A City Where Everyone Can Afford a Decent Place to Live

Our government’s past actions have present consequences for our homes, our wealth, and our ability to thrive. But that also means that we can take action through our city government to turn the tide.

The practice of redlining and other explicitly racist planning has led to a wide disparity in who owns and controls land - like who owns a home. What that means is that as white families have been able to build up wealth and stability that last generations, folks of color - Black folks especially - have been shut out. Nationwide, African American incomes on average are about 60 percent of white incomes. African American wealth is about 5 to 7 percent of white wealth. That number represents the painful reality that too many of us on the Northside live every day, and it’s almost entirely attributable to unconstitutional federal housing policy practiced in the mid 20th century.

In the Twin Cities, households of color are less than 50% as likely to own a home as white households. Of the 87,460 renter households in Minneapolis, 42 percent are cost burdened — paying more than 30 percent of their income on housing. For renters with incomes less than $20,000 per year, cost burden rises to 84 percent. In North Minneapolis, more than half of all renters are cost burdened.

Five years ago we fought the waves of hardship that the foreclosure crisis brought to the Northside, now we have to develop strategies to prevent gentrification and the Northside becoming a place that Northsiders can no longer afford to call home. The pace of change and development in our city is fierce:

Rents and home values are rising.

Vacancy rates are low.

Wages are stagnant.

So much of the inequality we experience today is the result of racially explicit government policies that were neither subtle nor intangible. Since government had a role in creating where we are today, government has an obligation to remedy the impacts of these policies today.

It is the belief of our campaign that we need more affordable housing in every neighborhood in Minneapolis. Some of the policies we believe can make a difference:

  • Revise any exclusionary zoning policies that prohibit multifamily housing or that hinder the development of smaller, single family homes.
  • Complementing a ban on exclusionary zoning, we are in favor of inclusionary zoning policies that ensure that affordable housing is being built with every new development in Minneapolis.
  • Increased funding for the Affordable Housing Trust fund.
  • Just Cause Eviction ordinance to protect renters from displacement pressures.
  • Target existing vacant lots owned by the City of Minneapolis for long-term affordability for existing residents of North Minneapolis at neighborhood median income.
  • Make all homes in our city safe and healthy by removing lead, asthma triggers and other contaminants
  • Enforce anti-discrimination laws against landlords who refuse to take Section 8
  • We will push for the creation of the Minneapolis Renters’ Commission to advise the Mayor and City Council on issues and policies of importance to renters citywide.