The Money Power Land Solidarity podcast featured one of our organizers Kaaha Kaahiye in their newest episode! In it she talks about our work and the status of public housing in Minneapolis. Take a listen!
Check out this wonderful article that describes the issues of funding Public Housing, and its future. Thanks, @alexisgoldstein for great reporting!
#KeepPublicHousingPublic
Prior to the December 13 meeting of the MPHA board, DG&PHC submitted comments to Mayor Frey and Minneapolis City Council about our deep concerns about the re-appointment of Cara Letofsky and the new appointment of Andrea Brennan as Commissioners of MPHA. Despite lack of transparency and objection from public housing residents, Mayor Frey and City Council ignored our concerns and voted to appoint Letofsky and Brennan as MPHA Commissions.
See the full comments below and an email from Cara where she admits to her plans to tear down Glendale Townhomes.
#FreyWarsameMustResign #MPHAHeadsResign #ShameoMinneapolisCityHall #VoteThemOut #SaveMPLSFromCityHall.
#WeDemandAnInvestigation
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.
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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…/…/
#FreyWarsameMustResign #MPHAHeadsResign #ShameoMinneapolis
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.
Atlanta was home to the first public housing in the US and by the 1990s had more residents in public housing than any other US city. Starting with the 1996 Olympics, Atlanta began demolishing its 15,000 units, using the racist neoliberal term “concentrated areas of poverty” to justify the gentrification of low-income communities of color. The Housing Authority privatized its stock using the precursor of RAD, HUD’s HOPE VI program and private investment. Later, in 2007, AHA used funds under Section 18 Demolition & Disposition as well.
In this process, the Atlanta Housing Authority displaced roughly 50,000 residents, handing them Section 8 vouchers which became increasingly hard to use in a quickly gentrifying city. The Housing Authority came under fire for displacing communities of color and giving massive opportunities for profit to private developers.
In the end, the Atlanta Housing Authority now pays more to finance the voucher program than it did to keep up its housing as public housing and a public good. And, many of the public housing buildings it said would be revitalized have still yet to be rebuilt or renovated, they are just empty lots.
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.
