An ally made a data request under the Minnesota Government Data Practices Act to MPHA and to the City of Minneapolis for the MOU (Memorandum Of Understanding) that the City of Minneapolis plans to sign with MPHA on March 19, 2019 to push the privatization and dismantling of public housing. As you can read from the email below with the attached emails in this document, Andrea Brennan, City of Minneapolis, CPED, Director of Housing and Policy Development sent a reply back stating that there is NO MOU despite the fact that is not the case. Then, Lisa Griebel, MPHA’s Legal Counsel, denied the request citing the wrong statute. Then, Lisa Griebel was called out, and she had to deliver the MOU. The City of Minneapolis and MPHA are hiding the MOU from the public. Andrea Brennan lied and Lisa Griebell covered up. This is a clear example of how our beloved City of Minneapolis is being led by people that are purposely hurting our community, lying, misleading, violating our code of conduct, and ethics. There needs to be an external investigation. For full details of this story see the email above from our ally to CM Cam Gordon, Andrea Brennan, Lisa Griebel, and the responses from Andrea Brennan and Lisa Gabriel lying and denying.

The Minneapolis Public Housing Authority (MPHA) has hired the Center for Multicultural Mediation and Restorative Justice (CMMR) to conduct ongoing meetings with residents at Elliot Twins including the meeting regarding the RAD General Information Notice on January 17, 2019 in order to silence vulnerable residents and seniors and push them to accept the RAD privatization and displacement plans. Defend Glendale & Public Housing Coalition (DG&PHC) has discovered that CMMR is a fraudulent organization.

After DG&PHC notified the public that MPHA is using CMMR to silence and lie to Elliot Twins residents, especially on January 17, 2019 during MPHA’s RAD meeting, activists in the East African community contacted our campaign and informed us that CMMR has been a problematic organization. As a result, DG&PHC looked up CMMR and found on their website that CMMR is claiming they are a program of the Center for Policy, Planning and Performance, and they are a tax exempt nonprofit.
See photo of CMMR’s website:

After an extensive search on Minnesota Secretary of State and IRS. Gov websites, DG&PHC found that Center for Policy, Planning and Performance does not exist, and CMMR indeed does not have Minnesota Secretary of State registration, license or Federal Tax Exempt , (EIN; Employment Identification Number). These license and registration are a must in order to operate as a charity/ non- profit in the State of Minnesota. Therefore, CMMR has no legal rights to operate under Minnesota State or Federal laws. But, CMMR is lying to the public claiming to be registered and licensed when they are not.
MPHA knows that CMMR is lying. The question is how can a federal agency like Minneapolis Public Housing Authority go to such extensive measures to hire a fraudulent organization to silence residents at Elliot Twins to displace them, and break Minnesota State and Federal laws. Therefore, MPHA is also committing fraud. The Mayor of Minneapolis, City Council and HUD are responsible for MPHA’s actions. It is time we hold our public officials and institution accountable for this corruption.
No matter how many illegal actions MPHA and City of Minneapolis commit, Elliot Twins are saying no to RAD, to displacement and privatization of public housing.

In February 2019,  the Minneapolis Public Housing Authority (MPHA) is planning to hire two Community Service Coordinators for the “Stable Homes Stable Schools” program run by MPHA, the City of Minneapolis, and Minneapolis Public Schools. See here for DG&PHC’s analysis of Stable Homes Stable Schools:https://www.dgphc.org/2018/06/11/mayor-freys-latest-pr-campaign-does-not-serve-homeless-youth/. MPHA’s Community Service Coordinators are supposed to assist Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) holders find and retain housing. See job description here:  https://www.facebook.com/mplspublichousing/posts/3067395509952949 .

They may help families with, “completing the appropriate paperwork to obtain and/or sustain stable housing, connect them to housing search assistance, coordinate financial, legal, or other supports to maintain housing, and work with landlords through and beyond the lease-up process”. The problem with HCV is not voucher holders’ inability to find or retain housing. It is the lack of landlords that accept HCV, fueled by systemic racism and the ongoing gentrification of Minneapolis.  The Landlords and developers won a lawsuit against the City’s Section 8 compliance, and they don’t have to accept Section 8 Vouchers.

http://www.startribune.com/minneapolis-landlords-push-back-against-section-8-compliance-rule/482120731/

There is a massive waitlist for Section 8 (HCV) vouchers in Minneapolis and virtually no landlords are  willing to accept voucher holders. Even if people are accepted, landlords frequently raise rents and displace residents making vouchers extremely unstable. Or, landlords can stop accepting Section 8 at any time while  residents are living in the units, and they are given short notice to move out. This is a deliberate act to gentrify Minneapolis as families of color with Section 8 vouchers are being pushed out. Here is a story of a woman who  has been displaced with Section 8 Voucher, and she can’t find housing in Minneapolis and in the suburbs.

Sahrooni’s Story About the Section 8 System

These jobs announcements  are nothing more than a PR stunt whereby MPHA can claim to be, “doing everything they can” while simultaneously decreasing Minneapolis’ existing Public Housing through privatization and pushing families out of Minneapolis and forcing them  to accept vouchers that don’t work. This is another false solution from MPHA and the City of Minneapolis in an attempt to fix their public image as they dismantle public housing and displace low-income Black and Brown residents out of Minneapolis.         

Read Greg Russ’s testimony to congress before he became the Executive Director of MPHA, where he emphasizes the use of programs like RAD and MTW, and how important it is in his view to privatize public housing and prioritize corporate interests. According to U.S. GAO report, RAD caused evictions and high rents which led to displacement around the nation.

Gregg Russ was hired late 2016 by the City of Minneapolis led by then Mayor Betsy Hodges, Council Member Jacob Frey, Lisa Bender, and Lisa Goodman to dismantle public housing. Council Member Cano and Gordon voted for Russ even though they said they were our allies. It was unanimous vote.Then on December 7, 2018, Council Member Abdi Warsame and Andrea Jenkins passed a resolution that approved RAD, the dismantling of public housing and displacement along with the 2040 Comp. Plan. All of the council members knew Russ’s record of dismantling public housing nationally which is why he was hired.. 
https://tinyurl.com/Russ-Testimony-Congress

https://www.cctvcambridge.org/sites/default/files/hhrg-114-ba04-wstate-gruss-20160512_0.pdf?fbclid=IwAR2BYXUa4duetBAcr5DiHAcwFah7masigY3G2SMK8hvlCzDA7oxeaeo3WL4

On Monday January 28^th, the Minneapolis Public Housing Authority (MPHA) released  a Community Update. This update rewrites history and co-opts resident organizing efforts. The first item in the update celebrates the completion of weatherization at Glendale Townhomes in partnership with Sustainable Resources Center (SRC) and CenterPoint Energy. The picture for this section features Jeff Horwich and partners holding signs and smiling in front of Glendale Townhomes. The photo in their update, and MPHA misrepresents the history of the weatherization project at Glendale. MPHA claims to have completed this weatherization project in only one year. But the truth is that City Council Member Kevin Reich and Sustainable Resources Center, http://www.src-mn.org approached Glendale residents about weatherizing their homes in February 2016 when residents’ complaints about the lack of heat became public. SRC’s offer came after 6 years of residents organizing for better heat since MPHA took over control of heat in 2010. Yet, MPHA blocked SRC from weatherizing Glendale homes (for free!) for over a year and a half.

MPHA was intentionally making Glendale townhomes dangerously cold  in a process of disinvestment and neglect so they can demolish Glendale. The goal of this process was to make Glendale unlivable so there was no choice but to demolish it. This is a process used to displace Black and Brown residents to make way for luxury condos. Resident leaders from DG&PHC first organized to defeat RAD application in 2015 that would have demolished Glendale. Then DG&PHC along with allies organized, lobbied, and protested to get MPHA to accept SRC’s proposal for free weatherization at Glendale. MPHA finally did in October 2017, and now the project is complete. MPHA is taking all the credit for residents organizing and rewriting the story of their own neglect in a horrific PR stunt. MPHA will stop at nothing to displace low-income Black and Brown residents from Minneapolis and will try to paint themselves as the heroes the whole time. This is a co-option of resident organizing and a gross display of white supremacy. Here is a link of a statement by released DG&PHC  in 2017 that outlines the history of residents organizing to bring back heat to Glendale; https://tinyurl.com/Weatherization-by-SRC. And, here is a scathing letter from then Representative Karen Clark to MPHA about their neglect to provide heat in Glendale;  http://tinyurl.com/Rep-Clark-to-MPHA-Glendale. Even though MPHA was violation of State, City and Federal laws, none of our elected officials held them accountable.  

The second item in MPHA’s update is an update on the RAD application at Elliot Twins. MPHA has laid out all their lies in this piece. First, they claim Elliot Twins need extensive repairs, this is not true.  Elliot Twins are in excellent shape.  They went through massive renovation in 2006 to 2008 and again in 2014, MPHA spent $1.24 million dollars on elevator modernization. In addition, MPHA has spent millions of dollars in repairs in the last ten years at Elliot Twins. Second, MPHA claims RAD will allow them to “work with partners to raise money” for repairs. This is a gross misrepresentation of the RAD program. The RAD program will result in MPHA selling the Elliot Twins to private investors, not “raising money” with them. Third, MPHA claims to have been sitting down with residents to collaborate and to make sure they understand their rights. This is a lie. DG&PHC and other resident organizers have been the ones communicating with residents about their rights. MPHA also completely misrepresented the reality of RAD at their most recent meeting with residents. MPHA would not let seniors and disabled residents sit down. They took way their chairs. MPHA harassed and bullied public housing residents and youth organizers, kicking them out of the meeting and encouraging white residents to harass them. MPHA also called the police on Black residents. This is horrific and could have been deadly for Black residents.  MPHA hired the Center for Multicultural Mediation . (https://sites.google.com/site/multiculturalmediation/)  to lie to residents in order to forcefully accept displacement through RAD conversions. This group was suppose to conduct cultural mediation which did not work because they were silencing residents for MPHA. MPHA  isolated residents and used these cultural “mediators” in an attempt to manipulate them into accepting RAD. Residents told MPHA they never approved RAD and they don’t approve of this meeting. Residents saw through MPHA’s tactics and walked out. This meeting exposed how abusive MPHA’s leadership is and how elders/seniors, vulnerable residents are mistreated and taken advantage of.

Here is a photo of Jeff Horwich, MPHA Director of Policy &  External Affairs, physically pushing allies and residents @ Elliot Twins’s public meeting  on Jan. 17.2019 when residents rejected RAD and walked out.

In this update MPHA is attempting to revise history. It is reminiscent of the way the Trump administration constantly revises facts to take credit and appear in control. MPHA is losing control and is publicly, blatantly lying in a desperate attempt to regain control and complete their agenda of privatization, displacement, and gentrification. But their lies are being exposed.  How long will the City of Minneapolis and HUD the ignore this crisis, abusive and racist behaviour of MPHA leadership Greg Russ, Jeff Horwich and MPHA Commissioners? If public housing residents were majority white, the City of Minneapolis would have stopped MPHA a long time ago from displacing and abusing us. We will not stop fighting to keep public housing public, to protect our homes, community and our human rights.

Since Fall 2018, MPHA staff led by Jeff Horwich, Director of Policy & External Affairs has been setting up tables to chat with residents in the community room at Elliot Twins, in order to misinform residents to accept displacement through RAD. During one of these meetings, an MPHA employee told an elderly Elliot Twins resident that MPHA is not renting out vacant apartments in Elliot Twins anymore to make their planned renovations easier. The Elliot Twins are in excellent shape, they do not need these renovations because they have been renovated and yet MPHA is leaving homes empty while Minneapolis faces a massive housing crisis, in the middle of winter when it is deadly for people to be without a home. By keeping units vacant MPHA is manipulating HUD laws in order to sell units to private investors following RAD conversion. HUD regulations limit the number of units that may be “lost” during a RAD conversion to no more than five percent of units. However, units are excluded from this protection if they have been vacant for 24 months before the RAD Application is submitted (p.21:http://nhlp.org/files/RAD%20Advocacy%20Guide%202.0%20FINAL%20with%20Appendix.pdf).

 If units have been vacant for two years, the Housing Authority is under no federal obligation to keep them affordable. MPHA admitted they are keeping units empty. These empty units do not have to be preserved as affordable during the RAD conversion that MPHA is moving forward with despite residents saying no to RAD and MPHA violating RAD HUD guidelines and process. The new private owners of Elliot Twins will be able to rent these homes as luxury apartments and profit off the RAD conversion and displacement of vulnerable elders. How long has MPHA sat on vacant units at Elliot Twins while Minneapolis faces a massive housing crisis? How long has MPHA ignored its duty to house people while playing a long game to maximize profit and privatization for their investors?

Even worse, MPHA staff told an elder that they are, “Not renting Elliot Twins any longer because they are waiting for seniors to die or move out” so apartments will be vacant and more easily “renovated” (privatized and sold at market rate). Once MPHA has vacant units, they can rent them to wealthier renters of a higher income who will be majority white.  Following the RAD conversion, the new private owners of Elliot Twins are only required by HUD to select an “eligible family” for any vacancies. An “eligible family” under HUD’s guidelines is a family that falls into their categories of, “low-income” or “very low-income” (p.28:http://nhlp.org/files/RAD%20Advocacy%20Guide%202.0%20FINAL%20with%20Appendix.pdf).  “Low-income” is defined as 80% Area Median Income (AMI) and “very low income” is defined as 50% AMI (p.B-22:https://www.hud.gov/sites/documents/DOC_10815.PDF). Most public housing residents are between 0 to 21% AMI. See this link to explain AMI and chart that shows how much public housing residents make compared to the rest of population in Minneapolis  ,https://www.dgphc.org/2018/05/10/ami-housing-deeply-unaffordable-for-low-income-families-part-2.

Once the units at Elliot Twins become vacant, they will no longer be affordable for those who fall under 21% AMI. Elliot Twins will no longer be public housing after the RAD conversion, so it will not be accessible to the low-income original residents who were pushed out or for any of over 17 thousands low- income residents that are in waiting list of over 7 years to get housing in Minneapolis. As a result, the housing crisis will continue to grow. 

While it may be shocking that MPHA would tell Elders they’re “waiting for them to die”, it comes as no surprise to residents that they would treat Elders in this way.  At the recent eviction  meeting  https://www.facebook.com/events/286106475383305 at  Elliot Twins on January 17, 2019 during Federal Government and HUD shutdown,  MPHA hired the Center for Multicultural Mediation (https://sites.google.com/site/multiculturalmediation/)  to lie to residents in order to forcefully accept displacement through RAD conversions. On their website, the group claims that one of the main reasons to hire them is to “maintain control over the outcome of the dispute.” Clearly, MPHA had no intention to hear residents’ concerns, they just wanted to control the outcome of the meeting to push RAD through a manipulated process called GIN (General Information Notice) by HUD which MPHA decided to hold during HUD Shutdown; https://www.dgphc.org/2019/01/11/mpha-is-moving-forward-to-evict-residents-from-elliot-twins-during-government-shutdown/. This meeting was a disaster for MPHA. It exposed how abusive MPHA’s leadership is and how elders/seniors, vulnerable residents are mistreated and taken advantage of. MPHA took nearly all the chairs out of the community room, so Elders and people with disabilities had nowhere to sit. MPHA and their mediators had no presentation planned so they could target, isolate and lie to residents individually to push them to accept RAD. MPHA and their mediators refused to answer questions in front of the group for the sake of transparency, which meant that residents and allies were not allowed to join together to make their voices heard. Public housing residents and Allies – specifically allies of color – were harassed by MPHA staff and private security from the start, and eventually by police, despite having been invited by residents. People were told to turn off their cameras, and a Channel 9 news crew was turned away from the event because MPHA wanted to keep their abuse of Elders and other vulnerable residents a secret. Elders were standing for far too long and the disorganization and dramatic rearranging of their community room, as well as MPHA calling the police on residents, created massive amounts of stress for Elders.  MPHA’s treatment of Elders is despicable, and video of it is on DGPHC’s events page. This is why we need to unite to stop their privatization plans and keep public housing public. MPHA leadership from Commissioners to Greg Russ, Jeff Horwich and the rest of the MPHA are not safe to the well-being of Elliot Twins and to the rest of the public housing residents. Therefore, they must all resign. They are dangerous to our most vulnerable population of our city and an embarrassment to the City of Minneapolis!  Here is a link to contact them; https://www.dgphc.org/hold-them-accountable/.

PDF copy of this statement here: https://www.dgphc.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/MPHA-Leadership-Must-Resign3071.pdf

MPHA intentionally misled residents in the January 8th letter and General Information Notice (GIN) https://tinyurl.com/Elliot-RAD-Ltr-Eng-Somali. In the letter, MPHA states that their Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) application has been approved by HUD and then on the other  page the GIN letter attached states that Elliot Twins have been “proposed” for participation in the RAD program. So which one is it?  According to the letter sent to MPHA from HUD https://tinyurl.com/HUD-RAD-Letter, that MPHA failed to send to residents and only made available on their website at the last minute), the RAD is application is subject be revoked or amended if the following conditions are present:

A. Any of the contract units were not eligible for selection;

B. The proposed conversion is not or will not be financially feasible;

C. The Owner fails to meet any applicable deadline;

D. The Owner fails to cooperate;

E. there is any violation of program rules, including fraud; or

F. the terms of the conversion would be inconsistent with fair housing and civil rights laws or a fair housing or civil rights court order, settlement agreement, or voluntary compliance agreement.

DG&PHC sent comments to HUD outlining all of the violations MPHA is committing, and the reasons why Elliot Twins does not fit the RAD application. This includes HUD’s conditions listed above under A, B, E & F.

Why did MPHA hide these conditions from residents? Additionally, MPHA received their conditional letter from HUD on December 12th, 2018. Why did they wait almost an entire month before communicating with residents at Elliot Twins and to the public but not actually providing the real letter from HUD? What were they hiding?

In the GIN notice MPHA and HUD state clearly that residents will be receiving relocation assistance for permanent relocation.  This means residents will be displaced and evicted because of the RAD conversion. The HUD letter also clearly states that any undocumented residents will not receive relocation assistance or protections during conversion.

MPHA claims that if residents are displaced and evicted during renovations, they will be able to return to the property once the renovations are complete. However, as the HUD letter states it will take until 2024 to finish privatizing and converting the buildings and by then the vulnerable senior residents will be long gone and forgotten because they will be out of MPHA leases. National research has shown that only 1 in 5 residents return following a RAD conversion. Once the buildings are owned by private developers it is their discretion to fill vacancies however they want. The new owners can screen tenants based on a variety of factors including past history, ability to pay utilities, and legal status. Research from the U of M Law School coined the term  “white-segregated subsidized housing” to describe how private developers in Minneapolis use screening to discriminate against Black and Brown tenants.

In the HUD letter, it is very clear that these units will be privatized and some units will be converted to Section 8 Project-Based housing, or Section 8 Vouchers which the majority of Elliot Twins residents cannot afford, as explained below. MPHA is intentionally deceiving residents about the true function of RAD because they know that residents do not want to be displaced and cannot afford these homes once privatized. Project-Based Section 8 and Section 8 Vouchers are voluntary program that is extremely unstable where a private owner is contracting with HUD and has almost no protection for residents’ rights. Project Based is a voucher attached to the property, and Section 8 voucher is a certificate resident owns to look for rentals from landlords that will accept them. Currently, the Federal Government shutdown has put 1,000 properties of Section 8 housing at risk of eviction because HUD is not paying their portion of the rent. Residents know public housing is more stable than Section 8 because it is pre-funded annually like any other public property. Residents also know that under privatization rents will be raised in several ways.

No one is talking about what will happen to residents during the years of renovations that follow their eviction and displacement. MPHA doesn’t want to talk about this because they know there’s a seven-year waiting list for housing, and they have nowhere for residents to go. During this time, MPHA will purposefully lose track of these residents so when the renovations are complete no one will know where they are and they cannot come back.

However, even if that 1 out of 5 residents does try to come back, we will show you step by step how they will not be able to afford the new privatized Elliot Twins (which will have a new name).

In the letter HUD sent to MPHA on December 12, 2019, HUD states that when the two buildings are privatized and sold to a developer, the cap of the rent they will pay to subsidize for available Section 8 units are the following:

Studio; number of bedrooms                         0 bedrooms

Monthly rent subsidy from HUD                     $577

Utility allowance for water, heat, electricity    $0

One bedroom                                                  1 bedroom

Monthly rent subsidy from HUD                     $715

Utility allowance for water, heat, electricity    $0

Let us break this down: 

• The private owner of Elliot Twins will set the rents at market rate based on 60% to 80% of the Area Median Income (AMI) which is what the newly passed 2040 Comp. Plan pushed for.
• The AMI of the Twin Cities Metro Area is $94,300 based on the majority white wealthy homeowners so 60% to 80% of that are the income earners that private developers want to attract, between ($58,580 to $75,440).
• The Area Median income for Black residents is $33,436.
• The yearly income of public housing residents at Elliot Twins is between $9,000 to $14,201.
• The majority of Elliot Twins residents are Black American, Black Muslims (East Africans), Seniors and disabled folks, most of whom receive $750 a month from Social Security, for a total annual income of $9000. Because they live in public housing, they only pay 30% of their income which is $225 a month including utilities.
• The Section 8 Project Based Vouchers HUD will pay or subsidize will leave a   one-bedroom costing $715 per month and a studio costing $577 per month with zero allowances for utilities.
• The average market rate a private developer will charge for a studio apartment is $1014 a month with no utilities, and the average rent for one bedroom is $1,300 with no utilities.
• A market rate studio rents on average for $1014 a month in Minneapolis, while a former Elliot Twins resident can only afford to pay $225 for rent.  According to HUD’s letter that MPHA hid from residents, HUD will only pay $577 to subsidize a studio. So, if an Elliot Twins resident can only afford $225 for rent, and HUD is contributing $577, that totals to $802. But the landlord is charging $1014 which does not include utilities. The former Elliot Twins resident can’t rent the apartment even with Section 8 because the rent is too high, and they have pay utilities such as heat, electricity, etc. which can be over $200 a month.
• The average market rate rent for a one bedroom is $1,300 in Minneapolis. According to the letter, HUD’s cap will only pay $715 of this rent for one bedroom. The former Elliot Twins resident can only pay $225 for rent. So, with a resident’s contribution and the HUD subsidy, there is a gap of $360 dollars, not including utilities. In effect, former Elliot Twins residents will not be qualified to go back and rent the apartment. This is displacement and gentrification. This explains why MPHA hid this letter from Elliot Twins.

This evidences how deceptive and dishonest MPHA is to their residents, and the public. MPHA failed to share this letter which clearly shows how public housing will be privatized, displaced and evicted. And, yet, MPHA continues to claim that housing won’t be privatized even though HUD is saying otherwise in this letter. The City of Minneapolis and MPHA are fulfilling Trump and Carson’s HUD agenda against the poor, including Black, Brown, Muslim, Disabled,  poor, and undocumented residents. Minneapolis claims to be a progressive sanctuary city yet the city is furthering Trump’s agenda on all fronts.

Click here for an article about the government shutdown affecting project-based Section 8 voucher holders.

The government shutdown is exposing how risky and unstable housing vouchers are compared to public housing, as residents at over 1,000 project-based Section 8 properties around the country are at risk of eviction.  If the shutdown continues, even more residents will be at risk. See the map below to get a sense of the scale of this crisis.

Project-based Section 8 housing is NOT public housing; it is owned by private landlords who sign contracts with HUD to accept Section 8 vouchers. When the government is shutdown, these contracts can expire and residents will face eviction. This is not a danger that public housing faces, because it is publicly owned. Yet, MPHA and the City of Minneapolis want to convert and sell Minneapolis’ safe, stable public housing to private developers, which will cause massive evictions and displacement. 

https://nlihc.org/issues/budget/shutdown-map

MPHA and the City of Minneapolis are moving forward with their privatization and eviction plans that will destabilize the lives of thousands of public housing residents. While the federal government is shut down, MPHA and City of Minneapolis are starting the eviction plans of Elliot Twins Public Housing in Ward 6 that have majority East African- Somali, Oromo and African American seniors and elders. Both the City and MPHA want to gentrify by selling  the buildings to private developers through the RAD program, and they want residents to apply for Section 8 Vouchers with no place to go. The city and MPHA both  know that wait- list for Section 8 Vouchers including Project Based Section 8  is over 7 years, and vulnerable residents will face homelessness.  Also, hardly anyone is renting to Section 8 Vouchers holders because these residents who are majority BIPOC, immigrants and refugees face extreme discrimination in Minneapolis by landlords.

The current crisis facing voucher holders makes it clearer that this crisis must be stopped. City of Minneapolis and MPHA want to forcefully remove residents.

Please come support residents of the Elliot Twins apartments fighting MPHA’s eviction plans this Thursday, January 17 from 1:30 – 3:30 pm at the Elliot Twins Community Room, 1225 South 8th Street, Minneapolis, MN, 55404.

Say no to privatization! 

 Say no to RAD!

Keep public housing public!

Tuesday, January 8th, 2019 residents at Elliot Twins received two letters from MPHA. See both letters here: https://tinyurl.com/Elliot-RAD-Eng. The first letter stated that HUD has approved MPHA’s RAD application to privatize their homes even though HUD has been shut down since December 22nd. (Source: https://www.hud.gov/

In the letter, Minneapolis Public Housing Authority ( MPHA) is stating low-income residents who are almost all Black (African American and East African) and seniors in both buildings will be forcibly removed from their homes and from Minneapolis. MPHA has also used our tax dollars to hire a nonprofit pr group called the “Center for Multicultural Mediation” (CMM) in order to coerce very vulnerable senior residents into accepting this (https://sites.google.com/site/multiculturalmediation/). MPHA is again creating chaos in the East African community. They have hired an East African pr nonprofit to try to silence vulnerable East African Seniors. If HUD already approved their application, why do they need to hire this nonprofit?

The second letter is very weird. It is a General Information Notice (GIN), taken from a sample form letter provided on HUD’s website;
https://www.hud.gov/sites/documents/1378X3CPDH.PDF. This letter is a boilerplate letter HUD provides to housing agencies to use when the agency knows that public housing residents are going to be displaced. Because the Government is in shutdown, it is unclear whether the letter came from HUD or whether MPHA used HUD letterhead in a confusing way to make it seem like HUD approved the RAD application for Elliot Twins.

We want MPHA to disclose the actual letter that came from HUD that says that the RAD application at the Elliot Twins has been approved. They have not provided this letter to residents or the public.

Either this RAD application was approved before the shutdown, and MPHA has sat on it, or MPHA is misleading residents into thinking that HUD has approved their RAD application while the government is closed.

HUD’s website seems to contradict what MPHA is claiming. It contains a notice saying that HUD is closed, and provides a link to their official Government Shutdown Contingency Plan. Page 74 of this contingency plan explicitly states that HUD is not processing RAD applications during the shutdown.
https://www.hud.gov/si…/documents/HUDCONTINGENCYPLANFINAL.PD

In order to push residents to accept this letter, MPHA went around yesterday morning passing out this letter https://tinyurl.com/Elliot-RAD-Eng and forced residents to sign a document saying they received it, even though residents did not know what the letter said or what they were signing. MPHA is doing this to try to kick residents out even though they have not been able to show any official document from HUD showing that their RAD application has been approved. MPHA must know that if apartments are vacant, HUD is more likely to approve a RAD application. In addition, the second letter asks residents who do not have access to emails to email their questions to MPHA.

First, MPHA needs to provide proof that HUD in fact approved the RAD application. Second, City of Minneapolis and City Council Members such as Abdi Warsame, Andrea Jenkins, Cam Gordon, Lisa Bender, Mayor Jacob Frey, and the rest need to be held accountable for allowing MPHA to push through this RAD conversion and evictions while HUD is shut down. City of Minneapolis and MPHA want to isolate and kick out these elders. We call on everyone concerned about this to attend this meeting on Thursday, January 17 from 1:30 – 3:30 pm at the Elliot Twins Community Room on 1225 South 8th Street, Minneapolis, 55404. MPHA has picked this time because they know it is hard for allies to attend meetings during work hours. This makes support even more important.

The government is shutdown. About 800,000 workers are not getting their paychecks. But, MPHA is telling us that HUD has time and money to displace hundreds of low-income seniors on fixed income from their homes and communities?

Call your council member and Mayor Jacob Frey hold them accountable for evicting vulnerable elders and seniors from Elliot Twins is in Ward 6.

This article shows how the voluntary privatization program called RAD is displacing and evicting public housing residents in Baltimore, Maryland. 

Important quotes from the article:

“The Housing Authority made some public promises about how the [privatization] was going to secure the rights tenants had, that those would carry over,” said David Prater, an attorney with Disability Rights Maryland. “What we’ve seen is that has not always been the case. The privatization has caused many to lose out on their rights.”
“The privatization program’s rules guarantee that tenants will receive the same rights as they did under public housing laws, but Prater said he’s seeing violations.”

“Some RAD tenants have been evicted after receiving Notices to Vacate that did not conform to the legal requirements,” he wrote. “We are also concerned that residents are vacating their units after receiving notice, but before a hearing in court, as a result of receiving notices that failed to provide the required notice of due process and tenant rights. We have no way of knowing how many residents unwittingly vacated their units after receiving a Notice of Lease Termination that was likely legally flawed.”

Minneapolis Public Housing Authority (MPHA) is planning do the same thing in Minneapolis. They applied to HUD to implement RAD and they are still waiting for a decision. MPHA has already received approval/endorsement through this resolution that the City of Minneapolis unanimously passed on December 7th 2018, the same day the City approved the 2040 Comprehensive Plan. MPHA and the City of Minneapolis are using RAD as a tool to gentrify and displace public housing residents out of Minneapolis starting with Elliot Twins in Ward 6 which is inline with their 2040 Comprehensive Plan. After Elliot Twins, MPHA’s targets are Glendale Townhomes, two properties in Ward 3 and one property in Ward 4 as outlined in MPHA’s Strategic Vision & Capital Plan/Proposal (click here)submitted to the City of Minneapolis Housing Policy & Development Committee Chaired by Cam Gordon in June 2018. After these properties are privatized, MPHA plans to privatize/ displace the rest of the 42 public housing high-rises, over 740 single family homes, and more properties throughout the city where over 12,000 low -income residents, majority Black, Black Muslims, Seniors, people with disabilities and families with children call home and community. 
https://tinyurl.com/Comments-6-6-18-Housing-Comm