MPHA recently announced their privatization of over 700 scattered sites (single-family and duplex) public housing homes in Minneapolis using HUD’s Section 18 Demolition and Disposition program. This is an unprecedented attack on our city’s public housing in the middle of a pandemic and an affordable housing crisis.
Section 18 converts public housing to private, Section 8 voucher housing. MPHA claims that nothing will change for residents: that they will stay in their homes and pay the same amount. But the new lease they are forcing residents to sign suggests otherwise.
Let’s walk through the major red flags one by one. Read the full lease here:
https://tinyurl.com/Sec18-Lease-Oct-1-2020
đźš©#1 – RENT INCREASES
Nowhere does the new lease state that residents will continue to pay 30% of their income toward rent. Instead, it claims that rent can be adjusted based on MPHA’s MTW agreement (MTW is a status that exempts MPHA from some HUD rules). What’s to stop the new owner of the properties, Community Housing Resources (CHR), from raising rents? Nothing!
đźš©#2 – RANDOM RECERTIFICATIONS
The lease states that MPHA can reexamine tenants’ incomes and family size at any time, even if they have just recently been certified. This is invasive and disrespectful to residents, who are already certified annually and are required to report changes as they occur. This is harassment and an excuse for MPHA to increase rent or evict tenants.
đźš©#3 – SLUMLORD FEES
MPHA says privatizing over 700 public housing units via Section 18 will bring in more money for repairs. But the new lease forces RESIDENTS to pay for repairs on top of their rent, up to $5000!
The lease contains three whole pages of maintenance and repair fees that residents will be responsible for. All CHR has to do is claim it was the residents’ fault. THIS IS NOT NORMAL! Tenants should not have to pay for upkeep – that’s what they pay their landlord for and that is what the rent is for and all the millions MPHA is getting for Section 18 and 42% increase of repair budget MPHA received from HUD yearly since 2017.
This is meant to price residents out! Displace and evict!
It also raises the question: if the extra money that’s supposedly being brought in by privatizing the homes isn’t going toward repairs, where is it going? Who is pocketing the money?
Those are the biggest red flags we noticed in the new lease. But we have other questions:
âť“ Why weren’t residents given the option to purchase their homes? MPHA sold the homes to CHR for $1 each. Why weren’t residents given that option?
âť“Why is MPHA forcing residents to sign the new lease when it hasn’t even been translated into languages all residents speak? Why does MPHA refuse to answer questions and provide clarification about specific parts of the lease and hold community meetings to explain the lease.
âť“What will happen to residents who refuse to sign? Will they be given a voucher and kicked out of their home? It’s practically impossible to find housing that accepts Section 8 vouchers anywhere in the city.
âť“Why is MPHA privatizing over 700 homes, opening them up to investors who could take over and displace residents, instead of asking the City of Minneapolis, Hennepin County, and the State of Minnesota for additional funding to keep public housing public? If money is an issue! But the more we dig this the more we find out funds is not a problem because MPHA is sitting over 23 million in surplus plus the millions they will receive from HUD for Section 18 and the 42% increase in their repair budget they receive yearly.
âť“Where are elected officials at the local, county, state, and federal levels as MPHA sells off Minneapolis’ most vital housing resource and public assets? They are all complicit in this disaster, which will disproportionately impact Black, Black Muslim, and Hmong families.
Our governments have enough money to keep public housing public. Elected officials need to step up and advocate for their constituents who are low-income public housing residents. We need to build more public housing, not destroy it!
In the meantime, MPHA needs to provide residents with a new lease that guarantees that rent (including all fees and utilities) will be NO GREATER THAN 30% OF RESIDENTS’ INCOMES and that residents WILL NOT BE DISPLACED! And they are not responsible for the extra charges MPHA is putting on residents that residents can not afford because they are too poor to pay.
MPHA claims on their public website that residents will continue to pay 30% of their income on rent after Section 18 privatization. So why isn’t that guaranteed in the lease? Why are they saying one thing in public & another thing to residents in private?
We demand answers from all of the elected officials in this email that have allowed this crisis to take place and the rest who have been complicit!
WE DEMAND A NEW LEASE!