Defend Glendale & Public Housing Coalition demands that the MPHA leadership resign, and Mayor Jacob Frey and Abdi Warsame to step down. As public servants, they are not safeguarding and protecting public housing residents.
When Associated Press asked Jeff Horwich of MPHA why the building did not have a sprinkler system, Jeff Horwich said they are not required to have a sprinkler system due to the age of the building: https://abcnews.go.com/…/dead-hospitalized-fire-minneapolis….
All of the current Commissioners and the Chair of the MPHA Board need to step down. We don’t trust their leadership.
Tracy Scott: Interim Executive Director of MPHA Jeff Horwich: The Communication & External Affairs Director Mary Boler: The Director of Public Housing Division and all of the racist staff that daily put the lives of public housing residents at risk must resign. They all have a long history of targeting public housing residents, bullying- harassing, and evicting Black and Black Muslims, and now causing deaths due to their neglect of not having a sprinkler system. —– Mayor Jacob Frey and Council Member Abdi Warsame need to step down. They have been complicit and allowed public housing residents to be bullied and neglected which led to the environment that caused this fire. Frey and Warsame spent $800,000 on a fence around this building that had no impact while they failed to protect their constituency in this building from Ward 6 and to make sure MPHA had a sprinkler system. http://www.startribune.com/city-to-give-800-000-security…/…/
Late last night, a fire started at the Cedar High Apartments, a public senior high-rise, leaving 3 seriously injured and 5 dead. We are so devastated for their families, for the Cedars, and for their memory. May they rest in peace.
The newly renovated building that the fire took place last night at Cedar Public housing highrise where five people died and at least 3 people seriously injured didn’t have a sprinkler system. MPHA, Mayor Frey and Abdi Warsame spent over $800,000 dollars on building this fence for this building; it was promoted as a safety measure. Jacob Frey and Abdi Warsame who lobbied for this fence and approved this funding must answer.
This is completely unacceptable. It is incredibly dehumanizing to spend enormous amounts of money to police and surveil disabled and vulnerable senior residents without any considerations for their safety or health. When Associated Press asked Jeff Horwich of MPHA in this article why the building did not have a sprinkler system, Jeff Horwich said they are not required to have a sprinkler system due to the age of the building. https://abcnews.go.com/…/dead-hospitalized-fire-minneapolis…. But, this building was fully renovated recently so the City of Minneapolis failed to hold MPHA accountable yet again. This is clear evidence that the City of Minneapolis and MPHA do not care about vulnerable and disabled Black and Brown public housing residents. This is a travesty. We demand an investigation about this fire, the fence, and the approval process. We are so devastated for families, for the Cedars, and for their memory. May they rest in peace.
Rep. Ilhan Omar has been ignoring the public housing crisis in her own constituency for years. Her bill is a good effort nationally, but it has no impact in Minneapolis now. The bill she introduced is not going to stop Section 18 and RAD that the City of Minneapolis and MPHA are planning to implement February 2020 to end public housing and displace thousands of Black, Black Muslim families, seniors, and people with disabilities. This is not acceptable. We want Rep. Ilhan Omar to act now. Here is the contact Information for Rep. Omar’s office: https://omar.house.gov/contact. #IlhanDoBetter
MPHA and City of Minneapolis can mislead all they want but the truth is in these numbers and maps. Here is a call to action from our rally today. Here are the exact Wards and neighborhoods that over 717 families and almost 5000 public housing residents majority of children will face displacement if we don’t stop Section 18 Demolition & Disposition now. Who approved Section 18? Mayor Frey, Lisa Bender, CM Jeremiah Ellison, and CM Cam Gordon, and the rest City Hall. Why? Because they are knowingly pushing Trump and Carson’s plan to dismantle public housing and gentrify Black people of out Minneapolis for developers and donors to profit.
On Saturday, November 23, public housing residents across the city and allies joined together to tell MPHA and Minneapolis public officials that public housing is not for sale!
Soon after Greg Russ, the Czar of Privatization & Gentrification, took over as the executive director of the Minneapolis Public Housing Authority, (MPHA) in 2017, he brought Tracey Scott from Atlanta as his deputy director. To our knowledge, that title never existed previously at MPHA. After Russ left, he appointed her as the interim executive director for MPHA. In order to understand how she’s currently leading MPHA, it’s important to know her background.
Tracey Scott’s education training is in business management, not public service. She received a BS from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business and an MBA from Emory University. She has worked for large multinational corporations including AT&T and VISA. She has also served as the board president of the Patelco Credit Union since 2000.
She worked in the private sector for about 20 years until she began her position as Director of Voucher Administration/Participant Services at Atlanta Housing Authority (AHA) in 2008. After two years, she became the Vice President of Innovation and stayed there until 2017.
When
Tracey Scott arrived in 2008 her background in financing helped the public
housing authority facilitate the transfer of public land and public housing to
private investment. This is the reason why Greg Russ recruited
Tracey Scott to privatize Minneapolis Public Housing. AHA was under
investigation in 2013 for exorbitant
executive salaries. This is the same culture that is now being perpetuated at MPHA.
July of 2019 after Greg Russ announced that he was leaving, the board appointed her interim director. She was the only name raised to do so and board members at the time questioned the process that got her the appointment (see an image of an email from the board below). The board approved someone they did not know or even vet.
On
September 19th, 2019, a meeting was held by the Northside Neighborhoods
Council, Defend Glendale & Public Housing Coalition, and Keep Public
Housing Public Minneapolis Coalition with Tracey Scott to understand MPHA’s
Section 18 Demolition & Disposition application that MPHA, Mayor Frey
and Council President Lisa Bender lobbied HUD to approve. The purpose of
this application was to dismantle all 749 single-family public housing homes
known as scattered sites rented by nearly 5000 low-income people that are majority
Black and Black Muslim families with children. During this meeting, Tracey
Scott admitted that 717 out of 749 homes have been approved to be privatized.
Tracey also admitted that MPHA with the help of the City of Minneapolis will
bring in lenders to take over the homes. We also found out from MPHA’s documents and HUD’s approval letter that as a result of bringing
in these lenders, over 104 acres of public land, 99.9 % of the homes will be owned by private
investors, and 0.01% will be owned by a private non-profit created by MPHA called CHR ( Community Housing
Resources). In addition, MPHA will sell each home for $1 to CHR. After that, CHR will turn all of the homes
and public land to private investors. When
Tracey admitted the fact that lenders will take over our public land and homes,
she tried to back-pedal. She could not answer the questions or her answers were
in full contradiction on what was outlined in HUD’s approval letter and
MPHA-City’s privatization plans. Clearly, Tracey Scott has been groomed for
this position and this is not the kind of leadership we want to see in our
city.
Back on February 15th of this year, the 2019 Omnibus Spending Bill was signed into law. To the surprise of many, this spending bill sustained the large 2018 increases in funding for public housing and made additional investments. Overall, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) saw a 2% funding increase, including $4.65 billion for the Public Housing Operating Fund (an increase of $103 million), and $2.78 billion for the Public Housing Capital Fund, an increase of $25 million.
This news follows a long PR campaign by Minneapolis Public Housing Authority (MPHA), Mayor Frey, and Lisa Bender arguing that declining federal funding gave the agency no choice but to privatize public housing in order to “preserve” it. While internally using the motto “sell, sell, sell”, MPHA justified plans to move residents out by saying they will never get enough money from U.S. Congress to maintain public housing. In this proposal submitted to the Governor’s Task Force on Affordable Housing, MPHA’s Former Executive Director Greg Russ and General Council Lisa Griebel make ominous threats about the future of affordable housing saying “the need for additional units is compromised by the threatened loss of existing housing for extremely low-income households. This loss is driven by the steady downward trajectory of annual federal appropriations. This downward trajectory is expected to continue.”
MPHA pushed this argument without saying
anything about its ownsurplus of over $23 million.
This money is parked in a bank account while MPHA neglects repairs in many
public housing buildings – putting families, elders, and children’s health at
risk, especially during the winter. But public officials have been reluctant to
hold MPHA accountable. Many powerful “progressive” elected officials and city
departments such as Mayor Frey, Council President Lisa Bender and City’s CPED (Department
of Community Planning & Economic Development) have been supporting MPHA’s
narrative to sell public housing to private developers, who would profit from
public buildings while low-income POC people are displaced.
In
summary, MPHA put out a huge PR campaign citywide:
To change the mindset of middle-class white residents, pushing them to accept that public housing was no longer a sustainable or a worthwhile public good.
This argument rested on the claim that because funding had been decreasing in recent years, it would never return to previous levels.
Privatization is described as the only way to “preserve” the housing stock.
While pushing this narrative, MPHA has neglected to disclose that they currently sit on over $23 million in unrestricted reserves.
The
2019 Omnibus bill proves that MPHA’s central claim that federal support for the
nation’s vital public housing resources will inevitably continue to dwindle is
false. Instead, it shows that huge wins are possible.
This bill means that MPHA will receive more federal funding than it has in
recent decades. What will their excuse be now that they have enough money?
The truth is, dismantling public housing
is racial. The fact that a majority of public housing residents are Black,
Black Muslims, Refugees, and Immigrants of Color says a lot about MPHA’s intent
to dismantle communities of color in Minneapolis.
Whether or not public housing is adequately funded is a question of political will. We will continue to build a movement to protect and build more public housing that is truly public.
This analysis will unpack the letter sent from Ben Carson and Trump’s U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development (HUD) to MPHA approving the sale of more than 640 buildings. These buildings consist of 717 single-family public housing homes, also known as scattered sites, and 104.67 acres of public land. This approval would not be possible without the written approval, support and lobbying to HUD by Mayor Jacob Frey and Council President Lisa Bender. The rest of the City Council Members especially Cam Gordon, Jeremiah Ellison, Abdi Warsame and Andrea Jenkins also passed a resolution embracing the privatization of public housing with the Department of Community Planning & Economic Development. The entire city government supports this plan that will displace thousands of people.
MPHA presented their MTW 2020 Annual Plan for public review and comments. Defend Glendale Public Housing Coalition in partnership with Keep Public Housing Public Minneapolis Coalition wrote a 30-page report/comments with recommendations that outlines step by step how MPHA and the City of Minneapolis have been pushing to dismantle public housing since the hiring of Greg Russ in 2017. We sent this report to our elected officials from Congress, City Hall, State, County, and to MPHA to let them know we oppose the privatization and the dismantling of public housing which will destroy Black and Brown communities of Minneapolis. The ending of public housing is a first in the history of Minneapolis because President Trump and Secretary Carson have gutted protections for vulnerable public housing residents through HUD programs called Section 18 Disposition and Demolition and RAD which are all voluntary programs, Mayor Jacob Frey, Council Member Lisa Bender, and Abdi Warsame and Cam Gordon lobbied for and approved. It is fact that MPHA and the City of Minneapolis have plenty of funds and resources to keep public housing public as it has been for years, but they are taking advantage of this opportunity from Carson and Trump to end public housing even though MPHA continues to receive a 45% increase in their capital and repair budget with a surplus. In addition, Minneapolis Public Housing properties are one of the best in the nation with a score of 98/100 from HUD inspections. If MPHA and the City of Minneapolis succeed in privatizing and ending public housing, this will follow Minneapolis for decades to come.
