News
Poll: Pandemic hurting Americans’ finances in disparate ways
StarTribune · 21 July 2020
As the coronavirus pandemic drags on, a new poll finds it is having different effects on Americans’ economic well-being. For some, the virus has meant lost income or struggles to pay bills on time — particularly among Hispanic, Black and younger Americans.
Minneapolis Had This Coming
The Atlantic · 9 June 2020
No group of protesters could devastate south Minneapolis more than years of disinvestment and abandonment already have.
Housing, Highways and Systemic Racism (podcast)
Minnesota Daily · 25 June 2020
What does systemic racism look like? In this episode, we look at how housing discrimination in theory and in practice in the Twin Cities contributes to the dramatic racial disparities in Minneapolis.
Evictions are likely to skyrocket this summer as jobs remain scarce. Black renters will be hard hit.
Washington Post · 6 July 2020
Eviction moratoriums and unemployment benefits are expiring, which will have a bigger effect on minority neighborhoods, experts say.
Across U.S., millions of vulnerable renters face eviction
StarTribune · 4 July 2020
When the nation’s economy ground to a halt this spring, economists warned that an avalanche of evictions was looming. The federal government and many states rushed to ban them temporarily. Twenty states, including Louisiana, Texas, Colorado and Wisconsin, have since lifted their restrictions, and researchers have tracked thousands of recent eviction filings in places where data is available. Eviction bans in nine other states — including Minnesota — and at the federal level are set to expire by the end of the month.
The America We Need
New York Times · 17 May 2020
Widening gaps in income, wealth and opportunity in the years before the virus hit left everyone more vulnerable to the disease. It undermined the nation’s defenses and weakened its response. Yet the devastation of the pandemic has also created an opportunity to begin to put things right, to ensure that the America that ultimately emerges is more just, more free and less fragile.
This area’s been told for decades: Segregation won’t work
StarTribune · 22 June 2020
Civil rights advocates have spent 50 years warning Minneapolis that segregation couldn’t work. This month, the region’s persistent racial inequality and social isolation broke out into fiery unrest.
How COVID-19 has affected the price of rent in the Twin Cities
MinnPost · 18 June 2020
While COVID-19 seems to have blunted the growth of rent prices somewhat, its longer-term effects on rent — and renters — remain unclear.
America’s Cities Could House Everyone if They Chose To
New York Times · 15 May 2020
Homelessness in the United States is the most extreme manifestation of a broader housing crisis.
Mapping prejudice: A painful part of Minneapolis history
University of Minnesota · 7 June 2020
This project has uncovered, documented, and mapped the systematic use of property deeds to enforce racial segregation in the Minneapolis area.
Embattled landlord Frenz sells the last of his Minneapolis buildings, giving control to tenants
StarTribune · 18 May 2020
Low-income tenants in south Minneapolis will gain control of five apartment buildings from embattled ex-landlord Stephen Frenz, ending a bitter fight after complaints of substandard conditions and attempted evictions.
Just Because You Can Afford to Leave the City Doesn’t Mean You Should
New York Times · 15 May 2020
It’s a mistake to blame density for the spread of the coronavirus. Cities, large and dense by definition, do not inevitably support explosive viral transmission. But factors that do seem to explain clusters of Covid-19 deaths in the United States are household crowding, poverty, racialized economic segregation and participation in the work force. The patterns of Covid-19 by neighborhood in New York City track historical redlining that some 80 years ago established a legacy of racial residential segregation.
What Happens When Eviction Moratoriums Are Over?
Route Fifty · 22 April 2020
Letting moratoriums expire without putting long-term renter support in place would be devastating. Once moratoriums end, officials say courts will likely be overwhelmed with eviction proceedings.
As coronavirus spreads in Minnesota, it exposes racial inequalities
StarTribune · 22 April 2020
As COVID-19 continues to take thousands of lives each day in the United States, minorities in particular are being ravaged out of proportion, public health officials say.
Gov. Walz announces halt to eviction proceedings amid coronavirus
StarTribune · March 24,2020
The governor said in a news conference call from self-imposed quarantine that landlords and financial institutions cannot start eviction proceedings during the state’s peacetime emergency for the virus. Walz said halting evictions was necessary to slow the spread of the coronavirus and it would be “not only personally cruel, but counterproductive to what we’re trying to do” if people did not have a home to stay in.