GARDNER, Kan. — It’s been four months since a viewer first tipped me off to the condemnation of the Aspen Place Apartments in Gardner, Kansas. Since then, I’ve kept in touch with displaced residents.
For one couple, getting evicted brought them to something better than they’d ever imagined.
I first met Victoria and Kevin Bledsoe in May. At that time, they'd lost their apartment.
The Bledsoes were among the hundreds of residents evicted from Aspen Place.
"We've been talking for a long time to get out of this place. It's a terrible place to live, to be honest,” Kevin Bledsoe said in May.
The city of Gardner condemned the 180-unit apartment complex over serious health and safety hazards, including issues with water, sewer and road systems.
Now, the Bledsoes have landed on their feet.
“I don't got to go to work worrying about: Am I gonna come home to water everywhere or no water?” Kevin Bledsoe said.
For a few months, they stayed with family, but life created a brand-new change.
“So it's been a little bit of a journey for us, about three years. So we found out in July, about two months after we moved out of Aspen, that we were expecting,” Victoria Bledsoe said.
There's been other good things, too: an outpouring of community support and a new focus on growing their family.
“You know, tragedy brings the good out with people,” Kevin Bledsoe said.
It's giving the Bledsoes a new reason to look forward.
“There was something that just didn't want us to have any more than dogs and our cats when we were at Aspen,” Victoria Bledsoe said.
KSHB 41 reached out to Bell Law LLC, which has filed a class-action lawsuit on behalf of some Aspen Place residents, for an update on the lawsuit.
Bryce Bell, an attorney with the firm, said efforts are still ongoing, and “there’s a pending jurisdictional issue within federal court that we hope and assume to see resolved fairly quickly.”
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KSHB 41 reporter Elyse Schoenig covers the cities of Shawnee and Mission. She also focuses on issues surrounding the cost of health care, saving for retirement and personal debt. Share your story idea with Elyse.
