Please watch our press conference here: https://www.facebook.com/DefendGlendale/posts/1812345162264666

Here are some points made by public housing residents and organizers:

— For the past few years, elderly residents have been lied to by the City of Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, and especially their former Council Member Abdi Warsame who is now Executive Director of MPHA.

–Warsame swore on the Quran – the religious textbook of Muslims, during the month of Ramadan – saying MPHA would not displace any residents and that they could trust him.

— The City of Minneapolis and MPHA are using Elliot Twins as their first project of the voluntary RAD privatization program and if successful, will continue to do the same with the rest of public housing stock in Minneapolis.

— In 2017, the City hired Greg Russ, the Czar of Privatization and Gentrification to implement RAD at Elliot Twins, and he was also hired to privatize the rest of Minneapolis Public Housing stock through RAD and Section 18.

— Between 2018 to 2019, Mayor Frey, CM’s Abdi Warsame, Andrea Jenkins, Cam Gordon, Jeremiah Ellison, Kevin Reich, Jeromy Schroeder, Lisa Bender, and Lisa Goodman authored and voted for a resolution and MOU to privatize the entire stock of Minneapolis Public housing starting with Elliot Twins.

–According to Greg Russ, MPHA Board, and the City of Minneapolis, RAD is a success at Elliot Twins.

–As a result, July of 2019, Greg Russ quit his job at MPHA and moved to NYC to dismantle and privatize NYC Public Housing Authority (NYCHA ) with the endorsement of Secretary Ben Carson and the Mayor of NYC.

–Greg Russ is responsible for dismantling public housing in cities like Cambridge, Massachusetts, Detroit, Chicago, and displacing thousands of public housing residents across the nation since the ’90s. — Due to RAD, the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) is now the new owner of Elliot Twins with 99.9 % ownership, and MPHA leased the land to the Royal Bank of Canada for 99 years; https://www.dgphc.org/2020/06/25/its-is-official-mpha-and-the-city-of-minneapolis-privatized-and-sold-elliot-twins-public-housing-apartments-to-the-royal-bank-of-canada/, https://www.dgphc.org/2020/06/25/its-is-official-mpha-and-the-city-of-minneapolis-privatized-and-sold-elliot-twins-public-housing-apartments-to-the-royal-bank-of-canada/

–There are currently more than 22 empty units at Elliot Twins, and residents were displaced to make room for remodeling through RAD for the Royal Bank of Canada to attract higher-income renters.

— During this press conference, there was a tent encampment set up next door at Elliot Park while there are empty units in Elliot Twins.– Now there are construction crew members going in and out of the occupied apartments & doing remodeling for RBC during COVID-19.

— 3 elders currently died of COVID-19 in one of the buildings within the last 2 weeks. All of the residents are majority elders, Black, Black Immigrant/ Muslims, and people with disabilities on fixed SSI income.

— In the middle of a hot summer and the global pandemic, residents were told to close their windows so construction could be completed outside for the transfer of the buildings to RBC. There are elders that can’t afford to buy AC’s.

— MPHA is putting the health and lives of elders at risk in the middle of a global pandemic and there is no one to go to at the City or MN State to hold them accountable. Elected officials continue to ignore this crisis while they want us to vote for them. If the residents of Elliot Twins where white and wealthy, would this be allowed? No.

–There is no accountability whatsoever to the abuses, racism, bullying carried by the City Council, Mayor Jacob Frey, MPHA Board/Staff, and the Executive Director of MPHA Abdi Warsame in order to silence public housing residents that are organizing to stop the privatization of their homes and the displacement of their communities.

— Residents of Ward 6 want to know why MPHA and the City of Minneapolis are putting the lives of its residents at risk?

— Mayor Frey, City Council, MPHA Board, and Abdi Warsame care more about the Royal Bank of Canada than the residents they are hired to serve and protect.

— In the middle of a hot summer and the global pandemic, residents were told to close their windows so construction could be completed outside for the transfer of the buildings to RBC. There are elders that can’t afford to buy ACs.