KANSAS CITY, Mo – A couple arrested in their own home for trespassing blames a program paid for by Jackson County’s anti-drug tax.
The
COMBAT quarter-cent sales tax is up for renewal on Tuesday. Supporters say it has help shut down an estimated 13,000 drug homes since its inception in 1989.
Jeff Helkenberg and Jessica Logsdon say they unknowingly bought one of the former drug houses in July of 2008, and believe the bureaucracy of the program landed them in handcuffs.
On Thursday, Helkenberg and Logsdon were still moving items into their home, more than a year after paying $19,000 cash for the home in the Northeast neighborhood of Kansas City.
“It was going to be a place where we could pursue our dreams,” Helkenberg said.
Despite the crime and boarded-up buildings across the street, he thought it would be a perfect place to work on his math research. Logsdon, who has the
“Keyhole Gallery” at 1903 Wyandotte in the Crossroads District, thought the home’s large windows created an ideal art studio.
But after buying the home, police approached the couple one day in the front yard, and told them they would have to leave or be arrested for trespassing. The reason? There had been a drug bust at the home several years earlier.
“They just showed up, assumed we were drug dealers because we live at the house, and told us we couldn’t live there,” said Helkenberg.
The bust had landed the home on a Drug Abatement Response Team (DART) list. The program is intended to keep arrested dealers from posting bond and immediately moving back into drug homes, according to Jackson County Prosecutor Jim Kanatzar.
Before they bought it in 2008, a codes inspector had declared the couple’s home uninhabitable. County leaders say a new inspection could have quickly fixed the problem.
“You can’t live in a house that’s not up to code and has been deemed unfit for occupancy, whether it had been a DART house before or just a house that was a rehab project,” said Kanatzar.
Helkenberg and Logsdon say the message was never communicated. For months, they pulled permits to work on home improvements and tried to schedule an inspection. Logsdon said they continually requested a list of things needed to be removed from the DART list.
“They never gave me any answers and that became very frustrating because they were taking property rights and not explaining why,” she said. “It seems like the people on the ground level were confused about how to take us off the list because there didn’t seem to be a process to do so.”
In October, an investigator showed up at the house to post another “notice to vacate” sign on the door. The couple protested and the investigator called police. Both Helkenberg and Logsdon were arrested for trespassing.
“They didn’t want to let a city housing code inspector come in and that seemed to be, for whatever reason, where things broke down,” Kanatzar said.
Two days after the arrest, a codes inspector checked out the home and declared it safe. The couple can now live in the home without worrying about breaking the law. However, they still face charges for trespassing and have a court date scheduled in December.
Kanatzar said the story is an anomaly in what has been an effective anti-drug approach in neighborhoods. The prosecutor said the hope of the program is to get law-abiding citizens to move into former drug homes and rehabilitate them.
“The system functioned the way it should have,” he said. “It may not have functioned exactly the way this couple wanted it to, but it does function and does function regularly.”
