Neighbors 4 More Neighbors (N4MN) is an organization that “stands up for secure, abundant homes for everyone in the Twin Cities.” According to their website, they trace their origin back to 2018, when they were forceful advocates for the Minneapolis 2040 Plan. This plan, which upzoned all of Minneapolis without meaningful anti-gentrification measures, demonstrated this organization’s main political strategy: characterizing all opposition to free-market housing solutions as backward, racist white “NIMBY” (Not In My Back Yard) homeowners afraid to lose parking spaces on their block.
But this strategy is also designed to obscure the organization’s own overwhelming whiteness and to erase the existence of nonwhite communities who opposed the 2040 plan due to concerns about gentrification. This same dynamic of elevating the opposition of wealthier white homeowners to libertarian “trickle-down” housing plans while ignoring or downplaying support from real estate developers, landlords, and financial institutions and a large base of young upwardly mobile white residents continues to characterize their work today.
Recently, N4MN decided to throw its hat in the ring in the ongoing battle over the future of public housing in Minneapolis. On one side of this battle are public housing residents, including Defend Glendale & Public Housing Coalition (DG&PHC), who have been fighting since 2014 to save their public housing communities from displacement and privatization. On the other side are large banks, real estate development and construction companies, Mayor Frey, the Minneapolis City Council, City of Mpls CPED, City of Minneapolis Planning Commission, nonprofit housing developers, and the Minneapolis Public Housing Authority (MPHA). This government agency, MPHA, is currently facing a civil rights lawsuit due to their mistreatment of public housing residents, whose negligence led to the deaths of 5 public housing residents at the Cedar Towers just two years ago, and who has a documented history of demolishing public housing while promising residents a right to return that failed to materialize – most notably during the Hollman Consent Decree saga of the 1990s and in 2019 Elliot Twins privatized through RAD conversion. Many of the Elliot Twins residents who fought back RAD were moved out to unknown locations, and MPHA proposed this eviction plan to Elliot residents. Royal Bank of Canada became the new owner as the slow displacement goes on.
Although N4MN’s recent tweet of “more public housing coming to Minneapolis” has been effectively cosigned by the MinnPost and the Star Tribune, it is downright wrong and non-factual. First, the new units will be built after Section 18 Demolition & Disposition conversion transforms the single-family homes from public housing to publicly subsidized yet privately owned. There is no guarantee the new units will be charged at 30% income for rent permanently. The new landlord of these properties will be one of three private-sector shell limited liability companies created by MPHA specifically to manage newly privatized former public housing. The document that sealed this deal somewhat hilariously ends with Abdi Warsame signing a contract with himself, representing both the private LLCs and MPHA itself. The plan is to invite bankers and investors to have majority ownership like MPHA did with Elliot Twins through RAD conversion.
N4MN also conveniently ignores that the new units will be built where public housing residents already live. The units in the current scattered-site single-family housing undergoing this conversion are much larger than those that will replace it in the denser buildings. MPHA still hasn’t answered where the current residents will go, especially large multigenerational families that need large units. There is no guarantee or legally binding documents from the City of Minneapolis or MPHA that the same size unit for large families with young children will be built or if the current families that are being displaced will come back. It is all talk.
Actually reading the policies and legal documents immediately shows that “more public housing” is not indeed “coming to Minneapolis.” Actually, the current number of public housing will decrease each year through this plan. Despite this, Neighbors for More Neighbors decided to ignore all of the facts and nuance and instead side with MPHA and City’s false propaganda targeted to the white middle constituency. The nature of this partnership, and the misleading rhetoric deployed by Neighbors for More Neighbors in their role as de-facto PR team for MPHA, and the City of Minneapolis deserve closer scrutiny.
The first question about Neighbors for More Neighbors must be about who comprises their membership and leadership? A quick look through their Tweets dating back to March 2018 seems to shed some insight on the group: it appears that their membership is overwhelmingly comprised well of young white adults who seem to be between the ages of 25-45, and from the very beginning they have enjoyed a cozy relationship with the most powerful politicians in Minneapolis (including Mayor Jacob Frey and outgoing President of Minneapolis City Council Lisa Bender).
Clearly, this group of white people feels it is their job to speak for communities it does not represent. It is difficult to understand their hostility to DG&PHC (actual public housing resident leaders) as well as their new work on behalf of MPHA as anything less than a targeted effort to marginalize and silence an organization created and led by Black women public housing residents. The vindictive nature of this partnership is revealed by a number of comments and actions from their affiliates, including (but not limited to) a now-deleted article written by Wedge Live attacking DG&PHC and numerous antagonistic posts on Twitter that are ongoing.
How are N4MN, City of Minneapolis, and MPHA working together? Instead of studying up on public housing privatization policies like RAD, Section 18, and HOPE VI, reading up on MPHA’s consistent broken promises to residents, or simply being quiet, N4MN is instead talking down to public housing residents. This type of toxic white male arrogance and supremacy is not surprising, but it makes it no less ugly and exposes who runs this city. .
What kind of white arrogance leads someone to work with MPHA, in spite of their well-documented history of abuse, evictions, and neglect of public housing residents, and then declare that public housing residents need to be “defended” from our Defend Glendale & Public Housing Coalition – which was created to give by public housing residents the power to fight back against precisely this abuse and neglect? These wealthy white people show a glimpse of the oppression, racial disparity, racial trauma, and attacks we face daily as Black and Brown low-income communities of Minneapolis.
What leads someone to say “still at it huh” to Black public housing residents fighting to save their communities from displacement? Only a white supremacist who was sent to silence us.
What makes someone so confident that they understand “complicated funding and ownership structure (sic)” better than public housing residents?
YIMBYs from Minneapolis expect you to believe MPHA & the City of Minneapolis from the strength of whiteness alone, not because of actual policy. They expect you to believe them over us because they are white and we are Black and poor. Don’t do it. Study the facts yourself.
Here is an example of their last action to silence us and support the demolition and privatization of single-family homes through Section 18:
- DG&PHC found out through a tweet on November 10th, 2021 from N4MN and one of their leaders Nick Magrino a former City’s Planning Commissioner that on November 15, 2021, the City Planning Commission was holding a public hearing to approve the demolition of 9 scattered sites through Section 18 Demolition & Disposition. They are doing this without holding a 30day public comment period or notifying public housing residents.
- We only had 2 days to notify residents and the public. Public housing residents and allies did not have access nor the opportunity to comment. It seemed like an inside job only N4MN, MPHA, and the City of Minneapolis had access to.
- At the public hearing, the Planning Commission did not ask MPHA for any legally binding documents to make sure residents will have the same size housing, the same rent, and residents will come back. Instead, N4MN who had no idea about us as public housing residents and our lived experience were given the opportunity to write letters ahead of time and comment to push for the demolition of public housing and basically speak for us.
- Members of N4MN, MPHA, and City use an advisory committee we have no access to, and they handpick non-public housing members who make decisions about public housing. Public housing residents who were DG&PHC youth organizers applied to be members of this committee couple of years ago, and their applications were denied. This is another example of how public housing resident leaders are marginalized.
- On November 30th, the Business, Inspections, Housing & Zoning Committee chaired by Council Member Lisa Goodman, quietly voted to approve the demolition of the scattered sites that were approved by the Planning Commission on November 15th without notifying public housing residents or providing access to a 30 day comment period. As is typical of Goodman, she added the approval of the demolitions in the last section of the agenda under discussion 30 to 37. Lisa Goodman has been the Queen of Gentrification and Displacement of Black and Brown Communities since she was in office in 1998. In fact, it was Goodman who fought to hire Greg Russ in 2017 – the author of the blueprint for public housing privatization in New York. Cambridge Massachusetts, and Minneapolis – less than two years after Glendale residents stopped RAD conversion.
- The City Council will approve these demolitions unanimously. These steps show how the City is ending public housing and not building more.
- Following is the demolition of 6 more scattered sites of public housing single-family homes the Planning Commission approved on December 6th, 2021. The agenda was published 2 days before the meeting. This is another example of MPHA restricting accessibility and transparency.
- Here are the 6 new scattered sites approved for demolition through Section 18 Demolition & Disposition on December 6th, 2021.
| 339 Pierce St NE, Ward 3 |
| 500 Knox Ave N, Ward 5 |
| 400 Logan Ave N, Ward 5 |
| 2110 16th Ave S, Ward 6 |
| 2740 12th Ave S, Ward 9 |
| 2744 12th Ave S, Ward 9 |
This was the blueprint of Lisa Goodman, Frey, Lisa Bender, former MPHA Executive Director Greg Russ, the entire City Council, and CPED. They lobbied Trump and Carson to approve the Section 18 application for Minneapolis Public Housing. None of these public officials can deny their role. It is important to remember MPHA’s messaging to public housing residents about Section 18 Demolition & Disposition included the following; “there will be no demolition”, and “residents who chose to stay in their homes will.” They also claimed that “MPHA will only remodel the units and the majority of the residents will not need to temporarily relocate while the remodeling is taking place”. They said; “MPHA is getting 3 million dollars from HUD to make repairs which is the only reason why we applied for Section 18”. Now MPHA and the City of Minneapolis with the support of N4MN through lies, oppression, silencing, intimidation, and evictions have found a path to continue to lie, end public housing, and not to build more.
In conclusion, we expect Lisa Goodman to approve the 6 scattered sites easily and more as she works hard to block our comments and engagement as public housing residents. After that, the entire city council will approve unanimously. We will continue to update you as all of these forces organize to end 736 single-family public housing units in similar stages outlined above and displace the large families living in these homes. Also, it will be interesting to learn more about the role agents such as N4MN and similar groups play in ending public housing and gentrifying Minneapolis.
Relevant resources:
Sincerely,
Defend Glendale & Public Housing Coalition
defendglendale @ gmail. com | www.dgphc.org | facebook @ defendglendale
612-389-8527
P.O. Box 14616, Minneapolis, MN 55414 #KeepPublicHousingPublic #BuildMorePublicHousing #StopMPHA #StopFrey #DefendScatteredSites #StopSection18 #DefendElliotTwins #StopRAD #SayNoToGentrification #StopPrivatization #DGPHC #PHIMBY #AbolishFaircloth