Dear Allies:

Tomorrow, Monday November 15, MPHA and the City of Minneapolis Planning Commission plan to approve the demolition of 16 single-family public housing homes. This vote comes after MPHA hid these plans from public housing residents and only collected comments from their network of white nonpublic housing residents. They want to approve these plans without notifying or holding community meetings with public housing residents and without providing a 30-day comment period or adequate translation of any informational materials.

On top of all of these failures, MPHA is currently facing a class-action civil rights lawsuit brought by public housing residents. One of the several items brought up in the suit is that MPHA is literally an illegal landlord – it has been operating without a rental license for years.

We are calling on public allies to submit public comment to the Minneapolis Planning Commission. A sample letter is included on the next page along with contact information for each of the Planning Commission members. There are two ways to submit public comment.

Email members of the planning commission.
Jeremy Schroeder: jeremy.schroeder@minneapolismn.gov
Chris Meyer: cmeyer@minneapolisparks.org
Kimberly Camprinil: Kimberly.Caprini@mpls.k12.mn.us
Andrew Frenz: andrew.frenz@minneapolismn.gov

Contact the CMs of the wards of the following addresses, each of which the planning commission is voting tomorrow to privatize.
1030 Lowry Ave NE, Minneapolis, MN (Ward 1, incoming CM Elliot Payne, outgoing CM Kevin Reich)
1600 and 1606 Penn Ave N, Minneapolis, MN (Ward 5, CM Jeremiah Ellison)
2015 23rd Ave S, Minneapolis, MN (Ward 6, CM Jamal Osman)
2021 24th Ave S, Minneapolis, MN (Ward 6, CM Jamal Osman)
2425 16th Ave S, Minneapolis, MN (Ward 9, incoming CM Jason Chavez, outgoing CM Alondra Cano)
2220 38th St E, Minneapolis, MN (Ward 12, CM Andrew Johnson)
5633 34th Ave S, Minneapolis, MN (Ward 12, CM Andrew Johnson)
5139 Penn Ave S, Minneapolis, MN (Ward 13, CM Linea Palmisano)

Submit public comment formally. Please do the following by 1:30 PM Monday November 15th.
Click on the link https://www.minneapolismn.gov/government/meetings/public-hearing-speaker-sign-up/
Choose Board Or Commission under meeting type
Choose Nov 15 @ 4:30 under Independent Board/Body
Pick 1030 Lowry Ave NE Under Nov 15th public hearing agenda items
Add your name, email, and ward.
Upload the letter attachment (Letter will have to be turned into PDF or docx)
The zoom link to the meeting will be sent to your email an hour before the meeting starts.
The meeting will take place on Monday November 15th as 4:30 PM on Zoom. Here is its agenda.

See the sample letter below:

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Dear Planning Commission,

I am writing to express my opposition to the demolition of 16 scattered site public housing homes in Minneapolis, 8 of which are currently under consideration by this commission. These plans do not merit approval for the following reasons:

• The applications submitted by MPHA fail to specify the level of affordability for the units. These scattered site homes are public housing, which charge 30% of the tenants’ income as rent. MPHA’s application states their intention to build “deeply affordable” housing. Traditionally, “deeply affordable” housing refers to housing set at 30% AMI. This is not the same as charging 30% of a tenants income. The AMI for a family of 4 in the Twin Cities is $104,900. Meanwhile, the median income for families at MPHA is $10,758. 

• Rents set at 30% AMI are prohibitively expensive for the population currently served by public housing, to say nothing of the thousands of people on the waitlist for public housing. Will rents of the new housing be set at 30% AMI or at 30% residents’ income? Right now, there is no legal guarantee that current residents will be able to stay in their homes. Will residents be able to come back?

• MPHA failed to notify public housing residents about these plans. In fact, public housing residents only learned about them after Neighbors for More Neighbors tweeted their followers soliciting their support for these applications.We do not doubt that you have heard some comments from this network. A white-dominated organization composed mostly of wealthy and upwardly mobile residents in support of this plan, coupled with a complete failure to engage with and seek feedback from BIPOC public housing residents and low-income families, must be named for what it is: the perpetuation of white supremacy in Minneapolis.

• The public narrative has been full of misinformation. Neighbors for More Neighbors’ initial tweet claimed that new “public housing was coming to Minneapolis.” The opposite is happening. MPHA is demolishing public housing and replacing it with denser private housing, the entire point of the Section 18 conversion process. These homes, once converted through Section 18, may be operated by one of MPHA’s shell companies, but they will not be public housing. Once public housing is privatized, it is easier for the operating agency or company  to sell properties to other private landlords and increase rents. 

• THERE IS AN ONGOING CLASS-ACTION LAWSUIT AGAINST THE CITY OF MINNEAPOLIS, MPHA (AND ITS NON-PROFIT SUBSIDIARY CHR) FOR MPHA NOT HAVING A RENTAL LICENSE AND MISTREATING PUBLIC HOUSING RESIDENTS. HOW CAN THE CITY PLANNING COMMISSION APPROVE THESE PLANS WHILE THIS ISSUE IS BEING LITIGATED? 

• It is clear that these 8 applications do not merit approval until the following conditions are met: 

1. MPHA must hold public meetings for public housing residents and the greater public to explain these plans.
2. All public housing residents must be notified by mail about these plans and invited to community meetings to share feedback about these plans.
3. There must be a 30 day comment period that includes translation and interpretation services. 
4. The Civil Rights Class Action Lawsuit against MPHA is settled and the agency brought under compliance of local and State laws. 

The future of public housing in general (and these 8 scattered site homes in particular) is an urgent social, racial, and housing justice matter that warrants genuine public engagement and participation, not rubber stamps and backroom negotiations. A failure to pause the approval process to allow input from the populations most impacted by the decisions you make today would represent nothing less than the perpetuation of the system of white supremacy that has inflicted untold violence on the Black and Brown residents of this city for well over a hundred years.

Sincerely,

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Stop the privatization of public housing.