality Hill Towers say they love the area because of Case Park, which overlooks the West Bottoms and the Missouri River. But inside, the reality is starkly different.

“Once I moved in (last January), I saw roaches within a week,” said Sarvesh Patel. Patel said he has also dealt with mice. He caught 12 in one weekend last year. His living room lights don’t always work, his bathtub doesn’t drain and his windows won’t stay open.

Before the strike, he paid $910 a month in rent, a 22% increase from what he initially paid, he said at an Oct. 1 rally.

Enrique Rodriguez has only lived at Quality Hill since April, but in just six months, he says he’s dealt with a kitchen sink that backs up with sewage water, peeling layers of paint and infestations of both mice and bedbugs that have left his legs marked with welts.

At the rally, a Quality Hill organizer said that the tenant union, which represents 63% of the 234 occupied units, has withheld over $39,000 in rent from Sentinel.

Twenty-one miles east, residents at Independence Towers face similar disputes with their landlord.

Once off the elevator, the carpet on the ninth floor immediately emits the smell of old, damp fabric and mildew. Chris Carlton, a resident of nearly a year, said that’s because a section of the hallway recently flooded. Along the walls splattered in yellow and white paint, the baseboards are coming loose or completely detached from the wall.

Elliot West and her parents have lived there for eight years. In their previous apartment on the now-condemned 10th floor, their ceiling collapsed. She said management left them there for a month before they were moved.

In their current apartment on the ninth floor, she said, the wallboard in her parents’ bedroom fell onto their bed, and they’re also battling roaches and bedbugs. Although they had to pay $1,000 to treat the infestation, West insists her family wasn’t the cause. She said management told them there was no proof of who was responsible.

Before the strike, White, the tenant who has lived in the building for six years, said she was paying $740 for her two-bedroom apartment. However, through conversations with management, she discovered her rent had been raised to $850 last summer — which she never received notice of.

After losing hot water in May, residents endured weeks without air conditioning in June. Tenants were given portable AC units, but they found this resulted in higher electricity bills.

“I paid $728 for my summer electric bill running the portable AC,” White said. “Usually, my highest bill is $42.”During this time, a 22-year-old resident was charged with first-degree arson after police said she confessed to setting her kitchen on fire, which rendered most of the second floor uninhabitable. Then in late July, a 3-year-old boy fell to his death from an unsecured and broken window on the eighth floor.

Management’s response 

Leaders with KC Tenants said the rent strikes mark the first in its history. They also say these are the first-ever strikes targeting FHFA, the regulator for Fannie Mae. Both buildings were purchased with loans backed by the government-sponsored enterprise.

Together, the unions plan to withhold over $60,000 from their landlords in October, according to a KC Tenants press release. That could potentially impact a landlord’s ability to make mortgage payments on Fannie Mae-backed loans.

At the Quality Hill rally, speakers called for federal regulators to foreclose on Sentinel during negotiations. They want to be involved in finding a new property owner.

The statement from Sentinel said that residents renewing their leases are already seeing annual increases of approximately 3% on average.

“We believe the tenant union’s rent strike is misguided, short-sighted, and has the potential to create negative consequences for the entire property,” the statement said.

Residents at Independence Towers said they want permanent fixes to the plumbing and heating and air conditioning systems, more maintenance staff, monthly pest control treatments, repairs to the parking garage and a moratorium on evictions or lease nonrenewals.

The ongoing issues at Independence Towers have raised concerns about the effectiveness of the city of Independence’s Rental Ready program, designed to ensure rental units are safe and meet health standards.

Despite complaints about building conditions, Independence Towers passed its most recent inspection in December. Brent Schondelmeyer, an Independence resident and former Kansas City Star reporter, told the City Council he’d found that 99% of inspections from May 2022 to May 2023 received a perfect score, based on a checklist of nine health and safety standards.

Critics argue that the inspection process, which relies on third-party inspectors hired by landlords, may not adequately address safety issues.

Independence City Council members are now considering revisions to the Rental Ready program, which they hope to have ready by the end of the year.

This article first appeared on Beacon: Kansas City and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.