On Monday, April 9, facing mounting criticism over privatization plans for Minneapolis public housing, Mayor Jacob Frey appeared at an “East African Community Forum on Housing.” To host the event, Mayor Frey had to bring in Asad Aliweyd, a political operative on the payroll of the Department of Homeland Security’s Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) anti-Muslim surveillance and community infiltration program, exposing Mayor Frey’s dwindling support in the Minneapolis East African community

While the event was clearly intended to rally support on the issue of housing, many in the audience felt let down by what they saw as more empty rhetoric.  First, residents again were not provided with headphones or proper interpreting services.  And when Mayor Frey spoke briefly, Asad Aliweyd decided to interpret, but only summarized what the mayor had said, skipping major points.

Attendees were told to write questions. Dozens of questions were submitted to Asad Aliweyd, but he decided to skip all the hard-hitting questions intended for the mayor (who left the event after only two questions).

When asked what housing policies he has implemented since becoming mayor, Mayor Frey could only say he’d been “listening” to suggestions. He referenced a series of “community discussions,” which as Defend Glendale & Public Housing Coalition has documented, by design were inaccessible to immigrant communities, with no translation services provided for Somali public housing residents or any non-English speakers.  Mayor Frey and other speakers also championed the controversial draft 2040 Comprehensive Plan, saying it allows for a “diversity of housing” even though it does nothing to guarantee homes for the lowest income earners in our communities.  He also repeated the lie that upzoning the entire city for private developers would be equivalent to ending segregationist policies, despite strong evidence showing that blanket upzoning can lead to rising costs of living and worsen gentrification in low-income communities of color.

When an attendee asked what can he do about the long wait list that is seven years long that the attendee has been on to get income based or public housing, the Mayor answered; “That is far too long to wait, but we care about.”  He fails again to explain how  he will take care of the problem, or what  policies he will introduce to stop this crisis, and produce more  income based and public housing for low income families and seniors of Minneapolis.

Regarding public housing, after months of soft denials, Mayor Frey finally admitted Minneapolis Public Housing Authority has privatization plans, and pledged not to “sacrifice” any public housing units. He even claimed he would “make sure that we’re retaining all of our public housing.” He also broke with his usual rhetoric by specifically emphasizing public housing, instead of only the more vague term “affordable housing.”

Hopes for a major change in city policy were quickly dispelled, however.  Neither Mayor Frey nor any of the other speakers introduced any measures to save public housing from MPHA’s  ongoing privatization schemes. Some spoke eloquently about the need for public and affordable housing, but could only weakly pledge to explore options.

After answering only a couple softball questions that Asad Aliweyd handpicked for the mayor – compared to dozens of hard-hitting questions that were read later – the Mayor decided to leave early, which left many of the attendees who were elders disappointed and unsatisfied.  Again, it was another quick photo-op with no results. After he left, many of the questions that were read to the remaining panelists had been intended for the mayor.  Elders from public housing highrises and members of DG&PHC demanded answers from Mayor Frey, about how he keeps talking about public housing, but not doing anything to stop MPHA’s privatization plans. The mayor was not there to answer this question.  When a DG&PHC campaign organizer tried to interpret the question, because Asad Aliweyd was skipping over its points, he talked over her and blocked her from speaking, while the men at the panel watched and did not stop him – including the other co-sponsor of the event, Russ Adams, Executive Director of the Alliance for Metropolitan Stability.  Adams and Aliwerd are very close, as Aliweyd for years has been Chair of Adams’ organization.

Council Member Cam Gordon attempted to answer questions intended for Mayor Frey, and spoke about the hard work Defend Glendale & Public Housing Coalition has done. Still, attendees were unsatisfied by the mayor’s absence.

Meanwhile, Council Member Abdi Warsame argued that “nothing has come through” the City Council to suggest privatizing public housing. He claimed that he had not “seen a single email that points to support for privatization of public housing.” However, a Ward 6 resident and Defend Glendale & Public Housing Coalition ally had emailed CM Warsame’s staff extensive public records showing MPHA and its contractors in recent months have been finalizing plans for one of the Elliot Twins public housing towers, including pre-design narratives, redevelopment budget proposals, and financing schemes that would privatize the building ownership.

After all this, many attendees left the meeting and began talking outside about how disappointing the meeting was, and what a waste of time it had been.

In light of MPHA’s well-documented intention to privatize much of Minneapolis public housing, and to do so with as little transparency and as little oversight as possible, the passive, do-nothing approach of Mayor Frey and the council members is unacceptable.  DG&PHC has uncovered documents where MPHA officials compared their strategy to a saying attributed to Abraham Lincoln: “If I had eight hours to cut down a tree, I’d spend the first six sharpening the axe.”

In other words, MPHA wants to keep their privatization plans hidden for as long as possible, so the City and the public are unprepared when they suddenly spring into action.  As the DG&PHC ally wrote in his email to CM Warsame, the Council’s wait-and-see approach is “like telling someone that a person is trying to break into their home, but it’s okay because they haven’t yet gotten inside!”

MPHA’s plans need to be stopped NOW.  If Mayor Frey and the City Council were serious about fighting for public housing residents, they could be removing MPHA Executive Director and serial privatizer Greg Russ, as well as the many corrupt MPHA commissioners who have close ties to private developers. In addition, the City urgently needs to pass a resolution to stop MPHA’s privatization plans and ordinances to protect public housing permanently from sell-off schemes in the future, and should also enact levies to produce and fund MORE public housing.  The City should also immediately audit MPHA’s activities and capital needs estimates.  With the exception of the resolution in 2015 to stop the demolition of Glendale due to DG&PHC organizing citywide, the City has not done anything in the last four years to stop this crisis that is affecting many of our low-income populations of color, Black, Black Muslims, immigrants, refugees, Somalis, Oromo, Hmong, diverse immigrants, elders, and disabled people in this city.