Springfield tenants suing to keep their apartments affordable will get to stay in place while the case plays out. A judge made that decision last week.
Monday morning, members of the Rosewood and Cedarwood tenants' union were joined for a press conference by members of the advocacy organization Springfield Tenants Unit and their legal team from the Kansas City based Heartland Center for Jobs and Freedom. Tenant Shellastine Williams led off the event.
"We are people with rights and dignity, class and style. Our story is Springfield's Story. Our story is America's story," Williams said. "We asked the court to keep us in our homes until the case is decided fully. Many of us submitted our own stories with the court feeling or even got up and testified in the courtroom. We all took part in this effort, and this victory belongs to all of us."
The mood was celebratory. Heartland Center attorney Sydney Ragsdale is a part of the legal team supporting the tenants. She said they were hopeful after winning this injunction. It is the first case the Center has taken outside of Kansas City.
"We took this case because the tenants organized themselves and were fighting for their rights,” Ragsdale explained, “we looked at their leases with them and realized, yeah, they had rights that had been violated and they were ready to fight, and they just needed somebody to bring it into the court. And we thought with our work in organizing and tenants’ advocacy, uh, this was a great opportunity for heartland to expand outside of Kansas City.”
Rosewood and Cedarwood residents are suing their former and current landlords, including Zimmerman Properties and various affiliated LLCs, Bryan Properties, GPS Property Management and the Missouri Housing Development Commission over how they handled opting the two properties out of the low-income housing tax credit program.
Tenants say they are fighting for increasingly rare affordable and accessible housing and stability. Many say they’ve experienced homelessness in the past and fear being back on the streets.
This past March tenants asked the court system to allow them to stay in their homes while the case moves along.
The trial is scheduled for April 2027.