Residents in KC Black neighborhoods risk losing homes

KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) – Residents in historically Black neighborhoods in the Kansas City, Kansas, risk losing their homes amid the pandemic as delinquent property tax sales resume under a practice critics decry as racist and government officials laud for revitalizing communities.

Even though it is just the state’s fourth largest county, the number of delinquent tax properties put up for sale by the Unified Government of Wyandotte County dwarfs those of much larger Kansas counties.

It typically offers about 2,200 properties annually at its three tax auctions.

Most are unsold and end up in the Wyandotte County Land Bank, a unit of its economic development department.

Wyandotte is the only county in Kansas to have its own land bank, although some cities in the state also have them.