On October 22, 2018, MPHA posted on Facebook that, in the midst of the worst homelessness crisis Minneapolis has ever seen, the agency is flying residents, along with Executive Director Greg Russ, and City Council Member Jeremy Schroder out to Cambridge, Massachusetts “to learn about the work to #preservepublichousing” there. Before coming to Minneapolis, Greg Russ was the Executive Director of the Cambridge Housing Authority (CHA), where he privatized all of the city’s public housing using RAD. Greg Russ is currently trying to do push through the same agenda in Minneapolis. As a result, MPHA has decided to bring residents to Cambridge to try to win a PR battle they are waging against their own residents in order to dismantle public housing in Minneapolis. Russ’s goal is to normalize the destruction of public housing among mainstream white communities and politicians such as Council Member Jeremy Schroeder. Russ wants to tell middle class white communities that it is okay to destroy public housing, to displace thousands of low-income poor people of color, immigrants, refugees, Black and Black Muslims out of Minneapolis. .

It is interesting that MPHA can afford to fly over a dozen people to and from Cambridge, at the same time that they are trying to convince the public that they cannot afford to maintain public housing. These are not the actions of an agency so low on funding that they have no choice but to sell public housing to private investors, but the actions of an agency so determined to sell off public housing that they will spare no expense to do so.

This trip is nothing more than a PR stunt. Greg Russ will not share the full picture of what happened in Cambridge. They will not meet with residents who lost their housing and were displaced because of Greg Russ’s actions. They will not discuss the major financing problems CHA encountered due to Greg Russ’s privatization schemes. They will cherry-pick which residents, buildings, and facts they share with residents to hide the truth and to push their own PR narrative.

Greg Russ and MPHA are not working to #preservepublichousing, they are working to #privatizepublichousing and #destroypublichousing. #ShameonCMSchroeder

Minneapolis is in the midst of an affordable housing crisis. Thousands of families are waiting to get into public housing. The wait list is over 7 years long. Shame on Greg Russ, MPHA, and CM Jeremy Schroeder for wasting valuable resources that should be going to house low-income families on a PR stunt.

See MPHA’s post here: https://www.facebook.com/mplspublichousing/posts/2858330260859476

See this 2016 article from the Cambridge Day that shows some of the failures of Greg Russ’s privatization schemes: https://www.cambridgeday.com/2016/12/29/public-housing-revamp-falters-midway-with-thousands-of-units-deteriorating/

#DefendGlendale.

##StopRuss

#PHIMBY (Public Housing in My Backyard)