https://www.startribune.com/glendale-townhomes-historic-designation/601345725?s=03

Dear Susan Du, 

On behalf of Defend Glendale and long-time families of Glendale Townhomes, we find your article to be an elaborate lie, an attack on low-income and working-class families that made Glendale historic, and the ones who are living there now that continue to make Glendale historic. We urge you to research and be a credible reporter instead of marketing for MPHA and Mayor Frey. This is the 4th or 5th time Star Tribune lied about us and ignored us when we submitted op-eds to tell our side of the story. However, when a white ally submitted the same Op Ed, Star Tribune accepted it. Your reporting continues to amplify the misrepresentation and silencing of low-income communities of color in Minneapolis, and it has not failed you yet. The article is full of lies from beginning to end.  We demand a public apology and the following corrections to the strategically false statements in your article. 

1. The petition you are referring to doesn’t say anything about displacement.Blank Petition Glendale to HPC and Minneapolis City Council April 2025.pdf
2.  Although the issue before the HPC is historic designation, MPHA’s repeated redevelopment proposals have confused the issue and raised serious concerns among residents. For the first time in a decade, MPHA is showing up regularly, now discussing relocation and demolition, while insisting they have no concrete plans. This contradiction has left residents in a state of uncertainty and fear of displacement.  MPHA initially claimed there were no plans, but soon presented four redevelopment options, including multi-story buildings. They called these proposals “preliminary,” yet have since confirmed RAD as their official direction—a program that would require demolition and has not been clearly explained to residents. At the end of these meetings, MPHA dismissively claims Glendale is not historic, despite expert opinions to the contrary.  MPHA has also falsely suggested that historic designation would block repairs. In fact, according to the Minnesota State Historic Preservation Office, local designation does not prevent changes—it only requires that exterior modifications follow preservation guidelines and receive HPC approval.
3. You reported that DGPHC refused to provide a comment on Historic Designation. How is that true, when DGPHC invited multiple Star Tribune reporters to the May 11th press conference, and sent the press release to the Star Tribune tip line on May 10th. Instead of attending and speaking to the resident organizer, you used an old quote about the RAD fight at Elliot Twins, which has nothing to do with the historic designation of Glendale Townhomes.

4. Another false claim is that homes cannot be repaired if they are historically designated. This is simply false, and even the HPC has clarified this point. According to the Minnesota State Historic Preservation Office’s website, “Local designation of a historic building or district will not prohibit you from making changes to your property. However, any exterior changes you make must meet local preservation guidelines based on the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards and must be approved by your HPC.”
5. Despite having access to numerous vacant lots, both MPHA and the City are not using this land to build more Section 9 public housing. Instead, residents face displacement in Glendale because that is what MPHA has been talking about in Glendale meetings since December 2024. Why isn’t this available land being used to expand Section public housing instead of demolishing and ending it? And why are many of the privatized scattered-site homes—especially those serving large families—being demolished?  The facts are all public records at MPHA.  Do FOI? You chose not to look at facts but to repeat MPHA’s lies.  
6. MPHA is receiving more funding from the City and State than ever before, yet continues to demolish Section 9 public housing. The new small fourplex apartments being built cannot accommodate large families, and they are not true public housing. These units are privately owned by LLCs and based on Area Median Income (AMI), which reflects market-rate rents, often geared toward households earning around $100,000. As a result, large families and those with very low incomes are excluded and unable to return. Why not investigate what happened to the displaced families from the original Section 9 single-family homes? Do your research.
7. On July 6, 2016, as a City Pages reporter, you interviewed Glendale families and published a well-received, balanced piece titled “The Fight Over the Housing Project That Sits on Gold”. At the time, you told both sides of the story fairly and factually. Now, as a reporter for the Star Tribune, you’ve misrepresented Defend Glendale and the Glendale Townhomes, despite knowing the facts, especially that our campaign is not run by white people.
8. The worst lie by you and MPHA is “Staff have fielded numerous complaints about canvassers knocking on tenants’ doors and telling them they would lose their homes if they didn’t support historic designation.”  

At the public hearing, Youth on April 8th at HPC, the youth directly addressed and refuted accusations that they were using fear tactics to gain support for historic designation. In contrast, Abdi Warsame has reportedly harassed residents and brought in outside agitators to intimidate and silence community voices. If the Star Tribune had attended our press conference and spoken with residents about how MPHA is scaring them, the coverage could have been more fair and accurate.

We could write pages correcting the misinformation in the article, but we don’t have the time. More importantly, the privatization of the Elliot Twins through RAD—now owned by a private LLC with a 99-year lease to the Bank of Canada—has nothing to do with the historic designation of Glendale Townhomes. Instead of drawing false connections, why not conduct real investigative reporting? Look into how rent calculations changed after the Elliot Twins’ conversion from Section 9 to RAD, and report the actual number of displaced elders with disabilities, on SSI, many of whom were organizing against the privatization.

Star Tribune’s history of silencing and racist tactics on Glendale Townhomes and public housing leaders of Defend Glendale goes back to 2017, since they identified with Greg Russ, the Czar of Privatization and Gentrification. 

•  https://www.dgphc.org/2018/07/20/star-tribune-spin-piece
• 2017 email sent to  “Shame on you, Emma Nelson and the Editors of the Star Tribune, for lying about our rally,, and what our fight is about.”

• 2018https://www.dgphc.org/2018/08/31/a-letter-from-a-concerned-and-mpha-resident-to-the-star-tribune-regarding-greg-russ-blatant-conflict-of-interest/

Star Tribune’s long history of slander, disrespect, racism, and silencing is well documented throughout the City’s low-income Black and Brown communities, who are trying to save their communities like Glendale Townhomes. We demand a public apology and corrections as soon as possible. 

Defend Glendale & Public Housing Coalition

https://linktr.ee/defendglendale

https://glendaleexhibit.wixsite.com/70th-anniversary

https://www.startribune.com/glendale-townhomes-historic-designation/601345725?s=03

Dear Susan Du, 

On behalf of Defend Glendale and long-time families of Glendale Townhomes, we find your article to be an elaborate lie, an attack on low-income and working-class families that made Glendale historic, and the ones who are living there now that continue to make Glendale historic. We urge you to research and be a credible reporter instead of marketing for MPHA and Mayor Frey. This is the 4th or 5th time Star Tribune lied about us and ignored us when we submitted op-eds to tell our side of the story. However, when a white ally submitted the same Op Ed, Star Tribune accepted it. Your reporting continues to amplify the misrepresentation and silencing of low-income communities of color in Minneapolis, and it has not failed you yet. The article is full of lies from beginning to end.  We demand a public apology and the following corrections to the strategically false statements in your article. 

1. The petition you are referring to doesn’t say anything about displacement.Blank Petition Glendale to HPC and Minneapolis City Council April 2025.pdf
2.  Although the issue before the HPC is historic designation, MPHA’s repeated redevelopment proposals have confused the issue and raised serious concerns among residents. For the first time in a decade, MPHA is showing up regularly, now discussing relocation and demolition, while insisting they have no concrete plans. This contradiction has left residents in a state of uncertainty and fear of displacement.  MPHA initially claimed there were no plans, but soon presented four redevelopment options, including multi-story buildings. They called these proposals “preliminary,” yet have since confirmed RAD as their official direction—a program that would require demolition and has not been clearly explained to residents. At the end of these meetings, MPHA dismissively claims Glendale is not historic, despite expert opinions to the contrary.  MPHA has also falsely suggested that historic designation would block repairs. In fact, according to the Minnesota State Historic Preservation Office, local designation does not prevent changes—it only requires that exterior modifications follow preservation guidelines and receive HPC approval.
3. You reported that DGPHC refused to provide a comment on Historic Designation. How is that true, when DGPHC invited multiple Star Tribune reporters to the May 11th press conference, and sent the press release to the Star Tribune tip line on May 10th. Instead of attending and speaking to the resident organizer, you used an old quote about the RAD fight at Elliot Twins, which has nothing to do with the historic designation of Glendale Townhomes.

1. Another false claim is that homes cannot be repaired if they are historically designated. This is simply false, and even the HPC has clarified this point. According to the Minnesota State Historic Preservation Office’s website, “Local designation of a historic building or district will not prohibit you from making changes to your property. However, any exterior changes you make must meet local preservation guidelines based on the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards and must be approved by your HPC.”
2. Despite having access to numerous vacant lots, both MPHA and the City are not using this land to build more Section 9 public housing. Instead, residents face displacement in Glendale because that is what MPHA has been talking about in Glendale meetings since December 2024. Why isn’t this available land being used to expand Section public housing instead of demolishing and ending it? And why are many of the privatized scattered-site homes—especially those serving large families—being demolished?  The facts are all public records at MPHA.  Do FOI? You chose not to look at facts but to repeat MPHA’s lies.  
3. MPHA is receiving more funding from the City and State than ever before, yet continues to demolish Section 9 public housing. The new small fourplex apartments being built cannot accommodate large families, and they are not true public housing. These units are privately owned by LLCs and based on Area Median Income (AMI), which reflects market-rate rents, often geared toward households earning around $100,000. As a result, large families and those with very low incomes are excluded and unable to return. Why not investigate what happened to the displaced families from the original Section 9 single-family homes? Do your research.
4. On July 6, 2016, as a City Pages reporter, you interviewed Glendale families and published a well-received, balanced piece titled “The Fight Over the Housing Project That Sits on Gold”. At the time, you told both sides of the story fairly and factually. Now, as a reporter for the Star Tribune, you’ve misrepresented Defend Glendale and the Glendale Townhomes, despite knowing the facts, especially that our campaign is not run by white people.
5. The worst lie by you and MPHA is “Staff have fielded numerous complaints about canvassers knocking on tenants’ doors and telling them they would lose their homes if they didn’t support historic designation.”  

At the public hearing, Youth on April 8th at HPC, directly addressed and refuted accusations that they were using fear tactics to gain support for historic designation. In contrast, Abdi Warsame has reportedly harassed residents and brought in outside agitators to intimidate and silence community voices. If the Star Tribune had attended our press conference and spoken with residents about how MPHA is scaring them, the coverage could have been more fair and accurate.

We could write pages correcting the misinformation in the article, but we don’t have the time. More importantly, the privatization of the Elliot Twins through RAD—now owned by a private LLC with a 99-year lease to the Bank of Canada—has nothing to do with the historic designation of Glendale Townhomes. Instead of drawing false connections, why not conduct real investigative reporting? Look into how rent calculations changed after the Elliot Twins’ conversion from Section 9 to RAD, and report the actual number of displaced elders with disabilities, on SSI, many of whom were organizing against the privatization.

Star Tribune’s history of silencing and racist tactics on Glendale Townhomes and public housing leaders of Defend Glendale goes back to 2017, since they identified with Greg Russ, the Czar of Privatization and Gentrification. 

•  https://www.dgphc.org/2018/07/20/star-tribune-spin-piece
• 2017 email sent to  “Shame on you, Emma Nelson and the Editors of the Star Tribune, for lying about our rally,, and what our fight is about.”

• 2018 https://www.dgphc.org/2018/08/31/a-letter-from-a-concerned-and-mpha-resident-to-the-star-tribune-regarding-greg-russ-blatant-conflict-of-interest/

Star Tribune’s long history of slander, disrespect, racism, and silencing is well documented throughout the City’s low-income Black and Brown communities, who are trying to save their communities like Glendale Townhomes. We demand a public apology and corrections as soon as possible. 

MPHA commissioners are okay with sending their executive director, Abdi Warsame, to create chaos.

Glendale Townhomes families are closer than ever to getting their housing historically preserved. This would secure Glendale’s place in Prospect Park, ending a decades-long fight against privatization and demolition. On April 22nd, the Minneapolis Historic Preservation Commission approved the designation of Glendale as a historic district. Today, May 6th, the decision will move to the City Council’s BHIZ committee, after which it will go to a full council vote for final approval on  Thursday, May 15th.

In response, MPHA has been engaging in a misinformation campaign, telling residents with large families that MPHA has plans for demolition, which Historic Preservation would thwart. At an April 5th meeting at Glendale, MPHA CEO Abdi Warsame falsely claimed that basic maintenance fixes and repairs can come only if historic preservation is rejected. MPHA Commissioners want to demolish Glendale through RAD, then convert the Section 9 public land to privately owned land through Section 8. Once Glendale is demolished, MPHA Commissioners want private developers to take over the land for $1, then use more public funding to build luxury buildings with smaller units that no one can afford. This is intentional and will block the large families here from returning because they won’t qualify to move back due to their family size. First off, it is categorically false that historic preservation will hinder renovations. Second, this lie ignores the current political climate around federal housing policy, especially with Donald Trump’s recent threats to cut Section 8 vouchers. If MPHA demolishes Glendale and converts the land into Section 8 in the hands of private developers, they will put all of their eggs in Trump’s basket while sacrificing their ability to use stable, reliable state funding sources, such as POHP and Historic Preservation.

Defend Glendale and the Public Housing Coalition have consistently raised concerns about MPHA’s increased use of the federal RAD and Section 18 programs to convert housing from public to private. Residents of MPHA’s scattered sites experience sharp hikes in maintenance fees after privatization, costs that used to be included in rent when the housing was public. In Addition, the Section 9 single-family homes that have been privatized through Section 8 are being demolished, families have been displaced, and the ones that are not the tenants are facing high costs with fees and rents.  MPHA is still evicting tenants who can’t pay these high rents. 

Additionally, when MPHA demolished the Section 9 single-family homes known as scattered sites, many scattered-site families were displaced and pushed out of the city. We don’t know where they are. The new units were smaller, and the large families that used to live in the single-family homes didn’t come back because they didn’t qualify. The new, smaller units are not for large families, and MPHA gave the land to a private LLC.

MPHA has conveniently ignored these details. Instead, they purposely spread misinformation and promise residents “four approaches” for demolition, which amount to a few CGI renderings and photographs of bathrooms with no substantive information. 

One Glendale resident asked these exact questions and was told there was no concrete plan or real details. Put simply, MPHA has no clue what it wants to do with Glendale in the long run, beyond demolition. The MPHA commissioners are okay with sending their executive director, Abdi Warsame, to chaotically spread misinformation and bring the trauma of displacement to Glendale families. In addition, many MPHA commissioners, especially the board chair, Tom Hoch, have deep ties to the Minneapolis Downtown Council. Why are millionaires running public housing?

Every problem with RAD  and Section 18 is multiplied under the current federal political climate. The Trump administration, through the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), is gutting HUD and slashing spending on housing programs. When Trump froze federal funding in early March, the freeze initially included Section 8 rental assistance, leaving voucher recipients across the country on the hook for the remainder of their rent, which is set by private landlords, which would have led to massive displacement across the nation. MPHA Commissioners want this for Glendale and the smaller number of Section 9 public housing units left throughout the City.  

Recently, plans to cut Section 8 vouchers in Trump’s upcoming proposed budget were leaked, sending housing authorities across the country into a panic and demonstrating that cuts to Section 8 are a long-term goal of Trump and his cronies. Reductions to HUD personnel will further delay the timely administration of the voucher program, leaving tenants with even less support. Currently, 44% of employees in the office overseeing the Section 8 Project-based rental assistance program may be laid off. This coincides with Trump pausing funding for thousands of government programs, including 100 that the HUD administers. All of these DOGE cuts exacerbate existing issues. Because of funding limitations, only 1 in 4 people in need of rental assistance received assistance in 2022.  It is unwise for MPHA to propose demolition in Glendale now, at all times. Why is MPHA putting all its eggs in Trump’s basket? The MPHA Commissioners, most developers, and the downtown business council do not believe we deserve secure and stable Section 9 public housing, which has more protections for tenants than Section 8. 

For as long as Trump is in office, it is wildly dangerous for MPHA Commissioners to rely on federal Section 8 funding for residents, especially when there are state funding sources insulated from Trump’s federal chaos. DGPHC has already discussed MPHA’s avoidable failure to fully draw on Minnesota’s Publicly Owned Housing Program (POHP). POHP is a program established by the state legislature in 2005, dedicated to renovating and preserving  Section 9 publicly owned housing in Minnesota through providing 20-year, zero-interest loans forgivable under the condition that the housing stays public. Despite MPHA receiving 12.3 million in POHP funding in the past, by privatizing and demolishing its Section 9 housing portfolio through Section 18 and RAD, MPHA deliberately limits its ability to use POHP funding in the future.  POHP funding is available only for Section 9 publicly owned housing, and any housing privatized through RAD and Section 18 is explicitly exempt.   This is because RAD and Section 18 convert housing from Section 9 to Section 8, meaning housing is no longer publicly owned but publicly funded for private developers to become millionaires. 

When the City Council approves Glendale’s historic designation, it will also allow MPHA to access the State and City Historic Preservation Grants-in-Aid Program, in addition to PHOP, another stable source of state funding. These grants are explicitly used to renovate, repair, and rehabilitate historically preserved, publicly owned buildings and homes. Despite the existence of this program, MPHA wants residents and community members to believe that historic preservation will make it impossible to maintain the homes and fix and repair them, which is a blatant lie. 

The correct choice is clear: by historically preserving Glendale and keeping it as Section 9 public housing, MPHA will retain and gain access to more funding from the State of Minnesota. Instead, by pushing for demolition and fighting against historic preservation, MPHA Commissioners are leaving the question of long-term funding up to Trump. By continuing their push with Glendale right at the beginning of Trump’s second term, MPHA Commissioners show that they do not care about the well-being of their residents. 

Don’t believe the hype. This article from MN Reformer is a PR piece designed to mislead. The city and MPHA claim they lack funds to repair Section 9 public housing, yet they find public funds to privatize these properties as they claim to make repairs, as seen with the Elliot Twins. Now, the Manor building is the latest Section 9 building set for privatization under the RAD (Rental Assistance Demonstration) program, pushed by the Mayor and city council.

RAD, a federal program lobbied for by the Minneapolis Mayor and City Council, shifts ownership from public to private hands. When the Mayor or city officials use terms like “deeply affordable” housing, they mean privately owned units, not true Section 9 public housing. Over the past two years, city-endorsed policies have led to the privatization, demolition, and displacement of over 736 public housing single-family homes known as scattered sites, using HUD’s Section 18 Demolition & Disposition alongside RAD to facilitate this shift from public to private.

This article misleads by using the term “public housing” in its title but then referring to “affordable” housing—affordable for whom? Section 9 public housing properties are being demolished, rents are rising, and low-income families are displaced, as seen at Elliot Twins. Yet, the Mayor, Rainville, and MN Reformer want you to believe that the Manor building will remain Section 9 public housing, even though it’s being privatized through RAD.

Additionally, they claim that 15 new Section 9 units are being built. In reality, these units are not public housing—they are “affordable” units with market-rate rents, controlled by private entities under the guise of affordability, benefiting developers, banks, and corporate nonprofits, not low-income families.

Ask your council members—especially those endorsed by TC DSA who pledged to halt RAD and Section 18—why they are allowing these programs to privatize, demolish, and displace low-income families, seniors on fixed incomes, and people with disabilities across Minneapolis right now.

Jacob Frey’s “Deeply Affordable” Housing Investments: PR versus Reality

What’s up with the Minneapolis Public Housing Levy?

Let’s Witness Minneapolis Ending Single Family Public Housing Units, Senator Tina Smith, Frey, and MPHA Advertise as Family Housing Expansion Project

On Wednesday, June 4th, 2024, The Heritage Preservation Commission (HPC) of the City of Minneapolis unanimously approved the nomination to designate Glendale Townhomes as a historic district. This is the second time the commission has approved this nomination, as the previously approved application from 2020 expired. Both times, the Community Planning & Economic Development ( CPED) and Minneapolis Public Housing Authority ( MPHA) recommended a motion for the HPC to deny the nomination. Here is CPED recommending HPC to vote no under item #7 of the June 4 agenda. It is interesting to compare this to the 3 other private properties on the agenda that CPED recommended yes for historic designation. These are single properties mainly vacant in the  North Loop. At the same time, CPED recommended no for Glendale’s historic designation. Even though Glendale is the only Section 9 public housing with 184 properties- townhouses with a 5 to 7-year waitlist.  

During the June 4th Heritage Preservation Meeting/ Presentation, from 1:17:37 to 1:29, MPHA representative Mr. Brian Schaffer uploaded a PowerPoint by MPHA and CPED that listed reasons why HPC should deny the nomination to designate Glendale Townhomes as a historic district. Please note that if Glendale becomes a historic sight, MPHA will face barriers to demolish it.  MPHA and CPED said: “There are better ways to preserve history than designation.” They give no consideration to the families that Glendale houses. During the preservation meeting (timestamp 1:26:39), MPHA used an image from the Glendale Exhibit’s Oral History Interview (timestamp 20:24), created by Defend Glendale & Public Housing Coalition (DG&PHC) to show that they want to preserve the history while  MPHA wants to displace its low-income families and children. MPHA demonizes, slanders, attacks, and intimidates the Glendale tenants that founded & run DG&PHC along with mainstream institutions and politicians. Yet they continue to use our work. It is difficult to comprehend why MPHA would use our labor on this exhibit and then manipulate it to justify why they should demolish Glendale Townhomes. Using the labor of the exhibit team, such as current and former Glendale tenants, volunteers, and MN Transform AGAINST, what we are advocating for is not just callous but also condescending, classist, and racist.  

MPHA, STOP using our work. 

If MPHA truly cared about “amplifying and supporting” the story of Glendale, they would have long ago. 

MPHA’s approach of putting the onus of preservation work on residents and organizers through storytelling rather than the historic designation mechanisms put in place by the City shows that the  Minneapolis political leadership does not value Section 9 public housing. This local history work is our way of advocating for the protection and preservation of the Glendale community and all Section 9 public housing communities at risk of being demolished and displaced for profit. 

We will not allow Glendale to be an afterthought written in history books as a displaced community. 

#StopMPHA

Minnesota’s current information page for its POHP funding program

Last year, the Minneapolis Public Housing Authority (MPHA)  justified its million dollar request to the Minnesota state legislature by pointing out that it can no longer draw on financing from the state’s Publicly Owned Housing Program (POHP) to renovate many properties it maintains. POHP is a dedicated state funding source for public housing authorities to use. MPHA is the state’s largest public housing authority.  

This fact sheet addresses how MPHA went from being the State’s most successful recipient of POHP to unable to take advantage of this funding.  MPHA’s history of transferring public housing into private hands is limiting MPHA’s access to funding sources, risking the long-term sustainability of its model. 

To understand MPHA’s current POHP predicament, it’s necessary to explain POHP’s history and how it operates. In 2005, the Minnesota state legislature created the Publicly Owned Housing Program (POHP) for renovating and preserving public housing units in the state. POHP funding can only be applied to the renovation of low-income public housing – housing that, as per Section 9 of the United States Housing Act of 1937, is operated by a municipal or regional Public Housing Authority (PHA).  This means that POHP funding cannot be used to renovate housing that MPHA privatized and converted to the Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher program. While Section 8 rent is publicly subsidized, it is not publicly owned. It is owned by private landlords and non-profit corporations.

POHP distributes funds via a Request for Proposal (RFP) process, which is highly competitive. Once funding is provided, it can be allotted to a wide range of renovation needs. The funding is provided as a zero interest loan and is typically forgiven after its 20-year term.

POHP offers MPHA zero interest loans specifically for funding public housing renovation. 

MPHA presentation to the MN state legislature stating that it cannot use POHP funding for CHR-held properties

In recent years, MPHA has highlighted the need for significant renovation. Why isn’t the agency drawing on such an obvious and accessible source of funding as much as possible? This contradiction becomes even starker when one realizes just how much MPHA has used POHP money in the past. Over the past decade, MPHA has received about $12.3 million in POHP funding from the state to renovate public housing.  MPHA is so well versed in POHP policies that in 2020, MPHA’s own Community Update confidently stated that 

Since its creation in 2012, MPHA has been the state’s most successful user of POHP grants to address essential capital repairs…. MPHA will continue to apply for this essential program to preserve our highrises, most of which are now more than 50 years old. 

Despite this familiarity with POHP, MPHA has undertaken the privatization of public housing – rendering huge portions of its portfolio ineligible for POHP funding. Specifically, it has used two federal programs – Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) and Section 18 Demolition and Disposition –  to convert its high rise and scattered site Section 9 public housing into privately owned “deeply affordable” housing that is subsidized by tax dollars. This resulted in displacement of residents and high rents.  The POHP program overview explicitly states that housing converted through RAD is not eligible.   In other words, by privatizing housing and transferring ownership to its subsidiary nonprofit Community Housing Resources (CHR), MPHA deliberately limited its ability to use POHP funding.  Now, MPHA complains about its inability to access POHP, as if the legal barriers were not a consequence of the agency’s own decisions. 

In addition to sacrificing access to future POHP funding, MPHA’s privatization agenda may result in additional costs associated with previously disbursed POHP money. While MPHA typically refers to POHP funds simply as “loans,” in its March 2022 Board Packet, MPHA stated, “the loans have a term of 20 years and are forgiven and extinguished with no repayment required if the MPHA continues to operate and manage the developments as public housing for public housing residents.”  In other words, these are effectively grants and only become loans if MPHA decides to privatize the properties.  This is meant to provide an incentive to maintain the properties as public housing.  Did MPHA have to repay “loans” which would have been forgiven had they maintained their public housing status? 

Another reason MPHA may be less reliant on POHP going forward is that PHOP requires that each housing community  have a concrete relocation plan, which is something MPHA failed to do for its residents during the RAD conversion of the Elliot Twin High rises. MPHA’s “relocation plan” for Elliot Twins did not provide a timeline for relocation, asked residents to move in with friends and family, and contradicted itself several times about whether residents would even have to leave the building during renovation. All of these actions violate the relocation requirements for projects funded by POHP. 

MPHA’s failure to meet POHP’s relocation requirements may be another reason that MPHA has deliberately limited its access to POHP funds. Was MPHA trying to avoid accountability by making their housing ineligible for POHP?  Perhaps MPHA assumed that the private sector cash that would flow in once units had been converted to private housing would eliminate the need for POHP funds.  Either way,  MPHA’s current complaints about being unable to draw on POHP and their hinted plans to lobby to alter POHP to cover privatized housing suggest that this the gamble did not work out. Instead, by privatizing, MPHA blocked the opportunity to access unlimited state funds.

Meanwhile, they say they are $31 million dollars behind in repairs.  This is the contradiction at the core of MPHA’s current approach to housing policy: they deliberately deny themselves access to public money and then refuse accountability.

MPHA’s photo of the celebration following the levy’s passage

Last week, the Minneapolis city council council’s passed a $5 million annual property tax levy intended to fund construction and renovations of housing operated by the Minneapolis Public Housing Agency. The city council’s passage of the levy follows a months-long campaign by Mayor Frey, several council members, MPHA CEO Abdi Warsame, and the Minneapolis Board of Estimate and Taxation, which had to approve the levy before it went to the council.  

While ostensibly, more money to MPHA should mean more money invested in public housing, MPHA’s approach to housing renovation over the last decades suggests otherwise. DG&PHC has questions and concerns about the  tax levy. We doubt that the $5 million will be used to make repairs because MPHA has failed to use previous public funds windfalls for repairs. For example, in 2019, MPHA received a 45% in HUD spending, and continued to pursue the path of privatization, letting buildings fall into disrepair until privatized. This is called demolition by neglect in the housing field. 

We have noticed that as MPHA reduces the public housing stock yearly, they continue to lobby for more funds, all while repairs get delayed. MPHA has a long history of using funds as they wish because for decades, they have enjoyed MTW status. MTW means HUD ceded its supervision of MPHA to the City of Minneapolis to have more local and community control. As a result, MPHA has enjoyed more autonomy to try out pilot projects such as privatization. In theory the City would monitor MPHA’s actions, from creating pilot projects to appropriating funds. But, in reality, there has been no oversight, monitoring, or audits by the City of Minneapolis for decades. The City still fails to hold MPHA accountable. This levy will be more of the same regardless of the political optics. 

MPHA’s actual stock of Public Housing, defined by Section 9 of the Housing Act of 1937, has dwindled over the decade as MPHA has exploited MTW status to aggressively privatize housing. The latest privatization program MPHA used was Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) which allows PHAs (Public Housing Agencies) to convert public housing into “affordable” (or as Mayor Frey says), “ deeply affordable” private housing. MPHA used RAD to privatize the Elliot Twins highrises in 2018 and sold the two buildings to the Royal Bank of Canada. The second federal program MPHA used is RAD’s sister Section 18 Demolition & Disposition, which transferred ownership of all 736 scattered site single-family homes to its nonprofit, Community Housing Resources (CHR). Instead of selling the houses to the families living there, MPHA sold the homes to CHR for $1 each.  This is the latest iteration of a decades-long patter. In 1999, MPHA used HOPE VI to demolish 770 units of townhomes and highrises located in the old Sumner Glenwood Neighborhood in North Minneapolis – at the time the largest public housing development in the city.

Through Section 18, residents have reported increased rents and fees, confusing leases, and evictions. Residents also said they were pressured to move out by MPHA and were offered Section 8 Housing Choice Vouchers to look for other housing in this market. Section 8 is a subsidy for private landlords and non-profit corporations to rent to low-income families, but nothing stops the landlord from increasing rents. Section 8 rents themselves are not fixed at 30% of income like Section 9. Additionally, after privatization through RAD and Section 18, nothing stops the developers, banks, and landlords from increasing fees and rents.

Why didn’t the City pass a tax levy years ago, before privatizing Section 9 Public Housing through Section 18 or RAD?

In 2016, when DG&PHC advocated bringing back the old tax levy for MPHA, which the City used before 2010 to meet the funding gaps and stop RAD privatization, public housing residents were told there was insufficient political capital for a housing tax levy in Minneapolis, and thus preserving public housing was impossible. Now that over 736 single-family homes (scattered sites) and the Elliot Twins have been privatized, and MPHA has plans to convert more highrises with RAD to end public housing, the political will has suddenly materialized. 

During his recent public relations bonanza, Mayor Frey spoke of the need to “invest” in public housing, all while advancing policies that hand over the city’s public housing stock to nonprofit corporations, banks, and real estate developers. Notably, 2023 was an election year for the city council, suggesting politicians saw the entire levy passage process as a photo opportunity without any accountability or transparency. If Minneapolis City Council were serious about protecting and expanding Section 9 public housing, they would stop RAD and Section 18 now and protect residents from displacement and gentrification.  

Given all of this, neighborhood organizations have the following questions:

1. How will MPHA spend the levy? 
2.  What are the scope of services funded by the levy?
   1. What properties will receive the repairs?
3. Is there a legally binding document between the City of Minneapolis and MPHA that outlines the needed repairs the levy will address? 
4. Will the City hold MPHA accountable to submit quarterly reports to explain how the levy is spent?  
5. Will the City of Minneapolis enforce Chapter 420 to hold MPHA accountable on how they spend funds?
6. Why won’t the progressive city council members pass a resolution or ordinance  to stop RAD and Sections 18 privatization, since it is now easy to pass a levy?

Defend Glendale & Public Housing Coalition
defendglendale @ gmail. com | www.dgphc.org | facebook @ defendglendale    
| twitter @ defendglendale  | Instagram @ defendglendale

612-389-8527

P.O. Box 14616, Minneapolis, MN 55414

Jacob Frey speaks at the Public Housing Preservation and Expansion Convening press conferences with MPHA CEO Adbi Warsame behind (source KSTP)

On March 10th 2023, Jacob Frey convened a press conference  at the Minnesota State Capitol about expanding housing affordability in Minneapolis. He chaired the Public Housing Preservation and Expansion Convening and included a classic list of Twin Cities governmental entities and NGOS including the Metropolitan Council, The Pohlad Family Foundation, The Minneapolis Foundation, The McKnight Foundation, Minneapolis Public Schools, and Minneapolis Highrise Representative Council. According to Frey, by bringing together “elected officials, community leaders, and housing experts,” the Convening exemplifies the “best way” to expand Minneapolis’ “public housing stock”. 

Interestingly, the keystone of the convening was House File 2477, state legislation that would have initially granted $45 million for the Minneapolis Public Housing Authority (MPHA) to renovate and build more “affordable housing units”. Frey claims that the $45 million grant would go towards current public housing units, benefitting 31,000 families and building new units for future families. 

However, as with all things rolled out by Frey and Minneapolis’ DFL politicians, the devil is in the details. This report highlights two important contradictions in the city’s housing policy.  First, when Twin Cities politicians and their friends in real estate talk about expanding public housing, they are usually talking about privatizing it and replacing it with so-called “deeply affordable housing”. This explains why the two terms – public housing and “deeply affordable housing” – were used interchangeably in Frey’s convening and the subsequent discussions about House File 2477 in the Statehouse. And second, that very privatization itself explains why Jacob Frey has to put on a massive “convening” just to ask for more money from the State of Minnesota to fund his own city’s “housing” plans which is privatizing public housing therefore ending public housing as we know it. 

Deeply Affordable Housing Is Not Public Housing

House File 2477 itself does not mention public housing, contradicting Jacob Frey’s claim of wanting to “expand public housing”. Instead, the bill language refers to public housing units as “deeply affordable family housing units.” This contradiction between the labeling of the exact same units as “public housing” by the press but “deeply affordable housing” by the politicians themselves highlights the true nature of the goals of the Minneapolis Public Housing Authority and the city’s politicians. 

First, “deeply affordable housing” and “public housing” are not the same. In Minneapolis, truly public housing is owned by the public, it is a public good and operated by government agency MPHA (Minneapolis Public Housing Authority), but “deeply affordable” housing is not actually owned by the  government.  This is apparent the moment one examines the fine print of HF 2477. The $45 million that MPHA initially asked for will not go directly to MPHA for its own public housing stock but to Community Housing Resources (CHR), a nonprofit that MPHA created.

Actual text of HF 2477

Since 2018, MPHA has offloaded its entire stock of over 736 scattered sites single-family public housing to CHR through the Section 18 Demolition & Disposition Conversion  process. This process allows public housing authorities to transfer ownership of housing from the government to a private sector landlord.  Once converted, this housing is no longer public housing. 

On the surface, “deeply affordable” housing appears similar to public housing. Housing is considered deeply affordable by HUD and most municipal agencies if it is “affordable” to someone earning under 30% of the Area Median Income (AMI). Affordability in this context means that rent itself does not surpass 30% of a resident’s monthly income. Similarly,  Residents earning 30% or under of AMI are eligible to live in public housing and they pay no more than 30% of their actual earned income in rent and fees to MPHA. 

Because of these similarities, it would seem that public housing residents and those dwelling in “deeply affordable family housing units” would enjoy similar experiences. This narrative, which MPHA regularly pushes, obscures some important details. Because the “deeply affordable” definition applies to rent but not other charges, residents whose homes have been converted pay higher fees and maintenance charges than before. These fees are added to the monthly rents and if the tenants don’t pay then they face eviction. Going forward, there is no guarantee that rent itself will stay the same at 30% of income because CHR residents do not enjoy the same legal protections as public housing residents.In fact, landlords are free to change rent itself for housing subsidized through Section 8 while the voucher may stay constant, leading to volatile and unpredictable out of pocket-costs year to year. Without a legally binding document or policy that will keep CHR under the supervision of MPHA, in a few years CHR could have a private board and investors who will profit from the 736 scattered sites formerly operated under Section 9 public housing. 

The details of MPHA”s Family Housing Expansion Project (FHEP) illustrate another important truth about “deeply affordable” housing in Minneapolis. FHEP is MPHA’s name for the Section 18 Demolition and Disposition of 16 specific scattered site homes. The project will replace the homes with modularly constructed fourplexes, resulting in smaller apartment units unable to house the same large, multigenerational families that lived there before. Because of this, families may not qualify to come back after conversion because their household size is too large and they will need more bedrooms. By making the new privatized units smaller under the Family Housing Expansion Project, MPHA is pushing out large size families who are majority people of color, and who have been on waitlist for 5 to 7 years to live in public housing. 

Artist’s rendering of new fourplexes occupying the same space as a previous single-family scattered site home (source MPHA)

Between high fees, high rents, opaque rental policies, smaller new units, and more expensive rent per square foot, “deeply affordable” housing is more expensive than public housing. 

Privatization Sacrifices MPHA’s Ability to Use Traditional Funding Sources

MPHA has justified its disastrous use of Section 18 and Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) – Section 18’s equivalent program for high-rises – by pointing out that once privatized, it can more easily draw on federal tax credits and private sector cash to fund construction and maintenance. But ironically, MPHA also cites the fact that so much of its housing stock is owned by CHR to justify why it needs more cash from the state. The State of Minnesota operates a special fund for public housing rehabilitation called the Publicly Owned Housing Program (POHP). Typically, public housing authorities across the state apply for 20-year deferrable and forgivable loans through POHP. However, as MPHA pointed out in their presentation to the state legislature, because all of the scattered sites are now owned by CHR, MPHA cannot apply POHP funding to their maintenance. 

It is clear that privatization has little to do with ease of funding. By privatizing the scattered sites, and highrises like Elliot Twins, MPHA sacrificed its ability to draw from a key source of public funding. While some private sector cash has flowed in following privatization, it clearly has not been sufficient if MPHA needs to ask the state for an additional $45 million. MPHA portrays RAD and Section 18 as “best practices” for public housing management, but in reality they are only “best practices” for the continuous eradication of public housing across the city. In the long run, CHR burdens residents with fees and forces them into smaller apartments since 1 out of 5 families may come back if they are lucky, while benefiting developers who hope to buy out the buildings. 

MPHA’s Disregard for Public Housing Residents is Consistent as it Gambles with the Future of Public Housing

Since 2017, MPHA has increased its yearly repair budget from HUD from $10 million to over $14 million. On top of this, it receives $2 million annually from the state. At the same time, MPHA claims it needs an additional $31 million for repairs for the scattered sites alone, failing to identify a time frame for the budgetary estimate and conveniently leaving out the existing funding from the public sector in its PR. Where does this $31 million “estimate” come from and why isn’t MPHA simply using two years of $16 million in public funding to fix the repairs? In the past, MPHA’s previous capital backlog could be eradicated by existing public sources.

This apparent fiscal dilemma served as the major justification for HF 2477 at Frey’s convening. Since then, HF 2477 had one hearing in the House of Representatives after it was introduced by Representative Ester Agbaje and was introduced in the State Senate by Senator Omar Fateh. The bill was added to a Housing bill package, or an omnibus, where the ask has been reduced to $20 million, not enough to meet MPHA’s initial ask. As of late last month, it is unclear if the bill will gather enough support by the end of the legislative session.

Ultimately, scattered site residents are losing from this whole process. MPHA privatized their homes and handed the properties over to CHR, which exploited the subsequent change in legal requirements to hike up fees and remove long-term housing security guarantees. When MPHA decided to convert the housing through Section 18, it eliminated its own ability to use POHP funding, sacrificing an important financial resource. Now, it is facing an uphill battle to secure alternative public funding sources, no matter how many nonprofits and foundations  Jacob Frey packs into a room. Meanwhile, residents continue to lose as their homes fall into disrepair and face the risk of being displaced due high rents that is more then 30% of their actual income. 

THE PUBLIC COST OF BUILDING “AFFORDABLE HOUSING” VS PUBLIC HOUSING

Historic Public Land Grab: MPHA, Mayor Frey and Council President Lisa Bender move forward to sell 717 scattered sites of public housing and 104.67 acres of public land through Section 18 Demolition & Disposition without public input or a city council vote.

SECTION 18 Demolition & Disposition: A Fact Sheet

Defend Glendale & Public Housing Coalition
defendglendale @ gmail. com | www.dgphc.org | facebook @ defendglendale    
| twitter @ defendglendale
| Instagram @ defendglendale
612-389-8527
P.O. Box 14616, Minneapolis, MN 55414

On January 12th, 2023, a familiar cast of characters gathered to celebrate the groundbreaking of Minneapolis Public Housing Authority’s Family Housing Expansion Project (FHEP). Mayor Jacob Frey and Senator Tina Smith joined MPHA Executive Director Abdi Warsame to extoll the benefits of safe and “affordable housing” as they detailed plans to replace 16 public housing scattered sites single-family homes with modular fourplexes. The laudatory and celebratory tone of the press conference is not new. Most of the press coverage since the announcement of the FHEP has generally celebrated the project as “more public housing coming to Minneapolis.” Unfortunately, this is categorically untrue. The FHEP definitely involves converting public housing to housing leased through the private market. Over the last year of careful on-the-ground research and document analysis, Defend Glendale, and Public Housing Coalition (DG&PHC) has uncovered key details about the FHEP, its funding sources, and likely implications on the future of public housing in the city. 

It is first necessary to provide a brief history of Minneapolis’ management of “scattered site” public housing. For decades, MPHA operated over 736 single-family public housing homes  rented to large low-income families, each paying 30% of their income for rent and utilities. The scattered site public housing units are in high demand, and it takes 5 to 7 years to get off the scattered site waitlist because the homes are in high demand. MPHA states that 7500 people are on a wait list.  The City needs to build more public housing especially single family public housing homes that allows large families to live affordably and with dignity. Currently, the families that live in Minneapolis scattered-site public housing homes are all poor/low-income and predominantly Black, Black immigrant, and Brown. 

Despite the scattered sites’ importance and popularity, since 2018, MPHA and the City of Minneapolis have claimed that homes must be privatized through Section 18 Demolition & Disposition Conversion. This type of conversion is a process approved by the City of Minneapolis and HUD  that allows Public Housing Authorities (PHA) to transfer ownership of single-family public housing units to private sector entities. With the permission of the City of Minneapolis, MPHA, Mayor Jacob Frey and former Council Member Lisa Bender lobbied HUD to allow MPHA to use Section 18 Demolition & Disposition to privatize and extract the homes from the public housing stock and transfer the  ownership of the homes to its own private “nonprofit”, Community Housing Resources (CHR).  As a nonprofit without any legal obligation to the general public, MPHA’s claims that CHR is an accountable public entity “wholly owned and operated” by MPHA are ludicrous. After Section 18 Conversion, rent is subsidized through Section 8 vouchers rather than fixed at 30% of residents’ income under Section 9 (Public Housing). Because of this, MPHA claims displacement should be minimized.

The Minneapolis City Council’s unanimous passage of the Minneapolis 2040 plan in 2019 further expedited MPHA’s plans to privatize the scattered sites. Minneapolis 2040 involves the elimination of single-family zoning across most of the city by the year 2040. Unfortunately for scattered site residents, this means that the public lots their houses are built on will be soon upzoned, and sold  meaning that the homes will be torn down and replaced with apartment buildings that are more expensive and smaller units, usually four-plexes. Although full implementation of the 2040 plan has been in and out of the Hennepin County Courts, the damage to public housing residents is still done. 

The Family Housing Expansion Project is simply the name Senator Tina Smith, the City of Minneapolis and MPHA have given to the latest wave of ending public housing like scattered site privatizations through Section 18. What differentiates these conversions from previous conversions is the combination of 16 conversions at one time and the replacement of all 16 homes with new, cheaply constructed “modular” apartment buildings with small-size units.In July 2021, FHEP was granted $4.6 million by the City of Minneapolis and the demolition process began in the Fall of 2021, when MPHA told residents they would soon have to leave, offering no formal guarantee of relocation.  Most recently, the FHEP was granted another $1.4 million by the Metropolitan Council, followed by  the Minneapolis City Council BHIZ Committee issued a bonding bill. By summer of 2022, all 16 homes had been vacated. Virtually all governmental entities in the Metro area had rubber stamped the project, upholding MPHA’s narrative that the project would cause “no displacement” and that “residents would be able to move back in” once the new buildings were completed. This is false.

As usual, MPHA’s narrative does not hold up to scrutiny. Over the last year, we visited the 16 scattered site addresses slated for conversion a few times. By the summer, homes that were previously occupied showed signs of abandonment. For example, in the backyard of one scattered site home, we found most of the previous residents’ furniture and kid’s tows thrown in a pile. This suggests that relocation was not as smooth and painless as MPHA promised. Displacement is a traumatic experience, especially considering that some families reported having just moved into their scattered site only a few months before the initiation of the FHEP. 

 Before demolition, residents we talked to expressed concern that the new apartment units would be too small to fit their families. The appeal of scattered site housing is space for large families, and many scattered sites have a yard, porch space, and a storage shed, along with the multiple bedrooms and bathrooms necessary to house large multi-generational families.. This space will be eliminated as the replacement units will be smaller than the homes previously occupying their lots, according to the Met Council. In the place of these homes, MPHA and a private contractor are erecting buildings that are composed of four prefab pods placed together like a Lego set. Residents’ fears are entirely justified, especially considering that MPHA and its affiliated nonprofits typically use apartment square footage to cap the number of people able to live in a unit. The City of Minneapolis and MPHA wants the public to believe their lies despite obvious holes in their narrative. How can families come back to small units that they can’t legally live in due to occupancy caps?

Finally, the Section 18 conversion process inherently privatizes public housing, meaning that many of the guarantees and legal protection  made to public housing residents dissipate. Once public housing has been privatized, there will be no long-term affordability to guarantee the new apartments will be 30% of the tenant’s income for rent, including utilities. Ownership structures become confusing and opaque and it becomes harder to hold landlords accountable.Instead of dealing with MPHA directly, residents’ landlord will (at first) be yet another bizarre nonprofit entity – this time called Family Housing Resources (FHR). Of course, MPHA claims that because FHR – just like CHR – is” wholly operated” by MPHA itself, residents will experience no change. 

The Section 18 conversions of scattered sites before the FHEP show the real story. Because CHR has no accountability to the general public, it is allowed to profit from the displacement of  poor, and disabled families. The new leases residents were forced to sign after Section 18 conversion no longer guaranteed the 30% of income for rent and utilities that are guaranteed under public housing. Instead, MPHA and the City state that rents and fees will be adjusted in the future, under the auspices of “rent reasonableness”. Nothing is stopping CHR from increasing rents and making the units unaffordable to the median household in Minneapolis public housing, whose income was $10,758 in 2021. Other residents whose homes were converted before 2022 say that they were hit with confusing fees in their rent and increasingly neglected maintenance requests, causing most units to be unlivable. Some residents faced eviction because they could not pay rent.  In some cases, these conditions escalated to the point where residents moved out of their units and used the Section 8 vouchers to find other housing, pushing them out of their community and city.  

The story of the Elliot Twins – two former public housing buildings in Ward 6 – also illustrates what we can expect from FHR’s management of the 16 new modular buildings. The Elliot Twins were privatized through HUD’s Rental Assistance Demonstration program – the analogue to Section 18 for highrise buildings. Similar to scattered site residents whose homes MPHA previously converted through Section 18, MPHA lied to, harassed, and intimidated Elliot Twins tenants, many of whom were eventually displaced and forced to take Section 8 Vouchers. No one knows what happened to these tenants.  

After the Twins’ conversion, MPHA used its typical tactic of creating shell organizations (like FHR and CHR) to manage the property and oversee leasing. However, the land underneath the two buildings was sold to the Royal Bank of Canada, with additional construction capital from Bremer Bank. These investors are now profiting from Elliot Twins by exploiting federal low-income housing tax credits and large amounts of affordable housing funds from the state, county, city and HUD. Its possible that  FHR  could simply sell off the new modular units to a private financial institution once the FHEP finishes up next December. We expect similar results as FHR takes over the new modular buildings and the FHEP finishes up next December. 

Ultimately, the FHEP is just one part of MPHA’s plan to eventually destroy all 736 scattered site homes so that the public  land they formerly sat on can be leased to developers for profit. The plan to end public housing and displace low-income Black and Brown families was hatched by so-called “progressive” politicians whose end goal is to enrich their friends in finance and real estate, including so-called “nonprofit” developers. As the city dismantles public housing in the midst of a housing crisis, Black and Brown neighborhoods gentrify. And, the resulting skyrocketing rents and tax credits enrich developers. All the while, nobody from the city has been able to answer the most important questions: 

• What happens to the families displaced and forced to move out?
• Will these families be on a waitlist at local shelters?
• Where will they sleep? 
• What will happen to the schooling of their children and stability? 
• Will these families add to the number of families seen daily living in their cars or encampments that Mayor Frey and his police force constantly destroy?
• What will happen to the families when the Section 8 vouchers MPHA and the City forces on them expire between 60 to 120 days?  

Defend Glendale & Public Housing Coalition
defendglendale @ gmail. com | www.dgphc.org | facebook @ defendglendale    
| twitter @ defendglendale
| Instagram @ defendglendale
612-389-8527
P.O. Box 14616, Minneapolis, MN 55414