06/12/2026
The Kansas City landlord who let raw sewage back up into his tenant's basements, who left families without hot water for weeks while pests lived in the walls, who pulled $1.7 million in cash out of their homes while refusing to fix the heat, just flew in from Chicago and signed nearly everything his tenants demanded.
His name is Yisroel Levovitz. He owns a block of apartments on North Lawn Avenue in Kansas City's Historic Northeast, where the exterior doors do not lock and the heat has not worked in some units for years.
One of his tenants, A Naing, spent weeks boiling water on his stove so his blind father and his mother, who has cancer, could bathe. The vent over that stove is broken too, so every time he cooks, his mother cannot breathe and has to leave the apartment. Another tenant, Artemio Barrera, a longtime resident on dialysis, has spent more than a thousand dollars of his own money patching walls where rodents burrowed through, fixing what his landlord refused to fix. "Yisroel, our homes are not your investment," Artemio told him at a rally in May. "I'll see you at the bargaining table."
On Thursday, Levovitz showed up to that table. The tenants had organized 94 percent of the occupied units under his ownership into the North Lawn Tenant Union, building their supermajority with the support of KC Tenants, the citywide tenant union. And the man who built his business on the rot sat across from his own tenants for two hours, bargaining in three languages. When he stood up, the union had won.
Every dollar of rent debt, erased. Rent frozen at $400 a month for tenants at 135 and 137 North Lawn and reduced to $700 across the street. New leases for every tenant, written in their preferred language, by July 1. The repairs these families begged for now come with deadlines: air conditioners in every unit within two weeks, comprehensive pest control within 30 days, sewage remediation within 60, working heat by October 1.
And the concession that could change who owns the block: Levovitz confirmed he plans to sell the buildings, and the signed agreement gives the union the right of first refusal and at least 60 days notice before any sale. The tenants who organized these buildings now hold a signed path toward taking their homes off the speculative market for good.
The money tells you who this man is. Levovitz bought these buildings in 2023 with a $2 million loan, refinanced in 2025, and walked away with $1.7 million in cash while his tenants boiled water. This spring, he began shopping his entire 100-unit Kansas City portfolio to the next speculator. The union had other plans. In two weeks, they more than tripled their membership. That supermajority is what put Levovitz on a plane.
"We organized, and we won, again," said Artemio, a member of the union's bargaining team. "We're elderly folks, folks with disabilities and chronic illnesses, immigrants and refugees, single moms, and young families who have come together to fight for the homes we deserve. We are optimistic, and we're not done yet."
The agreement is tentative, pending final negotiations early next week. But the people of North Lawn have already settled the larger question. They were told their homes were an investment. They organized until the man holding the deed flew across the country to agree with them, in writing.
When tenants organize, tenants win.
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