Lexington faith coalition pushes city to make information on bad landlords public
.jpg "An estimated 1,200 people attended the Nehemiah Action event hosted by BUILD, Building a United Interfaith Lexington through Direct Action, Tuesday at Central Bank Center.")
Last year, Cody Alvey said, her family rented a two-bedroom Lexington apartment that they later discovered was infested with mold from a leak in the ceiling.
For 10 months, the family paid $1,800 a month in rent, but the damage was never repaired, Alvey told a crowd downtown Tuesday night.
“Maintenance came and saw the problem, but no repair was made,” said Alvey, who was speaking at the faith coalition BUILD’s annual Nehemiah Action assembly at Central Bank Center.
After five months, Alvey said her family reported the problem to code enforcement, and she said a section of the ceiling was cut out.
For another five months after, she said, “water openly poured into our home” when it rained, causing thousands of dollars in damage to the family’s belongings.
There were repeat visits by code enforcement, and Alvey said the apartment complex was fined.
But to the company that owned the property, the fines “were merely a cost of doing business, not a punishment,” she said.
Alvey said her family tried to get legal representation but couldn’t find a lawyer in Lexington who would take the case.
One personal injury lawyer told her to call back when she slipped and fell in the water in her home, Alvey said.
Finally, she said, the apartment’s corporate office offered to break the family’s lease if the family agreed to leave within 30 days. No repair was ever made.
“We are not an isolated case,” said Alvey. “We need a system where a code violation leads to a repair, not a waiting game.”
And, she said, the city needs to make information about such incidents publicly available “long enough to warn the next family.”
BUILD, the Lexington faith coalition Alvey was speaking to, hopes to help make that happen by pressing the city to make code enforcement data about problem properties and landlords more accessible to the public.
“There’s no way to know what kind of landlord you’re getting when you sign the lease,” said Gail Swanson, who attends Christ Church Cathedral and is working with BUILD on the issue.
She said BUILD wants to “shine a light on the worst actors and give renters the information they deserve.”
But ultimately, she said the issue goes beyond that. The real problem, she said, is “there’s very little accountability” for the landlords, “and tenants have almost no power to push back.”
BUILD, which is working with the renters union KY Tenants on the issue, intends to explore longer-term policy changes that might help renters, but the first step, the faith coalition says, is making information available.
On Tuesday night, Charlie Lanter, the city’s commissioner of Housing Advocacy and Community Development, agreed to BUILD’s request to begin producing an annual report that will help BUILD and the public “clearly identify the landlords and properties with the most violations.”
At BUILD’s request, he also said he’ll propose making online code enforcement data searchable by property address and violation type.
Vice Mayor Dan Wu and Councilmember James Brown said they’ll help BUILD by cohosting a stakeholders meeting in January 2027 to discuss local rental housing conditions and policy solutions.
BUILD, which stands for Building a United Interfaith Lexington through Direct Action, is a diverse coalition of 26 Fayette County congregations that have worked to find solutions to a number of social justice issues for more than 20 years.
At each year’s Nehemiah Action assembly, they come together to seek commitments from public officials to help move the group’s initiatives forward.
An estimated 1,200 people attended Tuesday night’s assembly.
In past years, BUILD pushed the city to set up and fund its affordable housing trust fund and to address gun violence. The group has worked on healthcare for the uninsured, drug treatment for women in jail and racial disparities in discipline in Fayette County Public Schools.
Rev. Richard Gaines, of Consolidated Baptist Church, said BUILD challenges public officials “to see those on the margins.”
“There are gaps in the system we all depend on. Gaps in accountability. Gaps in access,” he said. “We love our neighbors as ourselves by finding proven solutions to these problems.”
In addition to the rental housing issue, BUILD has spent the past several years working to address transportation availability by pushing for a microtransit program.
The city is helping fund a pilot project for an on-demand ride service, and Lextran General Manager Fred Combs told the crowd Tuesday that his agency is planning to launch the pilot this fall.
He said Lextran is in the procurement process now to choose a contractor to provide the service.
BUILD is also continuing to work on supports for older adults who want to remain in their homes as they age but who may be isolated or unable to afford private care.
The nonprofit A Caring Place has partnered with BUILD to launch Villages, which are membership organizations that help older people stay socially connected and help them access services to enable them to remain at home safely.
The city’s first pilot Village was recently launched in the Beaumont and Gardenside area, and the next step is seeking grant funding to expand the model across the city, Belinda Snead, of Consolidated Baptist, told attendees Tuesday.
“We took something that had been talked about for years and moved it into action,” she said of the Villages concept.
