MPHA & Minneapolis Politicians Continue to Mislead The Public About Their Funds As They Reduce Section 9 Public Housing Stock

Abdi Warsame and Representative Hodan Hassan at the State Capitol asking for $35 million for MPHA

How can MPHA ( Minneapolis Public Housing Authority), Mayor Jacob Frey, and Minneapolis politicians, including our city council members, continue to request more funding for MPHA while simultaneously eliminating Section 9 public housing, reducing the housing stock, pushing to demolish Glendale Townhomes, and manipulating waitlist numbers?

We discovered another article from May 2024 by Brian Martucci in Racket that highlights how they are engaging in a PR campaign to mislead the public. 

Martucci’s article may be biased, but it sheds light on MPHA’s latest attempts to secure funding despite ongoing issues such as poor repairs, a growing waitlist, and a rise in homelessness. 

Where is this funding going?

MPHA continues to lie about its financial status in an attempt to get more funding. During the state legislative session, Abdi Warsame, Executive Director of MPHA, and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey asked state lawmakers for $35 million.  

https://racketmn.com/minneapolis-public-housing-authority-budget-cost-history

In this article, Abdi Warsame states that this funding would go directly into creating more units and addressing their long list of maintenance requests. When you look at the bill language it claims the $35 million will go to“deeply affordable units,” which aren’t real Section 9 Public Housing Units. These so-called “deeply affordable units” don’t actually refer to public housing, which requires tenants to pay only 30% of their monthly income for rent. We have no idea where all of these extra funds MPHA is getting in addition to their regular funding from HUD (which has increased by 45% for maintenance since 2017), are going.

More about MPHA efforts to privatize public housing. https://www.dgphc.org/2020/10/08/section-18-update-new-lease-mpha-is-forcing-residents-to-sign-has-huge-red-flags/ 

The bill requested $35 million and includes CHR as a recipient. 

The article continues to sell a story that public housing is old, in desperate need of repair, and lacks existing units for the MPHA waitlist. They even attempt to state that MPHA is underfunded, but last year, in 2023, MPHA received an additional $30 million for repairs and maintenance: 

Although Abdi Warsame claims that their lobbying efforts are meant to address their long list of maintenance requests, we know this is untrue. In fact, MPHA uses maintenance requests to slap tenants with random fees, which many residents can’t afford and they have yet to see any actual repairs. We reported on these fees back in 2022: https://www.dgphc.org/2022/03/30/mpha-uses-privatization-plan-to-burden-tenants-with-hidden-fees-amid-the-pandemic/. 

When Abdi Warsame says that MPHA wants and needs to build more units, we know it means demolishing current Section 9 public housing single-family homes known as scattered sites and building smaller units under private ownership Section 8 Project Based.  Here, the large families that were displaced from Sec.9 won’t qualify to come back because the units are too small, and the rent is based on the 30% AMI of the Minneapolis rental market, which is a lot higher than 30% of their actual income families were paying, protected under Section 9.

When the families in Section 18 privatized Project Based Section 8 houses can’t pay additional fees along with the rent every year, MPHA files for eviction, which is one way they reduce their wait. 

MPHA used Section 18, Demolition and Disposition, to destroy the scattered sites and privatize the land.  Their practices have led to many public housing families being displaced during demolition, so it is ridiculous that Warsame claims MPHA spent months working with families and told them that their new units would be bigger, even having more amenities. None of these claims became true. There was a lack of communication with tenants about demolition and the future of their units, which you can read more about here: https://www.dgphc.org/2021/10/27/city-council-pushes-mayor-freys-displacement-agenda/ 

MPHA can continue to cry wolf about a lack of funds, but we know that is far from true. These media efforts are nothing but MPHA begging for money so they can continue to privatize and eliminate public housing through this guise of “maintaining and rehabilitating” units. 

MPHA has many sources of public funding, whether through local government or through the exploitation of low-income residents. Where is this money going? Who has control of it, and how are residents seeing this funding show up for them? The agency is collecting more from their residents than ever before, so where is that money going? 

We call on state legislators to ask MHPA these questions before granting them millions to eliminate public housing. We also call on local media to stop selling this story that public housing is a failing system that MPHA is saving, when they are the reason it is getting eliminated. Defend Glendale & Public Housing Coalition is also not a “critic” of MPHA; we are public housing, a tenant-led group fighting off MPHA’s efforts of privatization, demolition, and displacement, and who aren’t afraid to ask MPHA the hard questions. 

On December 19, 2024, MPHA staff packed the Glendale Townhomes Recreation Center at Luxton Park, where Abdi Warsame officially announced to Glendale tenants that MPHA wants to bring back talks to demolish Glendale despite tenants’ decade-long fight to save their homes and protect their families from displacement and homelessness. Tenants told MPHA they are going to continue to fight. Do you think MPHA would come to us without City Hall’s approval? No.  Minneapolis media must step up and report the truth rather than enable a cover-up that fuels evictions and exacerbates the homelessness crisis.