
Ramona Teeter addresses the press with the help of Sarah Barnts at the historic courthouse in Springfield, Missouri on May 28, 2025. Barnts is an organizer for citywide union Springfield Tenants Unite and has helped the Rosewood-Cedarwood Tenants Union organize since the summer of 2024. (Photo by Hope Davis)
This story was co-published in collaboration with Shelterforce, the only independent, non-academic publication covering the worlds of affordable housing, community development and housing justice.
Ramona Teeter planned to live at the Rosewood Estates, her home for nearly two decades, for the rest of her life. The 79-year-old is bold, direct, and does not fear asking questions.
So six years ago, when the Springfield, Missouri, subdivision became eligible to leave the federal low income housing tax credit program, Teeter asked management if they had plans to opt out. Teeter says she was reassured that her affordable housing was safe.
Now, she’s a leader in a Springfield tenants union suing their landlords to keep their homes past 2026, after the properties’ owner quietly left the affordable housing program. As a union made up of working parents, seniors, and people with disabilities, the Rosewood-Cedarwood Tenants Union says it’s fighting to protect the quality of life made possible by accessible affordable housing.
The Rosewood Estates and Cedarwood Terrace sister properties were financed with low income housing tax credits (LIHTC) two decades ago, and subject to LIHTC’s rent affordability requirements. Last week, members of the Rosewood-Cedarwood Tenants Union filed two lawsuits. A class-action lawsuit accuses former and current property owners of violating the lease and tenants’ rights by opting out of the LIHTC program without notifying residents until two years after they were required to do so; a second suit seeks compensation for tenants who say they were displaced under false pretenses and against federal regulations.
Tenant lawyers say this kind of LIHTC litigation is rare and note that the class-action lawsuit relies upon unique protections for LIHTC tenants in Missouri. But their fight has national implications as well.
LIHTC properties make up the largest share of federally supported housing in the country. In exchange for the tax credits, companies are required to keep the properties affordable for 30 years. The 30-year expiration date already poses an issue for affordable housing; a legal loophole known as the qualified contract process allows owners to opt out of the program after 15 years if the state doesn’t find a qualified buyer for the property that will keep it in the program within a year of being notified of the owner’s desire to sell.
About 200,000 units will be eligible to revert to market rate in the next five years, according to data from the National Low Income Housing Coalition and the Public and Affordable Housing Research Corporation.
The tenant union’s attorney, Gina Chiala, says the lawsuits brought by the Rosewood-Cedarwood tenants highlight a lack of oversight over companies that opt out of the LIHTC program after 15 years. Chiala is the executive director of the Heartland Center for Jobs and Freedom, a Kansas City–based legal group that represents workers and tenants.
While advocacy groups track affordable housing lost to lapsed tax credits, Chiala says less is known about housing supply lost to companies that cut corners as they exit the program. In fact, it was Teeter who came to the Heartland center with a lease addendum that outlined their rights if their property owner wants to exit LIHTC in the state of Missouri — including a requirement for property owners to notify tenants when they apply to opt out.
Segura, who provided technical assistance on one of the cases, says it’s not common for states to add additional rights for LIHTC tenants like the ones referenced in the lease addendum. The addendum is a required part of LIHTC leases in Missouri, but little attention has been paid to it before these lawsuits.
“It just so happens that these tenants were particularly strong and organized and they figured out that their rights had been violated and reached out to us,” Chiala says. “Which really just makes me wonder, ‘How common is this?’”
Tenants suspect changes
Teeter and Jami Johnson, another Rosewood Estates resident, both began to suspect their subdivision would change hands when they saw empty homes sit vacant and annual visits from the state stopped. When Johnson’s sister wanted to move to the neighborhood, Johnson says, management told her they would no longer rent out units.
Like Teeter, Johnson has lived at Rosewood Estates, a LIHTC property, for nearly two decades, and both women have strong friendships with their neighbors. They’re now leaders of the Rosewood-Cedarwood Tenants Union and plaintiffs in the class-action lawsuit against their current and former landlords.
Rosewood Estates has 32 one-story houses, homes suitable for people with disabilities and seniors who want to age in place. Fourteen residents have severe disabilities and share 24-hour care in the neighborhood, according to the lawsuit. Johnson, who uses a motorized wheelchair, lives independently in a home she has upgraded with accessible features at her own expense.
Next City/Shelterforce obtained an October 2023 letter telling Rosewood tenants their units had been “randomly selected for an important walk-through inspection.” The letter did not mention that the person doing the “inspecting” would be a buyer with plans to convert Rosewood Estates to luxury housing.
In January 2024, Wilhoit Property Management — a subsidiary of defendant Zimmerman Properties — sent residents a letter explaining that the property was under contract to be sold, and that the new owners would abide by LIHTC restrictions. The sale went through that February.
“I don’t think I ever thought that wouldn’t be true,” Johnson says.
The lawsuit claims that Wilhoit had already requested to leave the LIHTC program in 2022 and was released by the Missouri Housing Development Commission (MHDC) in 2023. Chiala provided Next City/Shelterforce with the request to opt out for Cedarwood Terrace and says the Heartland Center is waiting for a records request to produce the Rosewood Estates document.
Tenants rally in solidarity with the Rosewood-Cedarwood Tenants Union at the historic courthouse in Springfield, Missouri on May 28, 2025. (Photo by Hope Davis)
A lease provision that MHDC mandates for LIHTC properties requires that companies notify tenants when they request to opt out of the LIHTC program. The class action lawsuit argues that Zimmerman and Wilhoit did not provide notice, and therefore acted unlawfully and violated tenants’ rights when they exited the program, making that exit illegitimate. None of the lawsuit defendants returned requests for comment.
Displacement
When Emily Hester found a notice to vacate on April 1, 2024, she thought it was an April Fool’s joke. The notice went to all Cedarwood Terrace residents, telling them to leave their homes by Aug. 31.
Hester and Shellastine Williams, both tenant union leaders, are working single mothers who live in Cedarwood, a development of townhomes in north Springfield. They describe finding a supportive and safe community for their families there.
“We don’t have to wonder about what affordable housing and strong community can do for a person,” Hester told the press. “We are living proof.”
Both women say their lives were upended by the notice. Williams says she had to withdraw from nursing school and use her tuition money to look for a new place to live.
That same spring, Rosewood tenants found a sign posted in their neighborhood promising luxury homes “coming soon.” When residents went to renew their leases, they say, they were offered month-to-month agreements instead.
Teresa Myers also had planned to live at Rosewood the rest of her life. She went to the new management company, Bryan Properties, when the sign went up. According to the lawsuit, “a Bryan Properties employee told Ms. Meyers that she could receive a notice to vacate at any time.” The lawsuit explains that managers told Myers the notice would give her two months to vacate, but she knew it would be hard to find housing that would be both affordable and accessible in such a short time.
Because the Missouri Housing Development Commission released Rosewood and Cedarwood from LIHTC restrictions in 2023, the properties remain in what is know as a “decontrol period” until 2026. In this time period, according to federal law, rents cannot legally rise more than the LIHTC program would have allowed and tenants cannot be removed without good cause, which is usually limited to lease violations or nonpayment. Missouri adds an additional requirement that rents cannot be raised more than 7% per year during the decontrol period.
The new property owners rescinded the notices to vacate in July 2024, after residents reached out to MHDC about them, but Myers and others had already left.
Teresa Myers and her guidedog, Blackberry, address the press at the Historic Courthouse in Springfield, Missouri on May 28, 2025. Myers left her home in Rosewood Estates when the affordable property was slated to become luxury housing. She told the crowd what accessible housing and the community at Rosewood meant for her quality of life. (Photo by Hope Davis)
Myers is now a plaintiff in the tenants’ second lawsuit seeking damages for tenants who left as a result of notices to vacate or because their leases were under threat. At a May 28 press conference, Myers said she moved because she was afraid of becoming homeless. She claims property managers misled her when she moved into Rosewood in 2021 and asked about the security of the property’s tax-credit affordability rules.
As a deaf-blind person, Myers said, she found Rosewood ideal. The neighborhood of one-story homes near a nature trail allowed her to garden and safely walk miles a day. She became close with neighbors, including other blind people who she could share paratransit rides with. With her hearing aids, she could hear birds and children playing.
Now, Myers says she lives in an apartment complex next to a busy road. She hears traffic outside and finds the parking lot hard to navigate with her guide dog, making public transit less accessible. At the press conference, Myers described an incident when her cane was crushed by a car as she tried to cross the road. She feels isolated.
“Most of all, I miss my friends at Rosewood,” Myers said at the press conference. “I miss the other blind people who got our jokes. I miss friends to visit and trade food with. I miss the beautiful voice of my neighbor. I want a place like Rosewood for everyone.”
Getting organized
In summer 2024, residents started organizing with the help of Springfield Tenants Unite (STUN), a citywide tenants union, and contacted their representative in the state legislature, who helped them understand their rights under LIHTC in Missouri.
In July 2024, tenants also received letters from management telling them what new owners Mitchell and Amanda Jenkins had planned. After the decontrol period ended in 2026, the letters said, Rosewood would become luxury housing for renters aged 55 and older. Cedarwood’s townhomes would be sold to individual buyers. (The lease addendum that requires notice of an application to opt out also states that the owner must “provide the tenant with the first right of refusal” to convert the property to homeownership.)
The tenants began engaging in negotiations with the new property owners. Jenkins agreed to compensate displaced residents up to $800 for moving expenses and offered to cover up to $150 for those who applied to other properties and prepared to leave. According to a document from the negotiations, Myers spent over $3,000 on her move.
Jenkins did not agree to keep the properties affordable past 2026. Vacant units from both properties have already been listed at market rate.
Because Mitchell Jenkins walked through the homes, Teeter argues, he knew he was buying homes of disabled residents, including several group homes with 24-hour care. She tells Next City/Shelterforce that she asked him about it directly.
“So you knew,” Teeter recalls saying to Jenkins. “You knew when you came into my house and you played with my dog. You knew what you were going to do to me.”
She says he is treating the tenants as a means to accumulate “unnecessary wealth.”
While the class-action lawsuit accuses former owners of the initial notice violation, it also names the current owners and property management groups as defendants, arguing that they are violating tenant rights by continuing to exit the program after former owners violated the notice requirements. Lawyers for the tenants argue that the notice violation makes the exit unlawful and void, and are asking the court to put the properties back in the program. The lawsuits also argue that the current owners attempted to bypass the requirements of the decontrol period with the notices to vacate. The defendants did not respond to requests for comment.
The lawsuits also cite the Missouri Merchandising Practices Act, which “prohibits the use of any deception, fraud, false pretense” in connection with selling merchandise. Under this law, Chiala says, Jenkins is responsible for knowing whether Zimmerman followed the law in opting out of the LIHTC program.
Loopholes and loss of LIHTC
Housing advocates know the loss of LIHTC units spells disaster for affordable housing in the United States. If the average person hears about LIHTC at all, it may be when there is a loss of affordable units after the 30-year affordability period ends.
But thousands of LIHTC units are also lost after 15 years as properties exit under the program’s qualified contract provision, as Rosewood and Cedarwood did. Marcos Segura, an attorney at the National Housing Law Project who focuses on LIHTC, says the qualified contract process was intended as a way states could find affordable housing providers to buy LIHTC properties while allowing companies to opt out of the program early. But with no guarantee that states will find a buyer that will preserve the housing as affordable in the required time frame, the qualified contract becomes a loophole.
Segura says the Rosewood-Cedarwood case represents the qualified contract problem “in a nutshell.”
Several states — including Missouri — now require or encourage new LIHTC participants to waive their right to opt out via the qualified contract process, but these policies don’t affect properties that received tax credits before they were in place.
Chiala suspects more companies are cutting corners as they opt out of LIHTC and displacing tenants because they can get away with it … if no one is looking. She says the Heartland Center wants to be a “watchful eye” for these LIHTC properties in Missouri.
“We want to know — whether it’s in Kansas City or St. Louis or Joplin or Springfield — whether these companies are opting out unlawfully in violation of tenants’ rights,” Chiala says. “Because we need these properties to stay in the LIHTC program as long as possible.”
Chiala says the cases are possible because the Rosewood-Cedarwood tenants were ready to organize and learn their rights.
Teeter says this started with asking questions. “We were just asking questions and exploring possibilities and asking, ‘Why? What’s going on here?’” Teeter says. She advises tenants in other LIHTC properties to do the same: “Dig… . Don’t take anything for granted.”
“It’s inconvenient. It disrupts your life, but pay attention to what you’re signing. Ask questions. Know when your development was built, when your LIHTC provisions went into effect,” Teeter says. “Don’t just assume this is going to go on forever. Because it ain’t.”
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This post was originally published on Next City.