On May 24, Jacob Frey used his first “State of the City” address to announce a new program called “Stable Homes Stable Schools.” A partnership between the City of Minneapolis, Minneapolis Public Housing Authority (MPHA), and Minneapolis Public Schools, the program claims to address the homelessness and displacement crisis currently plaguing Minneapolis broadly, and Minneapolis Public Schools in particular. While announcing the program, Mayor Frey highlighted that 3,500 students (8.5% of MPS’ student body) are currently experiencing homelessness. While these disturbing numbers do confirm that there is a crisis due to a lack of income-based affordable and public housing in the city, the “Stable Homes Stable Schools” initiative is emblematic of the Mayor’s agenda to accelerate the already rapid gentrification of Minneapolis while offering token gestures for low-income and minority residents designed to deflect criticism rather than offer real solutions.
Let’s look at 3 major failures in the Mayor’s “Stable Homes Stable Schools” initiative:
1. It will not reach most students in need.
While the Mayor specifically brought up the fact that 3,500 students are currently experiencing homelessness, his speech also stated that the Stable Homes Stable Schools initiative will only reach “up to” 320 families, or 648 students from pre-k to 8th grade. Leaving aside the disturbing “up to” modifier (which implies the number reached could be far lower) and the exclusion of high school students from the program, the maximum number of students reached by this initiative will be less than 19% of the total number of students experiencing homelessness. This is unacceptable. We cannot celebrate any program that excludes over 80% of an affected population.
2. It relies on Housing Choice Vouchers (aka Section 8), which do not work.
Although the Mayor touted that this program goes directly to families and not to developers (in contrast with the vast majority of his “affordable housing” initiatives which take the form of subsidies and handouts for landlords and developers), the form this support will take are housing choice vouchers (aka Section 8 Vouchers), provided by the Minneapolis Public Housing Authority (MPHA). In theory, Housing Choice Vouchers allow holders to find housing wherever they want, paying 30% of their income. In reality, current voucher holders are unable to find housing because landlords in Minneapolis discriminate and do not rent to Section 8 voucher holders, who are majority low-income, Black or Black Muslim, and Hispanic families. Making this problem worse, each family who receives a voucher has only 90 days to find housing with the voucher. If they can’t find housing within that time frame, the voucher expires, meaning they must forfeit their voucher. There is an overwhelming body of evidence that Section 8 voucher recipients have a very difficult time finding housing using their voucher. A 2016 article about Section 8 vouchers in California found “failure rates” (meaning the number of voucher recipients who failed to find housing within the designated time period, thus losing their voucher) ranging from 22% to 64%, and many articles and studies around the country mirror these results.
Locally, many families are forced to look to the suburbs to find housing with their vouchers. But even when these families move to the suburbs, they will be displaced again by new investors who will upscale the buildings, and remove Section 8 tenants and all low-income renters in that building. This is classic gentrification. In short, even the minority of homeless families enrolled in Minneapolis Public Schools who are able to participate in this initiative will find it difficult if not impossible to find housing with their voucher. Those that do find housing will likely find it only in far flung suburbs and exurbs, far away from their schools and communities. This disrupts the life of students. A 2001 academic paper found that frequent moves “reduces children’s academic functioning, and may negatively affect other aspects of child well-being.” To relocate MPS students to suburbs cannot be viewed as an acceptable solution to the homelessness crisis.
A final note: the Section 8 non-discrimination ordinances recently passed by the City of Minneapolis have been misunderstood, with many people believing that there is now a mandate that all landlords must accept Section 8 vouchers. But because the Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) program is a voluntary federal program, landlords cannot be forced to accept these vouchers. In order to avoid accepting the vouchers from Section 8 families, landlords need only raise rents by 15 or 20 dollars over the Section 8 limit for each family size. Even if their rents do fall under the Section 8 limit, landlords can still reject Section 8 applicants as long as they do not explicitly state they are doing so because of their Section 8 voucher.
3. The Stable Homes Stable Schools Initiative does nothing to address the structural causes of the homelessness crisis.
The homelessness crisis did not emerge in a vacuum. Minneapolis has seen an incredible volume of luxury developments over the past few years, a trend that appears poised to continue apace. This rapid gentrification is causing a parallel rent increase, while wages stagnate or decline. At community meeting hosted by League of Women Voters on May 15th, 2018 about Minneapolis’ Comprehensive Plan called “Minneapolis 2040”, City staff clearly stated that the Black income dropped by 40% in Minneapolis from 2000 to 2018. Yet Mayor Frey and City Planners who drafted this plan have absolutely no plan to combat this economic and housing crisis facing communities color due to his strong support among real estate developers. According to MinnPost, during the 2017 election Mayor Frey raised more money from developers than any other candidate, raising more than 4 times as much as the next closest candidate (former Mayor Betsy Hodges). Mayor Frey cannot risk alienating this core constituency, which is why he has been such a forceful proponent of “Area Median Income” (AMI) housing. This approach, pushed by developers, sees the city offer heavy subsidies to developers who build a small fraction of units at a level deemed affordable to individuals earning a certain percentage of the Area Median Income. These units are deceptively labeled “affordable” even though they are unaffordable for low-income and minority communities. A recent study by CURA confirmed what many have been saying for years: AMI housing is unaffordable for minority and low-income communities. By pushing policies like AMI housing and the Stable Homes Stable Schools initiative, Mayor Frey is offering band-aid solutions that do absolutely nothing to address the root problem: gentrification and displacement due to racism, classism, and profit from public land.
Mayor Frey and his developer friends want to accelerate the gentrification of Minneapolis. It is not surprising then that in the same speech where he highlighted the need to “preserve existing affordable housing” the Mayor announced a new initiative in partnership with MPHA, who is currently undergoing a major effort to privatize the entire public housing stock in Minneapolis. Rather than hold MPHA accountable for their clandestine effort to sell off the largest body of truly affordable – i.e. income based – public housing in Minneapolis, Mayor Frey has identified the agency as an ally in his quest to upzone and gentrify Minneapolis. Aware that they are both losing the battle of public perception, the Mayor and MPHA have joined forces to announce this new initiative in order to distract the public from their disastrous policies and plans. The people of Minneapolis deserve more than lip service. We demand real affordable income-based and public housing now!
While the Mayor distracts us with his new alliance with both MPHA and developers, he fails to serve the largest and the most vulnerable population, including low wage workers essential to any thriving city. Defend Glendale & Public Housing Coalition proposes instead a city in which low-income residents are able to stay in their chosen community in high quality, stable housing that charges only 30% of the renter’s income, like public housing does, and to build more public housing.
Citations:
To learn more about why AMI housing doesn’t work, see our previous pieces here and here .
To learn more about CURA’s research, and what it means for low-income communities, see our blog post.
Mayor Jacob Frey’s 2018 State of the City Address.
Article on Section 8 vouchers in California.
2001 paper on the impact of frequent moves on academic performance.