The fifth congressional district DFL passed our resident-centered resolution that states public housing should be kept public! Our fight is now more widely supported than ever, and we will wait until Ilhan Omar recognizes and supports our 5-year struggle.

FIFTH CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT DFL (CD5 DFL)·THURSDAY, MAY 30, 2019

Whereas housing is a human right;

Whereas the 5th Congressional District is facing a housing crisis which has in turn caused a homelessness crisis;

Whereas ensuring all CD5 residents have decent and stable housing that is affordable (30% of their income) must be a top priority and concern;

Whereas the first public housing in Minneapolis, Glendale Townhomes, was developed by Mayor Hubert Humphrey to house WWII vets and their families during one of the most severe housing crises we’ve ever faced;

Whereas Hubert Humphrey created MPHA’s predecessor MHRA under the ideal that a publicly owned housing authority was the most permanent solution to housing;

Whereas housing that is often described as “affordable” is not truly affordable for low and very-low-income households, and building more publicly-owned public housing best ensures enough of the appropriate housing is created to begin with;

Whereas 25,000 Minneapolis residents currently live in public housing, with tens of thousands more on the waiting list; all are poor and over 80% are people of color, immigrants, refugees, seniors, and people with disabilities;

Whereas the Minneapolis Public Housing Authority [MPHA] was created by the authority of the Minneapolis City Council, and in significant part relates and has obligations to the City Council and Mayor pursuant to the Minneapolis Code of Ordinances, Chapter 420;

Whereas the MPHA Strategic Vision and Capital Plan for 2018-2020 includes transferring ownership of its publicly-owned properties to a private non-profit corporation pursuant to the HUD-administered Rental Assistance Demonstration program [RAD] and replacing current public housing leases with Section 8 vouchers, a process which was rejected by residents at the Glendale Townhomes in 2015;

Whereas using Section 8 vouchers to relocate seniors on fixed incomes out of public housing and their communities could worsen the chronic homelessness crisis among seniors;

Whereas the residents at the first two properties scheduled through RAD (Elliot Twin Towers and Glendale Townhomes) include a high percentage of East African Somali and Oromo seniors and elders, which could result in disparate impact as defined by the Fair Housing Act;

Whereas the MPHA has responsibility as a public agency to maintain public housing properties as a public good, and is unable to make any promises as to the future of residents at any properties whose ownership and control has been transferred to private entities;

Whereas relocation is displacement, and research from the University of Minnesota’s Center for Urban and Regional Affairs has found that as few as 1 in 5 relocated residents return to their homes;

Whereas a February 2018 GAO report requested by Rep. Maxine Waters documents a lack of accountability by HUD for the RAD process, and has been unwilling or unable to take responsible steps to ensure the safety of residents in the nationwide program;

Whereas these potential dangers underlie the importance of the U.S. Representative’s, City Council’s and Mayor’s vigilant involvement as this process plays out in Minneapolis; and

Whereas over 18,000 people have signed a petition to keep public housing in Minneapolis and CD5 public;

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, That the 5th Congressional District of the DFL rejects the notion that preserving or expanding public housing requires privatization by any method;

RESOLVED, That the 5th Congressional District of the DFL distinguishes that “deeply subsidized” or “deeply affordable” housing is not the same thing as public housing or income-based housing at 30% of income for rent;

RESOLVED, That the 5th Congressional District of the DFL believes Section 8 vouchers are not a replacement for public housing, and that Section 18 and RAD are privatization programs that do not “preserve” public housing but, in fact, dismantle it and are thus unacceptable.

RESOLVED, That the 5th Congressional District of the DFL believes any plan for public housing that is not supported and approved by residents is not legitimate, and that any plan requiring residents to be relocated for redevelopment is displacement;

RESOLVED, That the 5th Congressional District of the DFL asks the Minneapolis City Council and Mayor to exercise due diligence in monitoring the citizen involvement and reporting requirements of the Minneapolis Public Housing Authority under the Code of Ordinances, Chapter 420;

RESOLVED, That the 5th Congressional District of the DFL urges the 5th Congressional District United States Representative, Minneapolis City Council and Mayor to exercise their authority, good offices, and public voice to oppose all forms of privatization of public housing in Minneapolis, including the sale or transfer to private ownership of public housing buildings; and

RESOLVED, That the 5th Congressional District of the DFL encourages the City of Minneapolis to take a national and international leadership position in guaranteeing housing as a human right, including working with public partners to protect, keep, and expand public housing as a public good.

Shout out to public housing leaders and Keep Public Housing Public Minneapolis Coalition. MPHA refused to let public housing residents comment at their monthly board meeting on Wednesday, May 22, 2019. Public housing residents made sure their voices were head outside of the building at the same time MPHA was voting and planning to displace us. 

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#KeepPublicHousingPublic#BuildMorePublicHousing#SayNoToSection18#NotoRAD#DefendElliotTwins#StopFrey#StopRuss#SayNoToGentrification#StopPrivatization#PHIMBY#AbolishFaircloth

Defend Glendale & Public Housing Coalition wants to #KeepPublicHousingPublic because these are our homes and communities, and we don’t want them to be dismantled so developers and investors can profit. We want public housing to stay safe, stable, and vibrant for us and for future generations in this city.

That’s why we are proud to be one of the founding members of the Keep Public Housing Public Minneapolis Coalition. Together with Young Muslim Collective, Twin Cities Musicians Against Gentrification, Minneapolis Coalition for Responsible Governance, TC DSA Housing Justice Branch, and Harrison Neighborhood Association, we are calling on City officials to stop MPHA’s privatization of public housing in Minneapolis, which is being pushed by Trump and his HUD Secretary Ben Carson.

Privatization – through Section 18 Demolition and Disposition, RAD, or any other means – is an attack on the low-income, elderly, disabled, and BIPOC residents of public housing, at a time when Minneapolis is facing a severe public housing and affordable housing crisis. Our coalition represents a community of local activists and organizers who are standing together to say #NoToPrivatization, and to #KeepPublicHousingPublic!

Stop Section 18 and RAD

• Contact Minneapolis City Hall, State Reps, Congress, Governor Tim Walz, and HUD to Stop MPHA’s and The City’s Section 18 and RAD application that will end public housing!

• Attend MPHA’s Board Meeting on May 22, 2019, at 1:30 pm at 1001 N Washington Ave, Minneapolis, MN 55401. Demand MPHA accept public comments even though MPHA has denied public comments from public housing residents, a public hearing and refuses to hear from residents who will be displaced and evicted. 

• Attend a rally outside MPHA’s Headquarters at 1:00 pm on Wednesday, May 22, 2019. MPHA’s Board is refusing to take comments from residents at their monthly, public meeting.  Public housing leaders are holding a rally to make sure our voices are heard despite MPHA’s attempts to silence us. MPHA’s headquarters are located at 1001 N Washington Ave, Minneapolis MN, 55401. Please join us and demand that MPHA and the City of Minneapolis #KeepPublicHousingPublic!

Minneapolis Public Housing Authority with the approval of Mayor Jacob Frey and Minneapolis City Council: https://lims.minneapolismn.gov/Download/RCA/8573/MOU_City_MPHA.pdf are planning to privatize its entire public housing stock through Section 18 and its sister program Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) at Elliot Twins which are voluntary programs by HUD.  MPHA and the City of Minneapolis are taking advantage of recent changes approved by Trump and Ben Carson that gutted tenant protections and made it easier to privatize and profit from public housing land. This is a first in the history of the creation of public housing in Minneapolis that began to provide housing for World War II Veterans after the war. Public housing residents along with the people of Minneapolis, neighborhood and community-based organizations have deep concerns about MPHA and the City’s  decision to  push Trump and Carson’s housing agenda that will privatize over 730 single family homes through Section 18  which will  displace over 5000 Black and Brown people majority children;https://www.dgphc.org/2019/02/22/mayor-jacob-frey-and-council-member-lisa-bender-approve-demolition-of-730-homes/, and the Rental Assistance Demonstration at  Elliot Twins that will displace seniors, people with disabilities and majority African American and East Africans, residents. After Elliot Twins, MPHA plans to apply yearly for RAD for each of the 42 public housing highrises throughout the city.

Section 18 Disposition & Demolition application, MPHA, and City of Minneapolis failed to:

• Notify and inform over 730 households throughout the city and hold citywide community meetings about this plan: https://tinyurl.com/Section-18-Fact-Sheet-2-25-19
• Notify the public and public housing residents the private developers plan to own 99.99%  and a non-profit corporation created by MPHA  plans to own .001%  of the housing stock. They will buy the homes from MPHA for $1 per home while the residents receive $94 per household for moving costs as they are displaced. See MPHA’s Section 18 Application where they allocate merely $70,656 for over 730 households’ relocation costs; https://tinyurl.com/MPHA-Section18-Application.    

• Hold citywide council meetings for public housing residents to vote at scattered sites.
• Provide an opportunity for public housing residents at scattered sites to comment and speak at the MPHA Board
• Hold public hearings, public comment and city council vote at city hall.

Rental Assistance Demonstration ( RAD) at Elliot Twins, MPHA and City of Minneapolis failed to:

• Listen to seniors and residents at Elliot Twins with disabilities who voted, protested and wrote petitions saying no to the  RAD application at Elliot Twins: http://tinyurl.com/Elliot-Twins-Resident-Letter
• Tell the truth about the RAD’s eviction plan which will convert Elliot Twins from a public good into the hands of private developers;https://tinyurl.com/ElliotTwins-RAD-Eviction-Plan
•  Stop an eviction plan that leads directly to homelessness and: 
  • Includes an “option” for residents to temporarily relocate to a “hotel unit” within Elliot Twins during construction which is not possible because MPHA does not have enough empty units to move over 200 people.
  • Gives all Elliot Twin Residents a 90-day notice from November 2019 to January 2020 to move all at one time, according to another leaked timeline: http://tinyurl.com/Eviction-Timeline.
  • Includes an “option” for residents to “Temporarily relocate to a friend or family’s home during construction.” This is homelessness.
  • States that residents “may: “permanently or temporarily relocate to Elliot Twins, another highrise, section 8 project-based unit,  or receive section 8 vouchers to find other housing. These eviction options all include the caveat that MPHA will fulfill them to the “maximum extent possible”. This means that MPHA cannot guarantee to the house for every resident during construction. Given the current housing crisis in Minneapolis and the fact that the waitlist for Section 8 and public housing is seven years long, this means that these residents will be evicted and will become homeless.
  •  Nowhere in their plan does MPHA mention that residents have guaranteed rights to return to Elliot Twins which is what they have been preaching for the last year and a half to sell RAD plans to the public and politicians.

• MPHA says they will “seek to accommodate residents with these options to the maximum extent feasible,” meaning there is no guarantee that this option is even possible and residents will face homelessness
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•   Residents can expect to face multiple evictions from Section 8 housing and They will not be able to move back.
• MPHA admits that some residents will be forced to move over 50 miles away from Elliot Twins, which is not what they claimed previously when they said residents could stay in their building or neighborhood. Having to move 50 miles away is displacement and gentrification and is unacceptable.
• MPHA fails to mention that private Section 8 landlords can raise rents and utilities, while HUD’s subsidy is capped at a certain level. This places residents at risk of eviction. (page 18
• MPHA fails to mention that private Section 8 landlords can raise rents and utilities, while HUD’s subsidy is capped at a certain level. This places residents at risk of eviction. (page 18).

According to HUD, public housing in Minneapolis is a top performer, and the properties receive up to 98% for their HUD inspection scores.  MPHA continues to repeat the lie that they have a funding crisis when they do not. Their federal funding has increased in recent years, and they have $23 million in savings that they are not spending. Governor Walz’s 2019 Budget recommendation includes a provision of $30 million to address the purported public housing backlog as well as over $100 million for other “Affordable Housing” needs (https://tinyurl.com/30million-publichousing).

MPHA could lobby for these funds to be allocated to their capital needs and push for more from the State as well as the City. They have chosen not to because they aren’t actually interested in maintaining their properties, they are only interested in privatizing public housing.

The Minneapolis City Council and Mayor Jacob Frey who are all from Democratic and Green Party are actively helping dismantle public housing in Minneapolis and furthering Trump’s agenda.   It is hard to believe that our progressive elected officials are pushing the Trump agenda right here at home.

To Keep Public Housing Public and support residents, please do the following: 

• Please call HUD and our elected officials and ask them to stop MPHA’s Section 18 and RAD applications. Contact information can be found below. Call now and tell these officials to KEEP PUBLIC HOUSING PUBLIC!

• Attend MPHA’s Board Meeting on May 22, 2019, at 1:30 pm at 1001 N Washington Ave, Minneapolis, MN 55401. Demand for public comments even though MPHA has denied public comments and a public hearing and refuses to hear from residents who will be displaced and evicted. 

• Attend a rally outside MPHA’s Headquarters at 1:00 pm on Wednesday, May 22, 2019. MPHA’s Board is refusing to take comments from residents at their monthly, public meeting.  Public housing leaders are holding a rally to make sure our voices are heard despite MPHA’s attempts to silence us. MPHA’s headquarters are located at 1001 N Washington Ave, Minneapolis MN, 55401. Please join us and demand that MPHA and the City of Minneapolis #KeepPublicHousingPublic!

#KeepPublicHousingPublic #BuildMorePublicHousing #SayNoToSection18 #NotoRAD  #DefendElliotTwins #StopFrey #StopRuss #SayNoToGentrification #StopPrivatization  #DGPHC #PHIMBY #AbolishFaircloth

Congress
Maxine Waters	LA: (323) 757-8900 DC: (202) 225-2201
Ilhan Omar	MN: (612) 333-1272 DC: (202) 225-4755
HUD Officials
Jane Hornstein	(312) 913-8766	Jane.B.Hornstein@hud.gov
Claude Dickson	(202) 402-8372	Claude.C.Dickson@hud.gov
Chrisropher Golden	(202) 402-2413	Christopher.M.Golden@hud.gov
State
Governer Tim Walz	(651) 201-3400
Attorney General Keith Ellison	(651) 296-3353	attorney.general@ag.state.mn.us
State Rep Hodan Hassan	(651) 296-0294	rep.hodan.hassan@house.mn
State Rep Mohamed Noor	(651) 296-4257	rep.mohamud.noor@house.mn
State Rep Raymond Dehn	651 296-8659	rep.raymond.dehn@house.mn
City
Mayor Jacob Frey	(612) 673-2100	jacob.frey@minneapolismn.gov
CM Lisa Bender	(612) 673-2210	lisa.bender@minneapolismn.gov
CM Abdi Warsame	(612) 673-2206	abdi.warsame@minneapolismn.gov
CM Cam Gordon	(612) 673-2202	cam.gordon@minneapolismn.gov
CM Jeremiah Ellison	(612) 673-2205	jeremiah.ellison@minneapolismn.gov

See link for more Minneapolis City Council Members: https://www.dgphc.org/hold-them-accountable/

For a PDF Copy of this Call to Action click here: https://www.dgphc.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Call-to-Action-May-22nd-2019.pdf

The Minneapolis Public Housing Authority (MPHA) has been actively engaged in an effort to privatize public housing and displace residents for over four years. Recently, MPHA Executive Director Greg Russ has been promoting something called the Opportunity Atlas, which, as we discuss below, will help him justify his dismantling of public housing and destruction of long-standing Black and Brown communities. The Opportunity Atlas is a mapping project that links poverty to the neighborhood in which someone grows up. You can view the Opportunity Atlas map here: https://opportunityatlas.org/. Greg Russ plans to use this map in conjunction with his existing privatization schemes (RAD, Section 18 Demolition and Disposition) to move public housing residents and Section 8 voucher holders from their current, majority BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) neighborhoods to rich, white neighborhoods – places referred to as “areas of opportunity.”

The language of “opportunity” masks what is ultimately a project of gentrification, whose goal is to remove low-income BIPOC families from Minneapolis and into the suburbs to make way for development. The conclusions drawn by the Opportunity Atlas – that poverty is a result of living in the “wrong” neighborhood – ignore centuries of discrimination and exclusion faced by Black and Brown people, as well as structural inequality that is built into our economy. Rather than provide “opportunity”, moving people from their communities can have negative impacts on their lives and health.

The real goal of clearing low-income BIPOC families out of the city is not to help residents, but to serve developers and real estate interests. They will be able to profit off of land that was formerly undervalued due to the racism inherent in our system, because once BIPOC families have left, the land will gain value and can be developed to attract higher-income white residents. This will be facilitated by a new federal initiative called Opportunity Zones, which are designated census tracts that developers are encouraged, through tax breaks, to invest in. While ostensibly meant to spur investment in low-income communities, this program actually rewards developers for gentrifying them. Despite their similar names, Opportunity Zones and the Opportunity Atlas are different projects, but they will work in tandem to gentrify urban areas under the guise of helping low-income people. The Opportunity Atlas will provide justification for clearing people out of their neighborhoods, while the Opportunity Zones will encourage and give cover to developers swooping in and snatching up the land to flip it for profit.

Greg Russ and MPHA are helping to accelerate this process in Minneapolis by privatizing and dismantling public housing. They are doing so with the full backing and support of the Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and City Council, who have ignored residents’ concerns and protests for over four years. This is yet another example of the City pushing the Trump administration’s xenophobic, anti-poor, pro-developer agenda on Minneapolis. We must continue to oppose public housing privatization and the larger plan of gentrification that it is part of.

You can read our full report on the Opportunity Atlas here on how it plans destroy public housing and gentrify Black and Brown neighborhoods:  

Today, City Council unanimously passed a MOU, or Memorandum of Understanding between the City of Minneapolis and Minneapolis Public Housing Authority(MPHA). During a listening session about the MOU hosted by Council Members Abdi Warsame and Cam Gordon on April 17, 2019, resident leaders and allies asked why a MOU that is unenforceable is being named as the city’s chief protection measures for residents. In response CM Cam Gordon said, “We are dancing with the devil.” Here is a brief breakdown of the deeply flawed MOU that all of city council signed off on.

The MOU mostly re-states federal RAD guidelines, which HUD is not already not reliably enforcing and uses language from MPHA’s Guiding Principles for Capital Redevelopment which was rejected by residents.

There is not language on how the City will enforce any of these agreements if MPHA were to violate them after the City has already given MPHA funding.

The MOU is weak and contradicts itself in numerous places. For example, it says that MPHA will remain responsible for the management and maintenance of converted (i.e. privatized) properties. But a few sentences later it says that could change (which we already know from Greg Russ’s testimony to the Board of Commissioners last summer), and the MOU only requires that residents be notified of that change.

The MOU does not require meaningful resident participation, and continues MPHA’s practice of considering resident organizations – which are controlled and manipulated by MPHA and do not represent the majority of residents – as the only residents who deserve to be involved in the planning or approval process.

The MOU does not guarantee that residents will continue to pay 30% of their income once their properties are privatized. Instead it talks about maintaining “affordability” based on metrics derived from Area Median Income (AMI), which DG&PHC has already written critically about.

The MOU does not require continued public ownership of public housing properties. It says that public ownership can be substituted for “public control,” by which they mean a non-profit created by MPHA will maintain a controlling interest in the converted property. This not only contradicts MPHA’s own documents showing that their non-profit will only have 0.01% interest in the properties (with the other 99.99% belonging to a private investor), but it also treats the non-profit as equivalent to a public entity. The non-profit will not be a public entity, and therefore would not constitute public ownership or “public control” even if it were to control 100% of the property after RAD conversion.

The MOU does not resolve concerns raised by the National Low Income Housing Coalition or the Government Accountability Office’s report on RAD commissioned by Maxine Waters having to do with the risk that foreclosure would have on any RAD contracts or agreements.

Ultimately, this MOU is weak, unenforceable, and these problems are understood by the city council that has passed it anyways, as confirmed by CM Abdi Warsame and Cam Gordon this past Wednesday. If City council cared about the preservation of public housing and protecting residents, they would not regurgitate and support the policies of Ben Carson’s HUD. It has become all too clear that the City of Minneapolis is invested in the destruction of marginalized communities and the displacement of poor people. If they weren’t they wouldn’t have signed this MOU unanimously. Call your council members and voice your disappointment.

Link to the MOU here:
https://lims.minneapolismn.gov/Download/RCA/8573/MOU_City_MPHA.pdf?fbclid=IwAR31qup3QqUjvluIKvSHq_HJYI9AjFqE9hIDh3YxfnJIXi5K8MOgEgyE4fI

Here is a letter from Harrison Neighborhood Association (HNA) opposing the privatization of public housing and the MOU. HNA has a long and rich history in North Minneapolis. They are the first neighborhood association to break ranks with the City of Minneapolis and MPHA’s privatization plan that endorsed Trump and Carson’s housing agenda. We call on more neighborhood associations to break ranks to keep public housing public and to save our city from Trump.

HNA Statement on MPHA

http://www.hnampls.org/

#KeepPublicHousingPublic 

#BuildMorePublicHousing 

#NotoRAD#DefendElliotTwins 

#SayNoToSection18Disposition 

#StopFrey#StopRuss 

#SayNoToGentrification 

#StopPrivatization

 #DGPHC

Here is a letter from the Alliance opposing privatization of public housing. They are the first non-profit to break ranks with the City of Minneapolis and MPHA’s privatization agenda. We call on more non-profits to break ranks to save our city from Trump agenda.

Alliance Opposes Privatization of Public Housing

Please read these statements from DG&PHC Organizer Ladan Yusuf and allies Andrew Kastenberg and Teqen Zea-Aida about the listening session hosted by Council Members Cam Gordon and Abdi Warsame:

Dear allies:

See this article by Ismail Khadar about the Minneapolis 2040 Plan and how it will make our city more unequal and unaffordable for communities of color. This is the perspective you don’t get from the white mainstream media, who silences our voices.

The City of Minneapolis pays lip service to the problems facing POC communities, but their policies – like privatizing public housing and giving handouts to developers – will harm us and lead to displacement and homelessness.

https://www.weareubuntu.com/race-politcs/2019/4/16/the-san-francisco-fication-of-minneapolis?fbclid=IwAR0sKV4qyWwTA0tWNrrEc7SNxYtizOWyhofPtmsHDzDidW41KrH6CXNoWRQ