Released August 22, 2021

Defend Glendale & Public Housing Coalition is asking all of the public housing residents that have been marginalized & ignored and all of our allies to submit this call to the action letter;  https://actionnetwork.org/letters/reject-mphas-2022-mtw-annual-plan. This letter rejects MPHA and Minneapolis City’s plans to destroy the entire stock of Minneapolis public housing. 

MPHA and the City of Minneapolis have been planning to do this in stages for years. This destructive plan is the first time since the creation of public housing shortly before WWII that the City of Minneapolis decided to end public housing as we know it.  Please submit your call-to-action letter/ comments to MPHA, Minneapolis City Hall, MN State Legislatures, and HUD.

Here is the link to submit your letter/comments, https://actionnetwork.org/letters/reject-mphas-2022-mtw-annual-plan. You will see our demands, background information/ analysis of MPHA’s 2022 MTW Annual Plan, and a sample letter in the right-hand corner when you open this link. You can start writing and adding your comments. When you submit the letter, it will go to over 40 elected officials. The letters go to all Minneapolis City Council, Mayor Frey, Minneapolis State and House Representatives, MN Attorney General, Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, Senator Tina Smith, MPHA Commissioners/ staff, and HUD staff. 

MPHA’s deadline to submit comments is August 31, 2021, but you can submit comments to the rest of the officials until Friday, September 10, 2021. 

Here are our 6 demands outlined in the letter and explained in our analysis; 

1. MPHA must hold virtual public meetings that are accessible to public housing residents and the larger community before the 2022 MTW Annual Plan is approved.  
2. Provide translation of the  2022 MTW Plan before Board &  HUD approval.
3. Reject the regional MTW plan because Minneapolis residents will be displaced to the suburbs.
4. Reject The “Pathways Forward” plan which will disproportionately punish large families living in Public Housing.
5. Reject rent reasonableness for Section 8 project-based voucher subsidized housing because it will increase rents, accelerate gentrification and displacement.
6. Reject using RAD to privatize high rises and the demolition of 16 scattered sites because it will lead to displacement and increase rents.

Thank you for supporting us in the long struggle to keep public housing public and save our communities.