The Western Missouri and Kansas Laborers-Employers Cooperation and Education Trust (Mo-Kan LECET) is exploring a plan to support affordable housing development in Kansas City by using a coalition of union pension funds to close the gap on underfunded projects.
Is there precedence? The proposed pension investment approach has been used across the country to great success, like in Boston, where the AFL-CIO Housing Investment Trust and Boston Housing Authority have partnered to build hundreds of units in the Old Colony property, with the union investing $240 million over the last 16 years.
- This project, and all of the other projects nationwide funded by the AFL-CIO trust, are conditioned on the use of union labor, though Mo-Kan LECET is considering ditching this requirement.
What They’re Saying: Executive Director of Mo-Kan LECET Cameron Seip frames the proposal as a pragmatic response to the housing crisis:
“To me, it’s the builders of our community trying to solve the problems that we hear everybody talk about, and very few coming to the table with solutions. The reason that we’re at the table trying to make sure that these projects happen is because everyone benefits when the whole community has the basic needs for what this life requires.”
What’s Next: So far, the Kansas City Housing Authority has shown interest in partnering with the unions for its upcoming $2.6 billion, 7,000+ unit housing development plan.
