MPHA intentionally misled residents in the January 8th letter and General Information Notice (GIN) https://tinyurl.com/Elliot-RAD-Ltr-Eng-Somali. In the letter, MPHA states that their Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) application has been approved by HUD and then on the other  page the GIN letter attached states that Elliot Twins have been “proposed” for participation in the RAD program. So which one is it?  According to the letter sent to MPHA from HUD https://tinyurl.com/HUD-RAD-Letter, that MPHA failed to send to residents and only made available on their website at the last minute), the RAD is application is subject be revoked or amended if the following conditions are present:

A. Any of the contract units were not eligible for selection;

B. The proposed conversion is not or will not be financially feasible;

C. The Owner fails to meet any applicable deadline;

D. The Owner fails to cooperate;

E. there is any violation of program rules, including fraud; or

F. the terms of the conversion would be inconsistent with fair housing and civil rights laws or a fair housing or civil rights court order, settlement agreement, or voluntary compliance agreement.

DG&PHC sent comments to HUD outlining all of the violations MPHA is committing, and the reasons why Elliot Twins does not fit the RAD application. This includes HUD’s conditions listed above under A, B, E & F.

Why did MPHA hide these conditions from residents? Additionally, MPHA received their conditional letter from HUD on December 12th, 2018. Why did they wait almost an entire month before communicating with residents at Elliot Twins and to the public but not actually providing the real letter from HUD? What were they hiding?

In the GIN notice MPHA and HUD state clearly that residents will be receiving relocation assistance for permanent relocation.  This means residents will be displaced and evicted because of the RAD conversion. The HUD letter also clearly states that any undocumented residents will not receive relocation assistance or protections during conversion.

MPHA claims that if residents are displaced and evicted during renovations, they will be able to return to the property once the renovations are complete. However, as the HUD letter states it will take until 2024 to finish privatizing and converting the buildings and by then the vulnerable senior residents will be long gone and forgotten because they will be out of MPHA leases. National research has shown that only 1 in 5 residents return following a RAD conversion. Once the buildings are owned by private developers it is their discretion to fill vacancies however they want. The new owners can screen tenants based on a variety of factors including past history, ability to pay utilities, and legal status. Research from the U of M Law School coined the term  “white-segregated subsidized housing” to describe how private developers in Minneapolis use screening to discriminate against Black and Brown tenants.

In the HUD letter, it is very clear that these units will be privatized and some units will be converted to Section 8 Project-Based housing, or Section 8 Vouchers which the majority of Elliot Twins residents cannot afford, as explained below. MPHA is intentionally deceiving residents about the true function of RAD because they know that residents do not want to be displaced and cannot afford these homes once privatized. Project-Based Section 8 and Section 8 Vouchers are voluntary program that is extremely unstable where a private owner is contracting with HUD and has almost no protection for residents’ rights. Project Based is a voucher attached to the property, and Section 8 voucher is a certificate resident owns to look for rentals from landlords that will accept them. Currently, the Federal Government shutdown has put 1,000 properties of Section 8 housing at risk of eviction because HUD is not paying their portion of the rent. Residents know public housing is more stable than Section 8 because it is pre-funded annually like any other public property. Residents also know that under privatization rents will be raised in several ways.

No one is talking about what will happen to residents during the years of renovations that follow their eviction and displacement. MPHA doesn’t want to talk about this because they know there’s a seven-year waiting list for housing, and they have nowhere for residents to go. During this time, MPHA will purposefully lose track of these residents so when the renovations are complete no one will know where they are and they cannot come back.

However, even if that 1 out of 5 residents does try to come back, we will show you step by step how they will not be able to afford the new privatized Elliot Twins (which will have a new name).

In the letter HUD sent to MPHA on December 12, 2019, HUD states that when the two buildings are privatized and sold to a developer, the cap of the rent they will pay to subsidize for available Section 8 units are the following:

Studio; number of bedrooms                         0 bedrooms

Monthly rent subsidy from HUD                     $577

Utility allowance for water, heat, electricity    $0

One bedroom                                                  1 bedroom

Monthly rent subsidy from HUD                     $715

Utility allowance for water, heat, electricity    $0

Let us break this down: 

• The private owner of Elliot Twins will set the rents at market rate based on 60% to 80% of the Area Median Income (AMI) which is what the newly passed 2040 Comp. Plan pushed for.
• The AMI of the Twin Cities Metro Area is $94,300 based on the majority white wealthy homeowners so 60% to 80% of that are the income earners that private developers want to attract, between ($58,580 to $75,440).
• The Area Median income for Black residents is $33,436.
• The yearly income of public housing residents at Elliot Twins is between $9,000 to $14,201.
• The majority of Elliot Twins residents are Black American, Black Muslims (East Africans), Seniors and disabled folks, most of whom receive $750 a month from Social Security, for a total annual income of $9000. Because they live in public housing, they only pay 30% of their income which is $225 a month including utilities.
• The Section 8 Project Based Vouchers HUD will pay or subsidize will leave a   one-bedroom costing $715 per month and a studio costing $577 per month with zero allowances for utilities.
• The average market rate a private developer will charge for a studio apartment is $1014 a month with no utilities, and the average rent for one bedroom is $1,300 with no utilities.
• A market rate studio rents on average for $1014 a month in Minneapolis, while a former Elliot Twins resident can only afford to pay $225 for rent.  According to HUD’s letter that MPHA hid from residents, HUD will only pay $577 to subsidize a studio. So, if an Elliot Twins resident can only afford $225 for rent, and HUD is contributing $577, that totals to $802. But the landlord is charging $1014 which does not include utilities. The former Elliot Twins resident can’t rent the apartment even with Section 8 because the rent is too high, and they have pay utilities such as heat, electricity, etc. which can be over $200 a month.
• The average market rate rent for a one bedroom is $1,300 in Minneapolis. According to the letter, HUD’s cap will only pay $715 of this rent for one bedroom. The former Elliot Twins resident can only pay $225 for rent. So, with a resident’s contribution and the HUD subsidy, there is a gap of $360 dollars, not including utilities. In effect, former Elliot Twins residents will not be qualified to go back and rent the apartment. This is displacement and gentrification. This explains why MPHA hid this letter from Elliot Twins.

This evidences how deceptive and dishonest MPHA is to their residents, and the public. MPHA failed to share this letter which clearly shows how public housing will be privatized, displaced and evicted. And, yet, MPHA continues to claim that housing won’t be privatized even though HUD is saying otherwise in this letter. The City of Minneapolis and MPHA are fulfilling Trump and Carson’s HUD agenda against the poor, including Black, Brown, Muslim, Disabled,  poor, and undocumented residents. Minneapolis claims to be a progressive sanctuary city yet the city is furthering Trump’s agenda on all fronts.

Click here for an article about the government shutdown affecting project-based Section 8 voucher holders.

The government shutdown is exposing how risky and unstable housing vouchers are compared to public housing, as residents at over 1,000 project-based Section 8 properties around the country are at risk of eviction.  If the shutdown continues, even more residents will be at risk. See the map below to get a sense of the scale of this crisis.

Project-based Section 8 housing is NOT public housing; it is owned by private landlords who sign contracts with HUD to accept Section 8 vouchers. When the government is shutdown, these contracts can expire and residents will face eviction. This is not a danger that public housing faces, because it is publicly owned. Yet, MPHA and the City of Minneapolis want to convert and sell Minneapolis’ safe, stable public housing to private developers, which will cause massive evictions and displacement. 

https://nlihc.org/issues/budget/shutdown-map

MPHA and the City of Minneapolis are moving forward with their privatization and eviction plans that will destabilize the lives of thousands of public housing residents. While the federal government is shut down, MPHA and City of Minneapolis are starting the eviction plans of Elliot Twins Public Housing in Ward 6 that have majority East African- Somali, Oromo and African American seniors and elders. Both the City and MPHA want to gentrify by selling  the buildings to private developers through the RAD program, and they want residents to apply for Section 8 Vouchers with no place to go. The city and MPHA both  know that wait- list for Section 8 Vouchers including Project Based Section 8  is over 7 years, and vulnerable residents will face homelessness.  Also, hardly anyone is renting to Section 8 Vouchers holders because these residents who are majority BIPOC, immigrants and refugees face extreme discrimination in Minneapolis by landlords.

The current crisis facing voucher holders makes it clearer that this crisis must be stopped. City of Minneapolis and MPHA want to forcefully remove residents.

Please come support residents of the Elliot Twins apartments fighting MPHA’s eviction plans this Thursday, January 17 from 1:30 – 3:30 pm at the Elliot Twins Community Room, 1225 South 8th Street, Minneapolis, MN, 55404.

Say no to privatization! 

 Say no to RAD!

Keep public housing public!

Tuesday, January 8th, 2019 residents at Elliot Twins received two letters from MPHA. See both letters here: https://tinyurl.com/Elliot-RAD-Eng. The first letter stated that HUD has approved MPHA’s RAD application to privatize their homes even though HUD has been shut down since December 22nd. (Source: https://www.hud.gov/

In the letter, Minneapolis Public Housing Authority ( MPHA) is stating low-income residents who are almost all Black (African American and East African) and seniors in both buildings will be forcibly removed from their homes and from Minneapolis. MPHA has also used our tax dollars to hire a nonprofit pr group called the “Center for Multicultural Mediation” (CMM) in order to coerce very vulnerable senior residents into accepting this (https://sites.google.com/site/multiculturalmediation/). MPHA is again creating chaos in the East African community. They have hired an East African pr nonprofit to try to silence vulnerable East African Seniors. If HUD already approved their application, why do they need to hire this nonprofit?

The second letter is very weird. It is a General Information Notice (GIN), taken from a sample form letter provided on HUD’s website;
https://www.hud.gov/sites/documents/1378X3CPDH.PDF. This letter is a boilerplate letter HUD provides to housing agencies to use when the agency knows that public housing residents are going to be displaced. Because the Government is in shutdown, it is unclear whether the letter came from HUD or whether MPHA used HUD letterhead in a confusing way to make it seem like HUD approved the RAD application for Elliot Twins.

We want MPHA to disclose the actual letter that came from HUD that says that the RAD application at the Elliot Twins has been approved. They have not provided this letter to residents or the public.

Either this RAD application was approved before the shutdown, and MPHA has sat on it, or MPHA is misleading residents into thinking that HUD has approved their RAD application while the government is closed.

HUD’s website seems to contradict what MPHA is claiming. It contains a notice saying that HUD is closed, and provides a link to their official Government Shutdown Contingency Plan. Page 74 of this contingency plan explicitly states that HUD is not processing RAD applications during the shutdown.
https://www.hud.gov/si…/documents/HUDCONTINGENCYPLANFINAL.PD

In order to push residents to accept this letter, MPHA went around yesterday morning passing out this letter https://tinyurl.com/Elliot-RAD-Eng and forced residents to sign a document saying they received it, even though residents did not know what the letter said or what they were signing. MPHA is doing this to try to kick residents out even though they have not been able to show any official document from HUD showing that their RAD application has been approved. MPHA must know that if apartments are vacant, HUD is more likely to approve a RAD application. In addition, the second letter asks residents who do not have access to emails to email their questions to MPHA.

First, MPHA needs to provide proof that HUD in fact approved the RAD application. Second, City of Minneapolis and City Council Members such as Abdi Warsame, Andrea Jenkins, Cam Gordon, Lisa Bender, Mayor Jacob Frey, and the rest need to be held accountable for allowing MPHA to push through this RAD conversion and evictions while HUD is shut down. City of Minneapolis and MPHA want to isolate and kick out these elders. We call on everyone concerned about this to attend this meeting on Thursday, January 17 from 1:30 – 3:30 pm at the Elliot Twins Community Room on 1225 South 8th Street, Minneapolis, 55404. MPHA has picked this time because they know it is hard for allies to attend meetings during work hours. This makes support even more important.

The government is shutdown. About 800,000 workers are not getting their paychecks. But, MPHA is telling us that HUD has time and money to displace hundreds of low-income seniors on fixed income from their homes and communities?

Call your council member and Mayor Jacob Frey hold them accountable for evicting vulnerable elders and seniors from Elliot Twins is in Ward 6.

This article shows how the voluntary privatization program called RAD is displacing and evicting public housing residents in Baltimore, Maryland. 

Important quotes from the article:

“The Housing Authority made some public promises about how the [privatization] was going to secure the rights tenants had, that those would carry over,” said David Prater, an attorney with Disability Rights Maryland. “What we’ve seen is that has not always been the case. The privatization has caused many to lose out on their rights.”
“The privatization program’s rules guarantee that tenants will receive the same rights as they did under public housing laws, but Prater said he’s seeing violations.”

“Some RAD tenants have been evicted after receiving Notices to Vacate that did not conform to the legal requirements,” he wrote. “We are also concerned that residents are vacating their units after receiving notice, but before a hearing in court, as a result of receiving notices that failed to provide the required notice of due process and tenant rights. We have no way of knowing how many residents unwittingly vacated their units after receiving a Notice of Lease Termination that was likely legally flawed.”

Minneapolis Public Housing Authority (MPHA) is planning do the same thing in Minneapolis. They applied to HUD to implement RAD and they are still waiting for a decision. MPHA has already received approval/endorsement through this resolution that the City of Minneapolis unanimously passed on December 7th 2018, the same day the City approved the 2040 Comprehensive Plan. MPHA and the City of Minneapolis are using RAD as a tool to gentrify and displace public housing residents out of Minneapolis starting with Elliot Twins in Ward 6 which is inline with their 2040 Comprehensive Plan. After Elliot Twins, MPHA’s targets are Glendale Townhomes, two properties in Ward 3 and one property in Ward 4 as outlined in MPHA’s Strategic Vision & Capital Plan/Proposal (click here)submitted to the City of Minneapolis Housing Policy & Development Committee Chaired by Cam Gordon in June 2018. After these properties are privatized, MPHA plans to privatize/ displace the rest of the 42 public housing high-rises, over 740 single family homes, and more properties throughout the city where over 12,000 low -income residents, majority Black, Black Muslims, Seniors, people with disabilities and families with children call home and community. 
https://tinyurl.com/Comments-6-6-18-Housing-Comm

On Friday December 7, 2018, Council Members Abdi Warsame and Andrea Jenkins became the new faces of displacement by authoring and passing a resolution at Minneapolis City Council to privatize and dismantle public housing.

Let’s Be Clear:

This resolution is dangerous to the lives of public housing residents and endorses MPHA’s privatization plans because relocation is displacement. It actually replicates the same language and talking points that MPHA has been pushing that is it’s RAD plans at Elliot Twins.
First, it opens the door to the privatization of Minneapolis public housing by embracing ‘conversion’ and empowers MPHA on that path. The entire first page is taken directly from MPHA’s presentation about RAD, which insists that there is no federal funding or otherwise available to keep public housing public which is not true. In addition, Cam Gordon ordered staff to do an MOU agreement to make sure that relocation which is displacement and investment which is private dollars and developers taking over public housing in place between City of Minneapolis and MPHA.

For more evidence of MPHA’s lies about their funding, and an explanation of how this resolution came to be and its history, please open the link below.

 https://tinyurl.com/Warsame-Jenkins-Resolution

The battle to save public housing is far from over. This resolution has finally shed the light on where the City of Minneapolis and their “progressive” council members stand. In addition, 80% of the public housing residents are Black (African American and East African). It is very telling that two Black Council Members (Abdi Warsame, Somali, and Andrea Jenkins, African American) have become the faces of destroying public housing and Black communities in Minneapolis.

See the full resolution passed by the City Council here: https://lims.minneapolismn.gov/…/Support%20for%20Public%20H…)

Contact Council Member Abdi Warsame and Andrea Jenkins and Chairman Cam Gordon of the Housing Policy& Development Committee who pushed this resolution as it was hidden in the 2040 Comp. Plan they passed on Friday and he did not notify residents. We thought Cam Gordon was our ally. But he is not. Hold them accountable for furthering the path to destroy and displace our homes and communities.

Ward 6: Abdi Warsame
abdi.warsame@minneapolismn.gov
(612) 673 – 2206
@AbdiYWarsame

Ward 8: Andrea Jenkins
andrea.jenkins@minneapolismn.gov
(612) 673 – 2208
@annapoetic

Ward 2: Cam Gordon
cam.gordon@minneapolismn.gov
(612) 673 – 2202
@CameronAGordon

Read the full report of what took place at City Hall here: https://tinyurl.com/Warsame-Jenkins-Resolution

See our report and comments below of MPHA’s failure again to submit for approval acceptable Annual Plans to HUD for their plans and programs for 2018 and 2019.

The annual plans must be submitted to HUD for approval in order for MPHA to implement plans the following year which includes budget, mission, etc. Since Greg Russ came on board, all they have been submitting to HUD are plans to privatize, sell or demolish public housing. So for 2018, and now for 2019, MPHA failed to submit acceptable, revised plans that included all the changes from the massive amounts of public comments that came from public housing residents and the larger public of Minneapolis that rejects plans to privatize, sell public housing and displace residents. MPHA ignored these comments.

These annual plans are called Moving To Work (MTW) Plans. Every year they have to submit MTW Plan for the following year. For 2018 and 2019, MPHA has failed to submit acceptable plans because they are all about how they will privatize and what loophole they will use to do it.

Here is an in-depth report about RAD (Rental Assistance Demonstration). Executive Director of MPHA Greg Russ and Mayor Jacob Frey have been pushing RAD and DFL Minneapolis City Council Members have been complicit in its implementation. If approved, RAD will privatize and end public housing, as we know it displacing thousands of low- income residents of color mainly East Africans, African Americans, seniors, and people with disabilities. Secretary Ben Carson and President Trump are in favor of RAD being implemented in Cities such as Minneapolis and Minneapolis City Council and Mayor Frey are in favor of RAD.

In this report, we examine what RAD is for our allies to learn about how this program works, and we ask the question does it make sense for Elliot Twins Public Housing which is the first public housing MPHA applied to implement RAD in 2018 as they plan to apply for more buildings in the coming years.

Just an update, MPHA submitted an application to HUD to approve RAD, HUD has yet to reply. City of Minneapolis who had the power to stop this application did not especially Ward 6 Council Member Abdi Warsama where Elliot Twins is located & Mayor Jacob Frey. When you see any of the DFL city council members or the mayor speak about affordable housing, ask them why are they approving plans Carson and Trump are pushing nationwide while there is plenty of funds available to keep public housing public.

Read the full report here:

What is RAD & Does it Make Sense for Elliot Twins Public Housing

A few weeks ago, we shared an anonymous letter by a resident of public housing exposing a major conflict of interest for MPHA executive director Greg Russ. You can see the letter here: https://www.dgphc.org/…/a-letter-from-a-concerned-and-mpha…/

The letter outlined how Greg Russ’s family owns as investors and manages Thies & Talle Inc, one of the largest companies specializing in federally subsidized low-income and tax credit properties in Minnesota. Greg Russ’s father in law, Kenneth Talle, is the President and co-founder of this company. Kenneth Talle’s daughter, Laura Russ (Greg Russ’s wife) is the “Vice President of Asset Management.” You can learn more about the senior leadership at Thies & Talle by exploring their website here: http://www.thiestalle.com/about/our-people.html

As a private investor, Thies & Talle own dozens of apartment complexes in the region, including one building in Minneapolis, and at least one Project-Based Section 8 building in Saint Paul. Here is a link to that building, called “Afton View Apartments” http://www.thiestalle.com/properties/afton-view-st-paul.html

The status of this apartment as a Project-Based Section 8 property is confirmed on the 54th page of this 2018 City of Saint Paul document, which lists the Income Restricted Affordable Housing in the city: https://drive.google.com/…/1lU6Lzim2NH-ss5W3BDnGxL89M…/view…

We encourage the public to look at Thies & Talle’s extensive real estate holdings listed on their website here: http://www.thiestalle.com/properties.html

We are sharing this information today because authorities have not followed up to investigate this conflict of interest. As called for in the letter, we ask the State of Minnesota, City of Minneapolis and HUD to investigate this, including ongoing monitoring of Greg Russ’ family’s involvement as well as involvement from the multiple investors in their real estate holdings. The potential for the Russ family to personally benefit from the sale of public housing demands a thorough and transparent investigation into this conflict of interest. Greg Russ should recuse himself from any decisions regarding all privatization of public housing in Minneapolis, including privatization occurring through the Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) program.