On September 7th, 2021 a Public Housing Civil Rights Class Action Lawsuit was filed on behalf of Public Housing Tenants in Minneapolis against The City of Minneapolis, Minneapolis Public Housing Authority, and Community Housing Resources (MPHA’s nonprofit).
This class-action lawsuit challenges the egregious discriminatory practices that have forced tenants to endure hazardous living conditions. It alleges that the City of Minneapolis has discriminated against public housing residents on the basis of public assistance. It also names MPHA and Community Housing Resources as defendants, alleging that they breached the terms of their leases by failing to obtain rental licenses and inspections and respond to maintenance requests. The lawsuit goes on to assert consumer protection and housing law violations against all three defendants.
This is an exciting time for public housing residents in Minneapolis. For years the City and MPHA have refused to engage with residents. Now, we are heard!
On July 2nd, 2021 The Minnesota Daily published an article entitled “Frey proposes $28 million in affordable housing and homelessness”. The article primarily focuses on Jacob Frey’s plan to spend federal funding disbursed from Biden’s American Rescue Plan (ARP) stimulus on several housing initiatives, including the displacement of public housing residents from scattered sites. However, its main photo is of the Elliot Twins Apartments, a former public housing complex not explicitly mentioned in Frey’s plan to use ARP funds. The photo’s caption (shown below along with the photo itself) describes the Elliot Twins as “a public housing option for low-income households on campus” that could “potentially experience renovations under certain initiatives.”
This blurb inadvertently tells the general public something that the Minneapolis Public Housing Authority has long denied: upon its privatization, Elliot Twins will not house public housing residents. This is a subtle change of the official narrative. Despite us calling MPHA’s bluff over a year ago, public officials have repeatedly claimed that public housing residents will continue to live in Elliot Twins.
The story of Elliot Twins’ privatization is long and complicated and involves Minneapolis Councilmembers, MPHA officials, and Mayor Frey himself repeatedly lying to residents. Lies repeated for over four years are finally set straight by this admission in the Minnesota Daily.
The story begins in April 2017, when MPHA submitted to the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) a statement of intent to privatize the Elliot Twins. Specifically, MPHA expressed their interest in using the Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) program to convert Elliot Twins from public housing into private housing subsidized through Section 8 vouchers. In early 2018, the Elliot Twins resident council undemocratically and opaquely voted to approve MPHA’s privatization plan, without the acknowledgement or consent of the vast majority of residents.
Upon discovering this, Elliot Twins residents wrote a letter to MPHA disavowing MPHA’s puppet resident council and outlining their grievances with the slow and confusing so-called “relocation plan”. In August 2018, residents met with MPHA Executive Director Greg Russ to convey their opposition to privatization and displacement. Greg Russ responded that displacement would not occur and that during the renovation process residents could use Section 8 vouchers to find housing, ignoring the tight rental market and the long Section 8 waitlist. But there was no guarantee residents would come back after the renovation was complete. In December 2018, Mayor Frey and the City Council passed a resolution to allow MPHA to privatize Minneapolis public housing properties, starting with Elliot Twins. The resolution was authored by Councilmembers Abdi Warsame and Andrea Jenkinswithout consent or feedback from public housing residents or the general public. The media focused more on the Minneapolis 2040 gentrification plan, which was also approved that same exact day.
In the spring of 2019, Jacob Frey and Greg Russ sent Warsame to stall Elliot Twins residents’ momentum against RAD. Warsame exploited relationships he developed during his previous Ward 6 election to convince some vulnerable elders to stop organizing. Specifically, he promised them no one will be displaced – a boldfaced lie. Shortly after, the City of Minneapolis signed an MOU with MPHA to allow the privatization of public housing without enformentent or protection measures for public housing residents from displacement.
By late 2019, the RAD process was complete. Upon conversion to subsidized private housing, MPHA leased the Elliot Twins’ land to the Royal Bank of Canada for 99 years, effectively selling off the buildings and giving the private sector the ability to make the renovations. Despite being a private financial firm, The Royal Bank of Canada still received over $18 million in public funding in the form of Low Income Housing Tax Credits (LIHTC). Despite this, MPHA claims to maintain control of the buildings through questionable private shell companies, which have taken on large risky loans in order to renovate the buildings. RAD did not save taxpayers any money. The only difference is that now private financiers, developers, and landlords get a cut.
The cosmetic renovations financed by the Royal Bank of Canada and other private financial firms, yet actually funded by the general public’s tax dollars illustrate MPHA’s apparent desire to attract a new type of tenant. The destruction of Minneapolis’ public housing is part of the city government’s broader campaign to attract wealthier and young majority white people to downtown neighborhoods to increase their tax base. By contrast, the long-term residents of Elliot Twins are majority Black and Brown people, seniors, and people with disabilities who receive $750 a month from SSI. The fact that MPHA is apparently marketing these apartments to University of Minnesota students (despite their distance from campus), further demonstrates that long-time public housing residents are not a part of MPHA’s vision for the future of these properties. In order to rent to University of Minnesota students, MPHA and the Elliot Twins’ new owners will have to permanently displace public housing residents. Now that MPHA and City of Minneapolis have effectively acknowledged their real plans to the Minnesota Daily, they have finally exposed their utter disregard for public housing residents and their true intention for Elliot Twins. This is what RAD displacement and destruction of public housing looks like.
On Friday July 2nd, the Minneapolis City Council voted to largely approve Mayor Jacob Frey’s plan to disburse 102 million dollars of federal funding from the American Rescue Plan (ARP) Act. The ARP, more commonly known as President Joe Biden’s stimulus package, provides cities with money for business development, housing, and social programs. Frey’s proposal included $37 million on business development, $13.7 million for “public safety” (more cops), and $28.7 million for housing.
Frey buried an important and dangerous plan to demolish public housing at the bottom of his itemized $28.7 million “affordable housing” ARP proposal. Specifically, Frey (and now the City Council) plan to use $4.6 million to demolish 16 scattered site homes with 84 units for denser developments they call
“deeply affordable” that will not be affordable for public housing residents because rents will be based on Area Median Income estimates that price out most low income families.
Referring to the $4.6 million, the ARP proposal approved by Frey’s office reads “This funding will provide gap financing for MPHA’s proposal to assemble approximately 16 scattered sites and replace current structures with modularly constructed higher density (four-unit and six-unit buildings), all 2 and 3 bedroom unit properties.”
Frey is omitting that the currently existing houses include several bedrooms and are often home to larger families (up to eight members per household), mostly Black and Brown Minneapolis residents. MPHA will force these families to leave their houses while the construction is ongoing.
Most of the families will not return, even when construction is complete. Notably, Frey does not say whether the housing will remain public housing, instead opting to use the vague buzzword “deeply affordable” to describe the buildings that will be constructed after the demolition. It is likely that the ARP money will be used to further MPHA’s ongoing mission of privatizing all public housing in Minneapolis. When public housing is privatized and converted into subsidized housing leased on the private market, rents and fees begin to increase and overall affordability erodes.
The denser housing that will replace the scattered site homes will likely have fewer bedrooms and be less accessible for large families. Instead, in line with the 2040 Plan, it will be designed to attract high-income young white professionals at the expense of Minneapolis’ working class and low-income families.
This plan can be traced back to a resolution to a city council to privatize public housing, all under the guise of “preservation”. Later on, Frey and outgoing Ward 10 councilmember and Council President Lisa Bender sent a letter to Trump’s HUD. Then, MPHA submitted its Section 18 Demolition and Disposition application and deliberately lied to residents, claiming that their homes will be repaired, leading to no displacement. MPHA then immediately uncovered its own lie by asking residents to sign new complicated leases with lots of fine print and confusing fees, often valued above regular rental payments. This cleared the way for the demolition of the 16 homes listed by Frey in his ARP proposal.
MPHA and other public housing authorities around the country have a history of using federal money to demolish and privatize public housing. The Clinton era HOPE VI program demolished public housing deemed “blighted” by state, local, and federal authorities. Although new private buildings replaced units destroyed by HOPE VI, few original residents remained after conversion. The Obama administration started the Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) program, which provides housing authorities funds to convert their public housing into private market so-called “affordable housing” leased on the private market and subsidized through Section 8 vouchers. RAD has similarly disastrous results. When RAD takes place, public housing residents are displaced, as we are seeing with Minneapolis’ current privatization plans for the Elliot Twins highrises in Ward 6.
Frey and the City Council have played important roles in the ongoing gentrification of Minneapolis and their consistent decisions to destroy public housing make this abundantly clear. This is what displacement looks like; politicians use public money to demolish publicly-owned buildings and then lie about who will benefit from the new properties built in their place.
DG&PHC found this information in the list of companies MPHA contracts with. As a result, we were able to retrieve one of their contracts that shows this evidence. MPHA created these companies in January of 2021. Each of the above companies is a legally separate nonprofit corporation and a developer that holds a contract with MPHA (Minneapolis Public Housing Authority) itself. However, MPHA Executive Director & CEO Abdi Warsame is also the Executive Director of each company. These companies were formed to redevelop the Elliot Twins. But they exist to privatize other public housing buildings, and homes which MPHA wants to call affordable housing after they are privatized.
During the COVID Pandemic, summer of 2020, the Keep Public Housing Public Minneapolis Coalition conducted a letter campaign to hold MPHA accountable and pause all privatization schemes. MPHA pushed RAD at Elliot Twins and Section 18 Demolition & Disposition to privatize over 730 single-family homes known as scattered sites. MPHA failed to create a transparent process to answer questions and explain the schemes. MPHA kept pushing their plans behind closed doors. Tessa Wetjen, Commissioner of MPHA, responded to one of the letters from an ally. Tessa Wetjen said: “I understand people are concerned about the future of scattered site homes, but what MPHA is doing with them is essentially moving them from one (internal) program to another, not getting rid of them.” See the last paragraph of Tessa’s email.
If MPHA is not changing anything;
Why are they creating three private companies for the first time in MPHA’s history?
Why are they naming the companies all MPHA….? Is it to confuse the public and make the people think these companies are public when they are legally seperate private companies?
How can MPHA claim that nothing is changing when they are legally transferring public housing to private market so-called “affordable” housing?
Yesterday, the Business, Inspections, Housing, and Zoning Committee, chaired by Lisa Goodman was scheduled to vote on Historic Designation for Glendale Townhomes. Instead of voting yes or no, they chose to pause the vote indefinitely and not move it forward to a city council-wide vote. They want the historic designation of Glendale townhomes to die without any discussion of MPHA’s plans or policies on the record. The council members opposed to historic designation were Lisa Goodman, Jeremiah Ellison, Jamal Osman, and Kevin Reich. All of these people are up for re-election and don’t believe that issue will affect their races. Please let them know that their disregard, disrespect, and dismissal of public housing residents will not go unnoticed. If any other property in the city were up for historic designation, it would not be an issue. But because we are public housing residents, with a majority of Glendale residents being Black, our voices, our desires for our community, and our history do not matter.
Friends of Lisa Goodman Lisa.Goodman@Minneapolismn.gov 612-637-2207 Twitter; @MplsWard7 & @cmlisagoodman
Jeremiah Bey Ellison; Jeremiah.Ellison@minneapolismn.gov612-637-2205; Twitter; @MplsWard5 @ jeremiah4north
Kevin Reich: kevin.reich@minneapolismn.gov; 612-637-2205Twitter;@MplsWard1
CALL TO ACTION: On Tuesday the Business, Inspections, Housing & Zoning (BIHZ) Committee is VOTING on Historic Designation for Glendale. MPHA is allowed to speak, but residents & community are not. Please call and email the following City Council Members and tell them to vote YES.
Committee Chair Lisa Goodman (Edit: Phone Number, 612-637-2207)is allowing MPHA, A LANDLORD, to speak but is refusing residents, community members and historic experts the chance to speak. MPHA plans on privatizing Glendale via RAD this year, and Historic Designation is the only way that can be stopped.
Glendale Town Houses is the oldest public housing development in Minneapolis and the last of it’s kind after decades of privatization. The places where Poor, Black and Brown people live deserve historic designation too. CALL these council members and tell them to VOTE YES.
Once you Call and Email, please use the hashtag #HistoricGlendale to voice your support.
As an answer in this article in The Minnesota Daily and to again block public housing residents from the right to purchase their homes through TOPA, Council Member Cam Gordon has the audacity to say he wants to “Keep Public Housing Public” which is the name of our city-wide coalition. This article exposes how the City of Minneapolis continues to ignore and marginalize public housing residents. It also exposes Cam Gordon’s lies and contradictions. He never fought for public housing residents at City Hall. Here is a glimpse of his anti-Black, anti-poor, and anti-public housing record as the Council Member of Ward 2. As the chair of the housing committee, Cam Gordon voted and led the campaign to privatize public housing where now MPHA is selling the single-family homes to a nonprofit for $1 through Section 18 Demolition & Disposition which blocked public housing residents from buying the homes. He voted for RAD which allowed the Royal Bank of Canada to buy Elliot Twins, lease the land through tax credits for 99 years, and have access to the city’s affordable housing funds. Since the birth of DG&PHC and before, he never cared about the public housing residents in his ward especially Glendale Townhomes. In 2015, he did not want to stop the RAD vote that would have demolished Glendale Townhomes, instead, Glendale public housing residents stopped the vote, and this is why we are still standing and organizing citywide to keep public housing public and build more. He fought us for 5 1/2 years to block Glendale’s historical designation at City Hall, and now he is facing re-election, he still hasn’t passed it. His own policy aid sent us a hate letter in 2017 to intimidate residents and to try to stop us from organizing. We have experienced years of neglect and horrible treatment from Cam Gordon. He never defended public housing residents in Ward 2 who complained to him about MPHA’s abuse of power, bullying, and intimidation. Cam Gordon is evil, menace, & a liar. He is a white supremacist, a misogynoir who has been undermining & attacking our movement since the birth of our campaign in 2014 in GlendaleTownhomes. Now, he has the nerve to try to co-opt our name & work for his re-election. #StopCam
Check out this letter from the global organization Campaign Against Racism – TC Chapter to Minnesota elected officials asking them to hold Minneapolis Public Housing Authority accountable, for MPHA to hold community meetings to explain the massive privatization plans they propose for 2021, to stop the marginalization of public housing residents and abuse of power.
To the Offices of Congresswoman Ilhan Omar and Senator Tina Smith,
On behalf of Defend Glendale & Public Housing Coalition, The Campaign Against Racism (CAR) Twin Cities Chapter is asking our elected officials to urge the Minnesota Public Housing Association to PAUSE the approval of Minneapolis Public Housing Authority (MPHA)’s 2021 Moving-to-Work (MTW) Annual plan until they hold a public meeting. CAR Twin Cities Chapter members are a group of dedicated social medicine clinicians and educators that regard safe, affordable public housing instrumental to health and stability.
MPHA is required to hold at least 2 public meetings to collect comments and conduct a public hearing about the MTW Annual Plan.Instead, MPHA had sent letters to the residents announcing a public hearing on August 26, 2020 which also stated that public comments were due July 27, 2020. The letter further mentioned that ‘this years’ informational presentation would be on the YouTube platform. Residents in this meeting were not given an opportunity to engage or ask questions pertaining to the 2021 MTW plan.
Despite multiple demands from Public housing residents and community members, they have not held a single public meeting regarding their plans, virtual or otherwise last year.This is the only year MPHA has gotten away with withholding MTW public meetings which is required before HUD can approve of the annual MTW plan. Coincidentally, this year their plan introduces an effort to privatize much of Minneapolis’s public housing, including half of all their high-rises.
MPHA has ignored residents and allies’ demands and elected officials have failed to hold them accountable. Instead, MPHA has held one public hearing about their 2021 MTW Annual Plan and refused to accept questions about their plans. They ignored resident voices and submitted the plan to HUD for approval without the required public meetings.
MPHA has been allowed by our elected officials and HUD to display a consistent abuse of power.In 2019, five elderly and disabled public housing residents died in a fire due to MPHA’s negligence and they were not held accountable. Currently, contractors who are completing a RAD conversion (privatization) at Elliot Twins (which is now leased to the Royal Bank of Canada) have refused to wear masks. They refuse to wear masks even though the majority of Elliot Twins residents are elderly and disabled and the fact that at least 3 elderly residents have died of COVID- 19 at Elliot Twins.
We are reaching out to the offices of Honorable Tina Smith & Ilhan Omarto commit in action to this urgent matter. We insist that the Call To Action letters from residents are read and phone-zaps which demand HUD to pause the 2021 MTW annual plan until public meetings are held for the residents. Christopher Golden (HUD Regional MTW Coordinator) needs to be contacted and an immediate request for him to pause the 2021 MTW Annual Plan approval until public meetings are held. Also, MPHA needs to submit all the comments from the residents to Christopher Golden in full transparency. Public housing residents are tired of being disregarded and discriminated against.MPHA must be held accountable.
Check the latest infographic and factsheet from Keep Public Housing Public Minneapolis Coalition on the cost of public/ tax dollars for the construction and the building of affordable housing vs public housing in Minneapolis. For this example, we compared Ft. Snelling Upper Post Flats designated as affordable housing vs. Minnehaha Townhomes Public Housing.
BACKGROUND: THE PUBLIC COST OF BUILDING “AFFORDABLE HOUSING” VS PUBLIC HOUSING
The Ft. Snelling Upper Post Flats (Ft. Snelling unorganized territory) is a soon-to-open “affordable” housing complex developed by local for-profit real estate tycoon Dominium. The development involves the renovation of Ft. Snelling’s Upper Post buildings and is located less than a mile from the Ft. Snelling Blue Line Light Rail station. Once open, one- and two-bedroom units at the Upper Post Flats will rent for $1,200 and $1,400 respectively. These rents are considered “affordable” because they are feasible for someone earning 60% of Area Median Income (AMI). However, because AMI is calculated across the entire Twin Cities metro area – including wealthy suburbs – 60% AMI for a family of four equals $62,040. This is well above the average incomes of Black or Native American individuals in the region. Although Dominium will offer “first priority” to lessees who are military veterans, veterans are not guaranteed housing at the Upper Post Flats, especially if they cannot pay the steep monthly rent. The Upper Post Flats are the most expensive development project in Minnesota history, with a total construction cost of about $900,000 per unit.
On November 3rd, 2020, Dominium secured $88 million in public bonds from Hennepin County. Only three Hennepin County commissioners – Angela Conley, Irene Fernando, and Mike Opat – voted against the bonding. While these bonds will theoretically be paid back in the long term, they were necessary to secure two other crucial public subsidies. First, because building the Upper Post Flats will involve the preservation and renovation of the Ft. Snelling Upper Post buildings, Dominium will be awarded $58 million in state and federal historic preservation tax credits. More egregiously, Dominium is now able to claim a $63 million Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC). State and federal regulations require that a development secure local bonding before claiming such credits, meaning that by providing the controversial bonding, Hennepin County Commissioners made it easier for Dominium to claim even more public money. Because corporate tax credits like LIHTC result in reduced government revenue, they are effectively public subsidies.
Minnehaha Townhomes (Public Housing) – the Minneapolis Public Housing Authority’s most recent development – opened in 2019. It is located less than 2 miles from the Ft. Snelling Upper Post-development and is also within a mile of light rail transit (VA Medical Center Blue Line Station). Out of the Townhomes’ 16 units, 4 are reserved for families transitioning into housing from long term homelessness. All units are reserved for people earning under 30% of Area Median Income and all are now occupied by formerly unhoused families, including 50 children. Families pay 30% of their actual income for rent. The average annual income for a family of four living in MPHA properties is $20,656. At a total construction cost of $5 million, the Minnehaha Townhomes project put a previously vacant lot to use, providing more public housing at a lower taxpayer cost, both in the short and long-term. If we were to build 191 units of public housing (the same number of units as the Upper Post Flats) at the per-unit construction cost of the Minnehaha Townhomes, it would only cost $59,687,500 – half the amount of public money being given to Dominium to build the Upper Post Flats, which will be unaffordable for the unhoused, low-income renters and public housing residents. Public housing is a more sustainable way to ensure equitable and real affordable housing because it doesn’t allow for the government to give handouts to corporate developers like Dominium.
The next time you talk to an elected official touting their plan for “deeply affordable housing” ask them who it benefits more- low-income residents of their cities or their developer donors!
Check out the letter our coalition member- Minnesota Doctors for Health Equity sent to U.S. Senator Tina Smith and Ilhan Omar to pause MPHA’s 2021 MTW Annual Plan until MPHA holds public meetings to answer questions and explain the massive privatization plan they introduce for 2021. MDHEQ also demands that MPHA must be held accountable for its abuse of power.
