Southeast Kansas City Reacts To Vacant Homes

Kansas City, MO – Foreclosures have spread throughout the Kansas City metro area over the past six months - into central Lee's Summit, north of Independence, and parts of Johnson County. In Wyandotte County, the foreclosure rate has risen dramatically in the past few months. But the biggest total number of foreclosures are still in the eastern part of Kansas City Missouri, around Swope Parkway, and then southeast in the Hickman Mills and Ruskin Heights areas.

The communities in this area have developed an infrastructure to deal with vacant homes; and are responding to the new foreclosures. KCUR's Sylvia Maria Gross spoke to Damon Daniel, a community organizer with Communities Creating Opportunity and Father Lloyd Opika of St. Matthew Apostle Catholic Church, about the challenges facing the area. Plus, UMKC urban planning professor Michael Frisch talks about the particular situation of "first-tier suburbs" like Ruskin Heights and Hickman Mills.

CCO and the Hickman Mills School District will be holding a foreclosure prevention workshop on April 23 for parents in the district.

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