Here are the faces of MPHA Commissioners. They are the agents of privatization and the ending of public housing as a public good in Minneapolis. When Trump and Carson gave them the green light to end public housing, MPHA, Mayor Frey, and Minneapolis City Council Members lobbied HUD for approval. The Minneapolis City Council Members who wrote letters to HUD and passed a city resolution to end public housing as we know it are; Andrea Jenkins, Jeremiah Ellison, Lisa Bender, Kevin Reich, Alondra Cano, Jeremy Schroeder, Phillip Cunningham, Lisa Goodman, Steve Fletcher, AndrewJohnson, Cam Gordon, and Abdi Warsame who is now the current Executive Director of MPHA.
Furthermore, the State Senator who led a letter campaign to HUD to let them know it was okay to implement Section 18 to privatize over 740 single-family homes was Kari Dziedzic. Let us not forget that all of the Minneapolis House Representatives and County Commissioners ignored calls to action from the public and stood by watching. The former and current Congress Members who chose to be hostile, dismissive, and complicit to public housing residents who called and met with them to stop the privatization of public housing are Keith Ellison and Ilhan Omar. Don’t forget their names; this is what privatization and the end of Minneapolis Public Housing looks like. Public housing residents are over 80% Black, Black Immigrants, and seniors on a fixed income, and people with disabilities. This is historic as we face the biggest housing and homelessness crisis in recent decades, and the City of Minneapolis declared that racism is a public health crisis.