Our communities have been fighting an epidemic of evictions for years, but COVID-19 has created the conditions for a massive wave of unhoused residents. As camps continue to swell in city parks, data suggests that Minnesota could see as many as 133,000 eviction filings in the final four months of 2020 — 13 times the…
“Assisting the community is in my blood.” From South Africa to the Twin Cities, Abdul Artan has been working to improve the lives of Somali and East African immigrants for decades. Recently, he brought his dynamic energy and deep experience to Alliance member organization, New American Development Center, as a community organizer. In the latest…
Shaking the foundations of organizations and coalitions that have long espoused a commitment to racial equity, recent events have catalyzed a new clarity that deep structural changes are necessary. Our communities have been on the frontlines of environmental movements for generations, but our strategies and solutions have been invisibilized, minimized and tokenized in the historically…
Yesterday, 30 local elected officials from across the Twin Cities region sent the following letter to Governor Tim Walz calling on the administration to continue its course to protect renters and take additional steps to stabilize housing throughout the pandemic and economic crisis. Download the PDF here. Dear Governor Walz and Lieutenant Governor Flanagan, Today,…
Exiled in America, a four-city project including St. Paul that aims to use art to influence housing policy, interviewed the Alliance’s Tram Hoang and Owen Duckworth about housing policy, the different faces of power and the impact of defining the narrative. Click their images below for their short but powerful interviews.
On August 12, the Blue Line Coalition sent the following set of recommendations regarding the alignment and construction of the Blue Line extension project to key policy leaders. Read the letter below or download the PDF. Read the BLC’s public statement here. Dear Governor Walz, Metropolitan Council Chair Zelle, and Hennepin County Board, The Blue…
(Photo: Organizational leaders from the Blue Line Coalition) Statement from the Blue Line Coalition in response to Hennepin County and Met Council abandoning route for Bottineau Blue Line light rail. For generations, transportation planning has been an insidious tool of systemic racism. Highway projects have decimated Black business districts to spare white neighborhoods. Transit projects…
The impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and the uprising around the murder of George Floyd devastated many Black, brown, indigenous and immigrant-owned businesses in the Twin Cities. We know that these businesses play an essential role in building and sustaining the culture, wealth and economic vitality of BIPOC and immigrant communities, and funding from government,…
Authored by Owen Duckworth, Alliance Director of Policy and Organizing, on behalf of Equity in Place, the following commentary was published in the Star Tribune on July 28, 2020 Governor Must Focus on Preventing, Not Postponing, Devastating Wave of Evictions With the crisis inflamed by COVID-19, our current housing diagnosis is dire. The health and…
The Minnesota Housing Qualified Allocation Plan (QAP) guides the distribution of millions of dollars in federal subsidies through the Low Income Housing Tax Credit program. While organizations led by and connected to communities of color and indigenous communities have been historically absent in creating or commenting on the QAP, we possess essential expertise in shaping…
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