A New Player Joins the Fight to Save KC's Urban Core

Gregg Lombardi-Executive Director

Odds are that you saw last week that the Kansas City Chamber of Commerce has announced a major urban core initiative to improve the quality of life in neighborhoods along the Troost Street Corridor from 21^st Street to 51^st Street.

The Chamber’s focus on this work is fantastic news. The Chamber and its members have access to tremendous resources and the ability to influence major decision-makers in a way that can help transform these neighborhoods. 

Legal Aid has been doing community development work to improve these neighborhoods for more than 25 years. Every year we work with neighborhood associations, the City, individual homeowners and other not-for-profits to transform 80-100 blighted and abandoned properties in the urban core of Kansas City into high quality, occupied, tax-paying housing. That work has been critical in helping neighborhoods like the Ivanhoe neighborhood greatly improve themselves and in keeping other neighborhoods that will be a part of the Chamber initiative from falling into irreversible disrepair.

Because of limits on our resources, however, the work that we do leaves thousands of blighted and abandoned properties untouched.  According to the most conservative estimates, there are now approximately 7,000 abandoned properties in the City’s urban core. 

So, having the Chamber join the fight is a breath of fresh air.  We will collaborate with the Chamber and its partners in every way that we can to make sure that the new urban core initiative is a success.  As part of this, among other things, we will assist in acquiring blighted properties for rehab for Chamber projects. We will also recruit for-profit law firms to work on the project on a pro bono basis. 

We welcome the Chamber to the battle against urban core blight in Kansas City and look forward to working with them on their wonderful, new initiative.

An Alternative to Pay Day Loans

Gregg Lombardi-Executive Director

I am pleased to announce that, as a result of the work of volunteer attorneys at three major law firms, low-income Kansas Citians now have an alternative to Pay Day loans.

For many years Pay Day loans have been the scourge of low income neighborhoods.  The average interest rate on these short term loans is 450% APR.  Although the default rate on these loans is about 6% and they are obscenely profitable, traditional major banks have, to date, not offered competitive alternatives and efforts to find a legislative solution to the problem in Missouri have failed.

About two years ago, CCO, a local community organizing group, started working to create a competitive alternative to Pay Day loans.  Legal Aid joined the effort about 18 months ago.  Our Volunteer Attorney Project has recruited talented volunteer attorneys including Adam LaBoda from Spencer Fane Britt & Browne, Kyle McCurry from Stinson Morrison Hecker and Tom Schenkelberg of Polsinelli Shughart to work on the project. Kyle initially provided pro bono representation in support of the project generally and subsequently represented Central Bank, which will actually be making the loans.

Other partners in the project include the FDIC, Commerce Bank, United Way and numerous other community stakeholders.

As a result of the attorneys' work, a new not-for-profit-- Fair Community Corporation-- has been formed, complex banking regulations have been navigated, funds raised and FCC is now taking applications for loans.  The loans will be at 36% APR and will come with the opportunity for financial education to allow the borrowers to gain access to even lower interest loans.  A set of referring agencies will be referring qualified, low-income borrowers to the project for loans.  For now at least, borrowers will have to go through a referring agency. 

If the project is as successful, as we think it will be, it is likely to be a powerful tool in driving Pay Day lenders out of Kansas City and may well be replicated elsewhere.

The project is also an excellent demonstration of what talented pro bono attorneys working through VAP can accomplish.  We are tremendously grateful for the excellent work that Adam, Kyle and Tom have done on this project.

Kansas City Mayor Praises Legal Aid's Response to the Joplin Tornado

Gregg Lombardi - Executive Director

I was at the KCMBA’s Liberty and Justice Gala last Saturday, which was a marvelous event.

Kansas City Mayor Sly James was at the event and gave a great speech talking about the excellent work that Legal Aid’s attorneys do and particularly highlighting our response to the Joplin tornado.

You can read the Mayor’s speech on Legal Aid’s website here.

Legal Aid's Partnership with LINCWorks Puts People to Work

Gregg Lombardi - Executive Director

I’m pleased to announce that that the LINCWorks welfare-to-work program in Kansas City is getting some national recognition as a result of a partnership with Legal Aid of Western Missouri.

Three years ago, LINCWorks was seeing a serious problem with many of the participants in its welfare-to-work program. Many of the participants were fully prepared to secure jobs, but had outstanding city warrants. Most employers won’t hire people who have warrants against them, even for relatively minor offenses, including traffic tickets.

To address the issue, LINCWorks partnered with Legal Aid, so that Legal Aid now provides representation in Municipal Court to resolve the outstanding tickets. Legal Aid’s work on the project is run by Latricia Scott Adams, the Director of Legal Aid’s Volunteer Attorney Project. For the vast majority of the cases, the ticket is resolved with a community service. More importantly, the program has removed a major barrier for hundreds of LINCWorks participants in getting work and, with the barrier gone, many of the participants are now employed.

LINCWorks has been so successful in this and other community partnerships that the U.S. Dept of Health and Human Services has chosen LINCWorks as one of just seven welfare-to-work programs nationally to participate in the Promising Pathways initiative. Congratulations to LINCWorks. This is another example of how Legal Aid collaborates with other community organizations to get excellent results for our clients.

Let's show Joplin our true colors.

Gregg Lombardi - Executive Director

There is nothing like a crisis to bring out people's true colors.

With the Joplin tornado the response of most Missourians has been inspiringly positive. If you've been to Joplin any time since May 22, you've seen hundreds of volunteers doing whatever they can to help the city and the families that were decimated by the tornado back on their feet.

A shining star in this effort has been Missouri Bar President John Johnston, who spent more than a week in Joplin, leading the charge of volunteers from the Missouri Bar that helped make sure that tornado survivors had the legal tools they needed to make FEMA and insurance claims and to deal with trust and estate issues, guardianships and all the other legal obstacles that stood between them and recovery. Similarly, Legal Aid's Shelly Wakeman led a platoon of Volunteer Attorney Project volunteers, working in close coordination with the Bar that made sure that low-income survivors had all of their legal needs taken care of.

While there are countless examples of the good that's been done in Joplin, there is a small number of vultures who have done their best to get rich as a result of the city's misfortune. The biggest offenders are landlords who had the good fortune of having the tornado miss their property. Shortly after the tornado struck, many of these vultures started evicting tenants and charging double the rent, taking advantage of the extreme shortage of housing in Joplin.

This practice is not only reprehensible, it's illegal. Under Missouri's Merchandising Practices Act, raising retail and rental prices exorbitantly as a result of a natural disaster is illegal price gouging. The Missouri Attorney General's office has already received more than 50 complaints of price gouging in Joplin and the experience of the staff in our Joplin office has confirmed that the practice is widespread.

Legal Aid is working to team up with the Missouri Attorney General's office to stop illegal price gouging in Joplin. If you're an attorney who is offended by the scum who want to take advantage of the plight of the Joplin tornado victims, do something about it. Give me a call or e-mail me to sign up for Legal Aid's anti-price gouging efforts in Joplin. The plan is to organize volunteer attorneys to bring legal actions under the Missouri Merchandising Practices Act against landlords in Joplin who have charged substantial rent increases to make a quick profit off of the disaster. My direct dial number is (816)474-1413 x224. My e-mail address is glombardi@lawmo.org

Let's show the Joplin community our true colors.

Post Tornado Volunteers

Gregg Lombardi - Executive Director

We have had many calls from volunteer lawyers wanting to help with the legal issues for low-income people that will follow in the wake of the Joplin tornado. Right now, Shelly Wakeman is talking with disaster relief experts from other states and we will be updating and circulating a disaster relief manual hopefully by early next week.

We hope to hold a training for volunteer attorneys to help out some time next week. Volunteers will either answer questions by phone from their own offices or go to Joplin, where we hope to be able to set up an information booth at the FEMA site.

If you want to volunteer, please call Latricia Scott Adams our VAP director at (816)474-6750. Thanks.

Back on Track

Gregg Lombardi - Executive Director

I'm extremely happy and relieved to report that everyone in the Joplin office is fine after the devastating tornado. The phones are out, but otherwise the office is fully intact.

Now it's time for us to roll up our sleeves and do what we do best, assess the damage to our clients and then do everything we can to help them get their lives back on track.