“We Are Here to Stay”: The Fight for Cedarwood & Rosewood Tenants
Jami has spent her life fighting for dignity in a world that often seems to forget people like her. Born with spinal muscular dystrophy and diagnosed at the age of four, doctors predicted she wouldn’t survive beyond five years old. But Jami defied the odds. She walked until she was 15, though every step was a struggle.
“I was miserable,” she recalls. “It wasn’t until I received my first wheelchair that I felt real freedom — a feeling that walking had never given me.”
In 1988, she left her parents’ house for a dorm at Southwest Baptist University, seeking independence despite the challenges. A year later, she moved into an apartment in Willard and began classes at Missouri State University. By 1999, Jami finally found a place she could make her own — a two-bedroom, handicap-accessible apartment at Hunter’s Glen after being on the Springfield Housing Authority’s waiting list. Her friends came together to help her secure the deposit, and for nearly a decade, she made that apartment her home.
In 2008, she moved to Rosewood Estates, a cozy community of modest single-family homes owned by Wilhoit Properties. She grew tired of being crammed in an apartment, and the carpet from her old apartment hindered her wheelchair’s mobility, as the wheels would tear up the carpet. While she could enjoy a garage for extra storage space and hardwood floors to move around better, the house wasn’t fully accessible.
“My burners are on the back of the stovetop, and I don’t have a walk-in shower; however, I have a bathtub in my room.”
Despite the challenges, she modified the space as best she could with the help of her family and friends. For 17 years, she’s lived there, adapting as much as possible to make it work. Rosewood Estates was more than just a place to live; it was a home, and Jami made it her own in every way. She took pride in her space, keeping the hedges trimmed and the patio decorated with seasonal decor. The neighbors watched out for one another, and she cherished those connections. But in the spring of 2024, everything changed, and Jami found herself in a housing crisis.
Rosewood had come under new management by Bryan Properties and announced that the new owners planned to convert her and her neighbors’ homes into luxury 55+ senior living with rents starting at $2,600 a month, effectively pushing out low-income tenants like Jami. Suddenly, the home she had worked so hard to make livable, the place where she had set roots down and built a community, was under threat.
“This whole process had been frustrating because Wilhoit didn’t tell us anything,” Jami declared. “They sent a note out to all of us, saying people would be inspecting our homes — they weren’t very clear as to why. But I suspected they were in the process of selling our homes to a new owner.”
The fear of displacement hangs over Jami like a storm cloud. The thought of moving again, at this stage of her life, is daunting. Her home may not be fully accessible, but it is familiar, and she has made it work. More importantly, it houses the ceiling lift that helps her in and out of bed — something that would be incredibly difficult to reinstall elsewhere. Finding another apartment that accommodates her disabilities feels like an impossible task.
“Who would pay for that? Who would help me move?” she asks, her voice tarnished with worry and agitation.
Jami’s story is part of a larger crisis. Thousands of Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) units, like those at Rosewood, are set to lose their affordability in the coming years, threatening to push countless low-income residents into homelessness.
Shortly after hearing the news, the tenants started receiving notices to vacate without clear explanations. Jami, along with her neighbors, felt blindsided. Tenants were scrambling to find other housing with a few having been “successful” in securing alternate housing that was smaller, less accessible, and more expensive while most were unsuccessful, despite filling out numerous rental applications and paying an inordinate amount on associated fees. She and her neighbors were in a bind. Where would they go?
It wasn’t until Jami heard from her neighbor, Ramona, about the Cedarwood Terrace tenants fighting the same battle as the Rosewood Estates tenants, with support from Springfield Tenants Unite (STUN), that she learned the mass evictions perpetrated against Rosewood tenants by the new owners were unlawful. Under the terms of the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC), tenants were supposed to be protected against arbitrary, retaliatory, or discriminatory eviction for three years after the program ended. Armed with this knowledge, Jami joined forces with tenants from both Cedarwood Terrace and Rosewood Estates, organizing through STUN to challenge their landlords’ practices.
Together, Cedarwood and Rosewood tenants secured a major victory. The department responsible for overseeing LIHTC, the Missouri Housing Development Commission (MHDC), ruled that the mass evictions violated the terms of the LIHTC program. This gave Jami and her neighbors some temporary relief — the protections will expire in July 2026.
Jami knows the clock is ticking, but she and her fellow tenants aren’t giving up. Since she started organizing, Jami has been a core leader in the fight to prevent Rosewood and Cedarwood from being turned into luxury developments. She and her neighbors had the clarity in knowing the kind of power they would have to build to force their new, shared landlord to the table. After a whirlwind month of door knocking, phone calls, meetings, research, and collective strategizing, Cedarwood and Rosewood established their majority unions with more than 60% of tenants from both properties having signed up to join and signing their joint demand letter. Their goal is clear:
“We want to negotiate prolonged housing agreements with our landlord Bryan Properties and ensure that our homes aren’t turned into luxury developments that price us out.”
She understands the stakes — not just for herself, but for the thousands of other low-income tenants in Springfield whose homes are at risk as LIHTC units lose their affordability. She’s seen what happens when people are forced out of their homes without anywhere to go. Regardless of the uphill battle she and many face, Jami believes in the power of collective action.
“Your story matters,” she tells people — “I have said this often, especially as a person from the disability advocacy world, but it applies to the fight for housing justice.”
Through STUN, Jami has found a community of people who are willing to stand up and fight for their homes. Together, they have already won a small victory in the face of overwhelming odds. Jami’s determination now shines through. She’s proven that survival isn’t just about enduring — it’s about pushing back, advocating for what’s right, and believing in a future where everyone has a place to call home.
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