COVID-19 placed a magnifying glass on inequities in the Kansas City area

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Updated: 9:50 PM CST Nov 8, 2020

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Matt Flener

KMBC 9 News Investigative Reporter

Since the pandemic began, we’ve heard “we’re all in this together.”

But, coronavirus case data in Kansas City, and across the country, shows that’s not true.

“COVID didn’t break our systems,” said Frank Thompson, with the Kansas City, Missouri, Health Department. “COVID exposed our broken systems.”

COVID-19 has magnified the cracks in systems of health care, education, housing and poverty. And, at the same time, it’s shown how those cracks disproportionately affect people of color.

“We see the unfairness,” said Pastor Daniel L. Freeman, with New Beginning Baptist Church. “We hear it.”

Freeman battled COVID-19 after a positive diagnosis. He's also one of the people working to help others through some of the toughest times of their lives.

KMBC 9 talked to Kansas City-area leaders in health care, housing, and education, and we talked to people on the other side, the ones most affected by the coronavirus pandemic. One question we asked everyone – how would you define equity and inequity?

Kansas City, Missouri, Health Department Violence Prevention and Policy Manager Marvia Jones said, to her, inequity is “the inability of one group to access the same opportunities that another is able to access.”

Tara Raghuveer works as the director of the KC Tenants organization. “Inequity, I think, expresses itself in certain groups getting more, and starting from a more advanced position to begin with," she said.

Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines inequity as injustice, unfairness, and equity as justice according to natural law or right.

“A simple analogy of equity would be, if it’s your house, you have a flower bed in the front of your house, and you have a flower bed at the back of your house – and the flower bed on the back of your house doesn’t get as much sun as the flower bed on the front of your house. You’re going to treat those flower beds different,” Vibrant Health CEO Patrick Sallee said. “You’re going to work harder on the back side that doesn’t get as much sun to make sure they look the same, and you have healthy flowers and a beautiful bed on both sides – that’s equity.”

He looks at equality differently.

“Equality would be treating them the same, that they need the same amount of water, they need the same amount of fertilizer, and they’ll be fine. You’re going to get different results,” he said.

As president and CEO of the Health Forward Foundation in Kansas City, Qiana Thomason has seen the statistics. Her foundation’s mission is to have healthy people living in healthy communities – the Health Forward Foundation strives to provide leadership, advocacy and resources to eliminate barriers and promote quality health for the uninsured and underserved communities in our area.

“When we look at the data right here in Kansas City, we see that Black and Brown people alone have confirmed case rates at over 50 percent, while they only represent 32 percent of the population in Kansas City,” she said. “So that data alone speaks to the inequities that exist in COVID-19 and speak to the underlying inequities that have always existed.”

According to CDC data where race is known, non-white groups represent a majority of coronavirus cases across the country.

Pastor Freeman is a COVID-19 survivor. He talked about his diagnosis to his church in a live service broadcast on the church’s Facebook page.

“God may have put me in this position because he knew I could handle it with his help,” Freeman said during that service. “To show you, the membership, that you don’t want this.”

Freeman said as Undershepherd of his flock, it’s his job to make sure the people in his charge are taken care of.

“I keep the pulse ox – I have one at home, and I have one here at the church,” he told KMBC 9. “I stayed seven days in that hospital. Seven days in that hospital, thank God by his mercy and his grace, I did not have to go on a ventilator. Some of my good friends passed away from the COVID.

“When you get to that stage with the pneumonia in your lungs, it’s very, very aggressive. If I was at home, being a man, I probably wouldn’t have went. I probably would’ve just said, ‘Well, let me sit here and relax.’ When you look at the inequities dealing with the COVID – we have more African-Americans who have come down with it,” he said. “We have more African-Americans who have died from it.”

“They had on these plastic little bodysuit things with two masks, and I was just like, ‘Dang, I really got this corona,” Breauna Dixon said.

Dixon reached out to KMBC 9 Investigates in July.

KC woman pregnant, positive for COVID-19 and facing eviction

A mother of a young boy and pregnant with twins at the time, she was rushed to the hospital due to the possibility the twins might come early.

While at Truman Medical Center, she also tested positive for COVID-19.

When she left the hospital and returned to her home at the Ruskin Place Apartments, she found a letter from the management company demanding payment for more than $2,300 in rent.

"Since I am positive for the corona and I did lose my job, and I've been communicating with them, I don't think they should give me eviction letters," Dixon said.

Ruskin Place’s former owner – an affiliate of T.E.H. Realty, the subject of extensive investigation by KMBC 9 into dangerous living conditions inside T.E.H. properties. Managing partner and Vice President of T.E.H., Michael Fein, is now facing federal charges of wire fraud and fraudulent bank loans.

“So, in my eviction research, I found that T.E.H. Realty, an out of state corporation, was one of the biggest evictors in Kansas City, and has been for the last several years,” Raghuveer said. “So then fast-forwarding to COVID, right? In a context like this, a company like T.E.H. becomes exponentially more dangerous than they were before, and they were really dangerous before. The reason for that is that the living conditions are already uninhabitable.

“Then you add in a public health emergency where your home is to be a safe haven,” she said. “But, your home is actually what’s making you sick.”

Dixon dealt with mold in her home, and sinks stopped up for long periods of time. Other tenants reported units infested with rats, ongoing problems with leaks, flooding and water bills. These were the homes where people were expected to remain and live during Kansas City’s stay-at-home order in the early weeks of the pandemic.

“I think COVID has offered us a moment of clarity about how desperately broken our systems were,” Raghuveer said.

“It just don’t make sense,” Dixon said. “It don’t make sense at all. I just don’t want me and my son to be homeless because of stuff like this.”

James Owens is another leader with KC Tenants – the group that pushed for a tenant’s bill of rights in Kansas City, and continues to work to stop evictions while so many remain jobless due to the pandemic.

“Right now I have an awesome landlord who’s really good,” Owens said. “I don’t have any complaints. But, it took six years to find him. Before that I’ve had to throw away everything I own twice because of bedbugs.”

Owens said at the start of the pandemic, he was without work for two and a half months.

“From February, March, April – nothing,” he said. “A lot of public health officials have said, 'Oh yeah, stay at home. If you can work from home, stay at home.'”

Owens works as a contractor.

“You can’t phone-in a hammer blow, or phone-in a plumbing repair,” he said. “You have to be there, you have to get it done. And, if you don’t, you’re not making any money.”

Pointing to his two children, Owens said, “In the beginning, it was hard to make them understand that the world has changed for a while, you know? And we have to change with it or else you end up getting sick.”

Hear more from all of these people in the full special, "Chronicle: A Systemic Pandemic," on KMBC.com.