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HAKC, Section 8, Housing Authority of Kansas City is a disaster

By
Real Estate Broker/Owner with Turn-Key Properties LLC, Missouri and Kansas Real Estate

What is HAKC? What is Section-8 and do I want to rent my investment property to a section 8 tenant? I get calls nearly everyday from investors who bought a Kansas City Investment Property and thinks they will profit hugely by renting it to a section 8 tenant.


There was a time when that may have held true but with the current system you will do well to get market rent and break even. The point system is gone and the amount of rent HAKC pays may be no better than what the open market would bring.


Turn-Key Properties LLC manages hundreds of investment properties in the Kansas City area everything from executive homes and luxury lofts and condos to some properties on the section-8 program. After many years of trying to work with this failed organization we are currently declining many requests to manage any more.


First we must answer the basic questions of what is section eight. The Section 8 Rental Voucher Program is authorized by the U.S. Housing Act of 1937, Section 8(b) (1) for existing housing and Section 8(o) for vouchers. Regulations are found in 24 CFR Part 982. It is administered by HUD's Office of Public and Indian Housing. Its stated purpose is to increase affordable housing choices for very low-income households by allowing families to choose privately owned rental housing.


http://www.hud.gov/progdesc/voucher.cfm


Basically tax payer funded assistance for rental payments for people of moderate means.


Like all other government programs it continues to grow out of control and has been horribly mismanaged. Those that know how to work the system benefit and those that may really need the assistance are all too often left out. (My personal opinion.)


Locally Section-8 is administered by HAKC or the Housing Authority of Kansas City. There are several other housing authorities managed by local municipalities like Independence, MO, Lee's Summit, MO and Johnson County, KS.


In all, most of them run relatively effectively except for the glittering jewel of incompetence that is the HAKC. At one point the chaos was so severe that the HAKC was put into receivership. Since that time it has gone through a list of directors, administrators, employees and inspectors that would make your head spin. Rules change weakly, case managers come and go. The person you dealt with yesterday may not be there tomorrow. At one point HAKC issued 750 vouchers and then revoked them leaving people homeless and some who had already moved with no way to pay rent. http://www.thekansascitychannel.com/newsarchive/10837707/detail.html?


One very frustrating problem is the frequent loss of documents that are delivered to HAKC. Documents delivered many times do not get to the intended recipient and therefore are never accounted for. We instituted a policy of requesting a signature for receipt of documents and recently we have been told by Clifford Scott, that they will not sign for any documents.


Turn-Key Properties LLC  has implemented a new procedure requiring owners to acknowledge certain terms should they want us to accept vouchers from HAKC. They are as follows.


The process may take up to three months for HAKC to process the Booklet, complete the property inspection, execute the Contract, approve the tenant to move in and begin actual rent payments.


The exact amount of the rent you will receive may NOT be determined until the Contract is executed, which is toward the END of the process....AFTER the Booklet has been turned in, AFTER the expense of the property inspection has been spent and AFTER the property inspection has passed.  At that time, if you are not happy with the amount of rent granted and decline that amount, the entire process of finding a tenant will have to start all over again.


At that point, if Turn-Key has brought forth a qualified, approved tenant and you decline the amount of rent offered by HAKC, the Management fee will still be charged to you, because we brought a qualified tenant to the table and it was your decision to accept the terms of a Section 8 Tenant with the Housing Authority of Kansas City.


The time-frame between the property passing inspection and the Contract being executed can be a month or longer.  This means it could be another month or longer before the Tenant will be allowed to move in and when rent will begin being paid, even after the unit passes the inspection.


While the Tenant is living in the unit, the Tenant's Voucher can be revoked by HAKC, at any time, for reasons that will not be disclosed by HAKC, rent payments will stop and it will then be your responsibility to get the Tenant out of the unit.  This process is the normal Eviction process in the Jackson County Court system and can take up to three months to complete. 


If the Tenant does not pay their portion of the rent, HAKC will not offer any assistance with convincing the tenant to pay the rent.  If you wish to remove the tenant for non payment of rent, you will need to go through the normal Eviction process in the Jackson County Court system and can take up to three months to complete.  Even after a Judgment is obtained against the Tenant for non-payment of rent, HAKC may still move them into another Section 8 assisted unit. 


If the Tenant completely destroys your unit, HAKC will still allow them to move into another Section 8 assisted unit.  HAKC has no interest in Tenant damages at all! 


That stated the next question is, do you want us to place a section 8 tenant in your home.


Benefits of a section 8 renter:


Your rent is paid by another entity and the checks don't bounce.


You may get slightly higher rent.


Detriments of a section 8 renter:


Annual inspections: The home will require specific repairs to meet the requirements annually.


Increased cost: The inspections not only require maintenance but also require the presence of a service technician to grant access to the property. HAKC will give a four hour window that the inspector may be at the home. We must have a maintenance technician there during that period of time.


Homes built prior to 1978 may require considerably more maintenance and a great deal of more expense. Because of the potential presence of lead in the paint used prior to that date, any building on the Section 8 program can have NO peeling, chipped, cracked or worn paint surfaces. That means NONE! We will have to repaint, touch-up and repair any worn paint in that home.


What does that mean? Huge costs, painted floors, steps, handrails, or any other well used surface will wear within that time. Those surfaces will have to be repainted. Wooden windows; just the act of opening and closing a window can cause wear on the painted surfaces. Those surfaces must be free of any damaged paint.


Paint dust, chips or peelings are a major hazard, if those elements are found by the inspector, if any peeling paint is seen you may be required to pay for the removal and containment of the substance by a certified contractor. (Turn-Key is certified) You may also have to pay for a test by a certified professional for the presence of lead. This can cost hundreds, even thousands depending on the property.


Do the math, if your property was built before 1978 you will likely do better to avoid subsidized housing and market your property on the open market, unless things change drastically at the housing authority.

 

 

Comments (17)

Diane Rice
Rice Prprty Mgmnt & Rlty, LLC, South Holland, IL - Lansing, IL
SFR, SRES, CNC
Now, that was thorough!!  We have the housing voucher program here that is currently being revised.  I just received a letter on it.  GREAT!!!  That system is something i've been meaning to write on and have not found the time yet.  You've done an excellent job of telling it like it really is!  THanks!
Oct 12, 2007 05:10 PM
Ben Edsall
Turn-Key Properties LLC, Missouri and Kansas Real Estate - Kansas City, MO

Update, I had an inspector fail an inspection on the owner of the property because the tenant uses the back yard as a place to toss all their empty beer cans. HAKC required the owner to pick up the tenants trash instead of making the tenant clean up their own damn yard.

Apr 02, 2008 05:58 AM
Diane Rice
Rice Prprty Mgmnt & Rlty, LLC, South Holland, IL - Lansing, IL
SFR, SRES, CNC
That GOES WITH the program Ben!  I HEAR your frustration all the way over here!!!!  You don't want me to start with MY stories now do you???  Hurry, get 'em out and  move on!  Be encouraged... think of ALL the lessons you learned!
Apr 03, 2008 11:18 AM
Anonymous
Guvnuh

Has anything improved with Section 8 in KC since this was written over a year ago?

Feb 23, 2009 08:57 AM
#4
Ben Edsall
Turn-Key Properties LLC, Missouri and Kansas Real Estate - Kansas City, MO

Guvnuh;

No we still try to avoid working with the HAKC, we will work with other local housing authorities like lee's Summit or Independence. The problem is less the program and more it's administration by the Kansas City Housing Authority.

I heard lately from one of the inspectors that some big changes are on the way, I hope so they need to do something!

Feb 27, 2009 06:49 AM
Anonymous
Rob

No changes that I can see. . .  I had a tenant complain to HAKC about some extra painting that I did at HER request.  Granted, the paint I installed failed, but I told her to inform me if it did and I would come back and pursue another remedy.  Instead she called section 8 and complained.  You can probably guess the rest. . .  They came out and REQUIRED lead based paint inspection for paint that was 1 week old, which cost me a hundred bucks.  After I sent in the documentation they failed it anyway and the tenant had to move.  Good ridance. . .  Then they withheld pay from another section 8 property to re-coop the rent for that month's rent.  I have 1 house left in the program.  When that tenant moves?  NEVER AGAIN!!!

Rob

May 14, 2009 05:26 AM
#6
Anonymous
investor

HAKC is a deplorable mess! The inspectors see failing an inspection as a measure of job security! If they fail it, they get to come back and inspect it again.

The twits that work there are replaced as soon as they start, I can call one day and the person I talked to yesterday is no longer there.

They do lose documents, then they claim that you never sent them. this is an obvious example of AFIRMATIVE ACTION gone array!

I cannot imagine anything as corrupt and f-ed up as the housing authority of Kansas city!

But knowing the corruption of Kansas City, this just goes with the territory!

16th most violent city in the nation, and climbing! Most abandoned city in the nation!

Get out while you can!

They are all corrupt!

 

 

Oct 06, 2009 12:51 PM
#7
Chris Wechner
CW Health Inc - Waterford, MI

It seems like you're having some pretty bad luck.

I live in the Detroit Area, and things are far from perfect here, but I haven't heard THAT many horror stories.

I'm still scratching my head over a home failing an ongoing (not even an initial) inspection, because there were beer cans (thrown there by the Section 8 Tenant THEY placed).

I also haven't heard of anything in the Detroit Area about tenants losing their Section 8 vouchers without any notice in the middle of their lease "term."  I don't live there, but it sure seems like an unofficial fraudulant act by the commission to save the government some money.

It seems like our local PHA has a better track record of removing tenants from their placement list if they damage a property.  Then, again, the list of people in need is pretty long here, too.  So when demand is high, you can demand more.

You outline many of the disadvantages very well.

Mar 12, 2010 07:16 AM
Anonymous
KellyKC

We deal with sec 8 tenants all the time. What a mess. And the inspectors in Johnson County (all 2 that I know of) have big CHIPS on their shoulders. They talk to us as if we owe them something. Really we dont have to take Sec 8. What would they do if we decided not to at all. The inspectors will run through the apartments and and pick out the lease important things and fail the units. Then complain when they have to come out again. OHHHHHH I get so angry with them.

May 26, 2010 11:27 AM
#9
Anonymous
Jennifer

I am a section 8 tenent and hate HAKC and there inspectors. I just wish I could find a Landlord that would just return phone calls to fix things. I pay for my rent 5 days before the first of every month. My deposits are always returned at end of lease. We paint, have carpets cleaned every 3 months and wax and polish hard woods every 6 mos. For example my current house has hard woods that are shiftingg, cheap tiles used for back wash in kitchen falling down, Toilet has had to be snaked or whatever 3 times because of roots. All fixed at my costs and I feel that is very unfair to me. I know many landlords dont like this program but I would like for just once to rent from someone who doesnt go cheap on rehab or quick fixes that has a descent house to rent for next couple of years until I finish med school, rent for a year or two reg rent then buy my own house. I also agree to previous post some sec 8 tenents wont care about your property but some do. I had to go with this program after being layed off from Sprint after 13 years. So maybe in July I can find a GREAT LANDLORD!!! Wish me Luck......

Jun 03, 2010 06:53 AM
#10
Ben Edsall
Turn-Key Properties LLC, Missouri and Kansas Real Estate - Kansas City, MO

Jennifer, please try to transfer your voucher to another agency; Lee's Summit, Independence or someone other than HAKC. Many Kansas City landlords will not work with them, so you are left with only ones who do!

Jun 16, 2010 07:58 AM
Anonymous
nikki

HAKC IS ONE BIG HOT MESS,ESPECIALLY THE IDIOTS THAT WORK THERE. THE FOLKS THAT WORK THERE ARE RUDE AND JUST AS GHETTO AS CAN BE. I THINK THEPEOPLE THAT THEY SERVE ARE MORE EQUIPPED 2DOTHIER JOB THAN THE FOLKS WHO ACTUALLY WORK THERE. THIS IS NOT INTENDED TO BE RACIST BECAUSE I AM AFRICAN AMERICAN MYSELF. SO YES AS I SAID B4 HAKC EMPLOYEES ARE ALL UNDERQUALIFIED HOT GHETTO MESSES !

Jun 27, 2010 07:52 AM
#12
Ben Edsall
Turn-Key Properties LLC, Missouri and Kansas Real Estate - Kansas City, MO

It is interesting that after three years this blog still gets huge traffic, and not one damn thing has changed! If anything it has probably gotten worse.

Jun 29, 2010 03:48 AM
Anonymous
km

I have an open investigation against HAKC for racial discrimination! I found out after over 3 yeats of waitlist there were several people getting vouchers with only being on waitlist for half as long. They had friends & relatives working in the office. This hopefully will turn heads and open eyes.

Oct 25, 2010 09:12 AM
#14
Anonymous
Gregory Young

 Hello iam a returnning combat veteran who a year an a half ago received my voucher through the va hud vash program an i have found it hard to rent a decent property that is not in a bad neighborhood,i dont want to live in the hood at all i cant handle the gunfire an riff raff but cant afford what i want which is a loft perferibly concreat,i have lived in waldo height for a year an a half between campbell an troost an iam sick,my blood pressure stays elevated from all the noise from the sirens an people argueing,the place is horrible but the bad part is i have to use public trasportation because i take soo much medicine from my wombs from the war iam scared to drive anything,so it limits me from living in certain areas where theres no busline,i want a house also but iam scared of being broken in on an tottaly afraid of what i might do if someone tried to break in while iam home,i need the security of a building with the access key an code,i currently have my missouri police commision license an work two days a week as a security guard at night an my credit is not good enough to live in a secured property it seems so now iam frustrated is there anyone out there who has a decent property that will work with me through the section 8 hud vash program for veterans if so please contact me at 816-605-8200 or swabbie82@yahoo.com,iam a good individual who is a neat freak,keeps to myself,rents always on time,my voucher is for 689.00 monthly i just need a break,up until a year ago i had never rented in kansas city an cant understand why everything is in the bad neighborhoods. 04/21/2012

Gregory Young.

Apr 20, 2012 06:12 PM
#15
Anonymous
MAWMAW

HAKC NEEDS TO OFFER MANDATORY  TRAINING TO  THEIR MANAGERS  ON A REGULAR BASIS. I HAVE ENCOUNTERED

 A MANAGER THAT HAS NOT A CLUE ABOUT  THE JOB THEY HAVE. TO SAY  THE MANAGER IS   INCOMPETENT

IS PUTTING IT LIGHTLY .  MAYBE THEY NEED TO UNDERSTAND THAT WITHOUT CONSUMERS THEY WILL NOT HAVE

 THE JOBS THEY DO. WHATEVER HAPPENED TO COMMON SENSE &  COURTESY  OR IS THAT NOT A REQUIREMENT ?

 HEAVEN FORBID THAT THEY RUN INTO SOMEONE LIKE THEMSELVES OR FIND THEMSELVES LIVING  ON HAKC

 PROPERTY

 

Jun 22, 2012 08:30 AM
#16
Anonymous
Kristina Lester

I had sec 8 voucher, had a place to move, and after waiting for inspection was told I was put back on waiting list because they gave too many vouchers out. I then had to put my things in storage and find a place for my son and I cause we already gave landlord notice of moving , she did not accept vouchers.My son and I r still homeless, staying where we can. HAKC also told me we were at the top of this list and will get voucher before anybody else on list. I was told could take just a few days to a month and it's been since Trump won election. My son and I had a nice apartment and lived there 6 yrs. Because of my voucher I am now without a home.

Nov 14, 2017 05:53 PM
#17