Senior residents kicked out of low-income Kansas City apartment

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A group of senior citizens in Kansas City is being forced to get out, and as of now, they have nowhere to go.

“She said, ‘Ms. Bates, I have some paperwork for you.’ She handed it to me and she says you have 90 days to find you somewhere to move,” Claudia Bates described.

They were told by management that now they make too much, but the complex has known about their pay increases for more than a year, so why were they given only 90 days to find somewhere else to live?

“We don’t have no security, they breaking into cars. Don’t have proper lighting in the back, the doors don’t open,” Sherri Greer, who lives at Twin Elms, said.

Greer says the elevator is always down in a building with a lot who are elderly and others who have disabilities. In fact, it was down the last two weeks and Wednesday was its first day back in operation.

Yet, all of those problems pale in comparison to what Greer’s sister Claudia Bates is up against.

“I was notified on August the 21 that I had 90 days… that my income was too high,” Bates said.

The catch, her income changed more than a year ago, but she wasn’t told she had to move until August 21. The move out date is the week before Thanksgiving.

Seventy-two-year-old Bates is not alone. Greer tells FOX4 at least two others, including an 80-year-old woman who had an adjustment to her social security, were told the same thing: They’ve got to go.

“They don’t even answer the phone. If you call here, do they answer the phone, no, they don’t answer the phone, they don’t return your call if you leave a message or nothing, like right now you’re here, no one’s here,” Greer said.

FOX4 called with no answer, and when we went to the office to inquire, no one was there.

“It’s hard. I try to work, come home, get to sleep, and then get up to go find somewhere to move. And then I have to be to work at 3 o’clock in the morning. I don’t get off until late and it’s hard,” Bates said.

“What is my sister supposed to do?” Greer said.

These seniors are clear if they have to move that’s fine, but can they at least get an extension until after the first of the year and the winter and simply more time to find somewhere to go?

FOX4 will continue to follow developments with this story.

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