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On June 16th, I attended the Powderhorn Park community meeting regarding the growing encampment in the park’s Northwest and Northeast sections. These spaces have become a refuge for unhoused people in Minneapolis. Commentary was generally as one would expect, ranging from occasional fear mongering to calls for “housing as a human right.” Overall though, the community members in attendance were very supportive of their new neighbors in the park.
The day prior, I had spent the entire morning and early afternoon helping out at the encampment in the Northeast section. Everyone in the encampment was friendly, with many folks just looking to have light conversation, others looking to grab some hot food and be on their way to a friend’s to do laundry or head off to work.
Many of the people are newly unhoused, some said that they became “homeless” within the past two months for the first time in their lives. One person said they lost their housing due to fires, and another man stated he became “homeless” only after being released from prison just a few months ago.
I came to the park with grief regarding what happened over the last several weeks.
Powderhorn Park is a south Minneapolis neighborhood well known for its cultural diversity, quirky personality and “All Are Welcome” yard signs. It has long been viewed as a progressive refuge in an already overwhelmingly liberal city. It is also now home to a large number of burned down buildings in the wake of George Floyd’s murder.
Among the buildings burned across the southside, was one that was home to an organization very close to my heart. MIGIZI, among other things, serves Native American Youth in south Minneapolis by harboring and promoting their creativity. I was fortunate enough to attend the Native Academy program at MIGIZI the summer before starting my freshman year at South High School. They helped me discover and love my Indigenious identity in a way that I couldn’t have comprehended at 14 years old.
Despite what MIGIZI has meant to me, it was ultimately just a building, and they will find a way to move forward. There are however, people at this moment in time who do not currently have an equitable and just path forward. People whose very existence is infinitely more valuable and important than buildings. Some of those people are now sheltered in tents at the newest encampment in south Minneapolis.
The grief stemming from watching people suffer generationally and systemically, all the while watching people who want to help but who fail to understand that the system itself is what’s broken, adds to the challenge of moving forward.
As the meeting was nearing a close, I had continued to sit on some thoughts I had regarding the concerns and solutions (or lack thereof) of those who spoke up. Because I was raised in the diversity of Powderhorn, I am viscerally aware of the space that I take up as someone who navigates the world as a white person. Because of that, it was not my intent to speak that day, instead I had planned to sit back and listen.
As person after person spoke on the microphone, I couldn’t help but feel like so many people who wanted to see positive change, were simply missing what was right in front of us all. So after hearing yet another call for writing elected officials, and albeit progressive, yet still neoliberal responses to systemic issues that are only exacerbated by the system of capitalism itself, I had decided to say what had not yet been said.
The exploitation of poor and working-class people, many of whom are disproportionately Black, Indigenous, People of Color, and immigrants, are not executed exclusively by delusional right-wing Trump supporters. It is also coming at the hands of people with “Black Lives Matter” and “All Are Welcome” yard signs. It’s coming at the hands of people voting and campaigning for “progressive” Democrats onto the City Council. It’s coming at the hands of people who believe they’re doing good.
In the weeks since the abhorrent murder of George Floyd by former MPD officer Derek Chauvin and his 3 accomplices, that took place a mere blocks from this encampment, there has been a stark contrast in the entire City Council’s words and policy platforms.
On one hand, I understand the call for every single City Council Member to stand in solidarity and support not only sweeping police reforms, but also budgetary allocation for more housing. The problematic nature of this request starts and ends with one question. Has the City Council actually done anything besides dish out platitudes to prove that they are interested in deconstructing the system that not only allows, but demands poverty, exploitation and police violence?
I hear their calls for “dismantling” the MPD, but what does that mean to them? Are these simply attempts at quelling a city in trauma? I’d love to give them the benefit of the doubt, and it appears that many other community members are doing just that.
But we can’t ignore that this is the same City Council that just this past December, approved the 2020 city budget that increased police spending by $8.5 million, or 4.5%. So what’s caused the City Council to change their tune? Police violence is nothing new to the City of Minneapolis. Since 2001, the MPD has killed 34 people, and their history of violence, discrimination and harassment has long been documented.
Where were the calls for “dismantling” the MPD from council members during the 2020 budget hearings? Certainly, they were already aware of the city’s long history of racist and violent policing.
The 2020 budget allocates a whopping $193.3 million dollars to the Minneapolis Police Department. The amount of money allocated to public housing in that same budget? Just $31 million dollars,which is just 16% of the funding they put towards policing. This doesn’t strike me as a resources issue, it is merely a priority issue from the City Council. S
o why do we view City Council Members as the solution, when they clearly show us where their priorities lie? Within the 2020 budget, there are words of enthusiasm for Minneapolis, calling it a “thriving city,” with low unemployment hovering around 2.5%. What these numbers don’t show, is that about 1 in every 5 Minneapolis residents makes less than $20,000/year, while the average income is just under $35,000/year.
An important note for clarity, is that the annual salary of a Minneapolis City Council Member is $98,696/year. Clearly employment is not only inequitable, but employment is also not at all an indicator of one’s ability to survive in this city.
With so many residents either unemployed or underemployed, the solution cannot simply be building housing and homeless shelters. Who’s to say that housing will even be accessible to the residents who need it most? So many “affordable” housing programs in new complexes built across the city are muddled with bureaucratic red tape, so how can we expect this to be a solution to those with minimal resources at their disposal?
Providing housing to every single person without shelter is critical and a must. But the uncomfortable conversation needs to be about what the root causes of this crisis are. It is ugly, but it is crucial that we understand that this issue is systemic. It is intertwined in a million different ways, with each symptom causing the other to be harder and harder to cure.
When it comes to racial disparities, the State of Minnesota ranks dead last in high school graduation rates among Black and white students. The poverty rate in the Twin Cities is only 5.9% – for white people. While the Black poverty rate is 25%. The incarceration rate, which affects people’s ability to get jobs, housing and causes a lifetime of stigmatization, is 11 times higher for Black people than it is for white people.
We can’t forget the most common generational wealth building tool at working class people’s disposal: home ownership. Of course, we can’t talk about home ownership in Minneapolis without mentioning the revolting history of racial covenants and redlining that were a systematic part of this city’s development after its violent colonization. These can only be described as systematic issues of oppression, and they all affect one another. We cannot continue to pretend like solving the issue of living unhoused is simply about housing.
So, what is housing, when you don’t have access to free mental health services or the ability to visit a doctor without going bankrupt? What is housing alone, when that housing accounts for half of your income? What is housing when you don’t have reliable transportation? Or when you’re now discriminated against as someone who was formerly incarcerated? What is housing when you still face the dilemma of paying for diapers, groceries or your gas bill this month?
Housing is not simply an issue of just housing. Housing is an issue of creating equity and justice in education, employment opportunities and wages, healthcare, the judicial system, policing, food access, childcare and much more. So why is the progressive base of Minneapolis calling for reactionary stop gaps, instead of proactive, systematic solutions? The answer is simple, but the truth is uncomfortable.
It’s easier to pretend that throwing up yard signs, writing elected officials and “voting blue” are revolutionary acts, than it is to acknowledge that the very system we are participating in and defending, is actually the cause.
Anthony is currently unemployed, and enjoys watching soccer. Anthony is from a working-class family, and was raised in South Mpls.
Thanks for the thoughts, Anthony. Let’s just all kill ourselves. Seems like the most viable solution… In the meantime, I suggest you check your privilege and go pitch a tent in the park. What is housing, after all?
Thank you for giving me a much needed laugh. It’s amazing this website actually exists. Minneapolis has become a shit show.
While literate and full of interesting thoughts. This has no answers, just a list of problems and complaints. Come out and say what your solution is.
Hi Ryan, the point of my piece was not to tell people what to believe. I was writing a short op-ed. Not a book.
This piece is meant to invoke self critique on what we ourselves deem to be helpful, and what we can do to expand our thought process on what is possible. My intent is for it to challenge ourselves, and learn what we can continue to do better in regards to our own efforts to effect change.
Anthony neglects to mention that a nearly-finished building that would have had 189 apartments for low-income renters, including more than three dozen for very low-income tenants, was burned down in the riots in South Minneapolis.
Hi Laura, I apologize that in a short op-ed, I was not able to address every single issue.
It’s important to note, that there are around 10,000 people in Minnesota without shelter. This complex was not going to solve this crisis.
I do however make note of the problematic nature with “affordable” housing and how they’re not as accessible as they claim to be.
Your argument appears to be in bad faith, unless of course, you believe that complex was going to solve this systemic crisis.
1. People can’t get jobs because they’ve been incarcerated? Then don’t commit a crime in the first place. This is like choosing to smoke and then whining about getting lung cancer. You have the audacity to say that employers are discriminating because they don’t want to hire ex-cons? They have a right to protect businesses that they’ve built with their bare hands and life savings.
2. It’s one thing to say that people who are descendants of slaves are subject to discrimination. Immigrants complaining about discrimination?? Give me a break. Stay in your birth country and work to make it better. Why aren’t you protesting the injustices there? You don’t get to voluntarily decide to move to a foreign country, demand that they let you in, demand that everyone else pay for your needs and then complain when it isn’t all you dreamed it would be. This is like me deciding to move to Japan, having problems, blaming it on the Japanese and demanding that they support me.
3. Everyone wants middle class whites to pay for their healthcare, their food and their homes. Do you know that we already pay 50% of our income in taxes? Do you know that some of us are already supporting our young children, our elderly parents and our mentally handicapped siblings? Then we’re supposed to pay for everyone else in the country who makes choices that mess up their lives and let in millions more who chose to come here and want to be supported, too? Where, pray tell, do you think all this money is supposed to come from? You are trying to drain your source of income and, at some point, it will dry up. At some point, you need to put on your big boy pants, make responsible choices and learn to support yourself. Quit whining and take responsibility for yourself.
And no, I’m not planning on voting for Trump.
When are the citizens of your town going to put their money where their mouths are and open their own homes to these homeless people? You talk about things like “systemic oppression” and “redistribution of wealth” as well as to oppose immigration laws and borders / walls so that we may welcome any and all into our land of opportunity. You now have a golden opportunity to set a shining example for the rest of us. If you are not willing to give up your homes altogether for the greater good of these people at large, than at least offer up a spare bedroom, attic, basement or whatever and allow these people to have the place of shelter you claim to want for them.
Hey Anthony, I have a suggestion for you.
Stop watching soccer and GET A FUCKING JOB YOU LAZY PIECE OF SHIT!
Hey Nick, it’s a global pandemic, with record levels of unemployment.
Thanks for reading my piece!
Anthony, you would be a perfect person to run for office. Any office, anywhere. It’s nice to see someone thinking things through.
How Orwellian that 150 years after the Emancipation Proclamation, people like Anthony want a system where all their basic needs are provided for by the authority that rules over them. Sounds delightful……
I resent that I have idiot neighbors who didn’t bother to ask if any of us had a problem with this. They brought in problems, and they’re not doing much to curb the crime. Rape, needles, ODs already, drug dealers. I don’t live far and I am angry that on top of the problems we’ve had to deal with for 4 weeks, I’m now dealing with this. People are NUTS. I dealt with the camp two years ago. And, I can tell you, hugging it out didn’t fix those people EITHER. If people don’t wake up – this is going to get WAY worse. Oh, and we had a tuberculosis problem, in addition to other health issues. COME ON. WTH. We’re already stuck with dropping property values and now you add this? We’ll NEVER get from under this crap. I hate this city. It’s a wart on MN’s butt, that’s for sure.
These are not homeless they are nomadic everyone of them has a government provided amount of money and free food, clothes and meds. They use the money that they do not have to pay for rent, bills and obligations to go to sleep drunk or stoned every night and do not care one bit about the garbage noise or the deminishment of the lives of those who enable them.
3/4 are not from the cities, the state or this region.m
Like the Nomads they follow the grass”and water and freebees
You asked for them now you have them.and while they donot vote the people they take advantage of do . Every tent is a TRUMP billboard
Typical rants of smarter-than-average, useful idiot.
Unlike you, I actually help in the Minneapolis homeless community. I have delivered food to various places throughout the cities for years. The VAST, VAST majority of people who are homeless are severely mentally ill, or addicted to drugs, or both. I’m talking 99%. So while you take the homelessness crises and jam into your cool pet theory as evidence about how we need to utterly destroy society, you can’t even correctly diagnose the issue.
In a word, you want to destroy society in order to solve a problem that doesn’t exist as you have framed it. That’s quite a gamble.
You don’t care. But that’s because for people like you, it’s not about solutions. It’s about narrative, and it’s about seeing yourself in the center of social change. You don’t want to fix things. You don’t want to focus on real solutions. You want to be a savior, and you want glory.
Typical rants of smarter-than-average, but shamefully naive and useful idiot.
Unlike you, I actually help in the Minneapolis homeless community. I have delivered food to various places throughout the cities for years. The VAST, VAST majority of people who are homeless are severely mentally ill, or addicted to drugs, or both. I’m talking 99%. So while you take the homelessness crises and jam into your cool pet theory as evidence about how we need to utterly destroy society, you can’t even correctly diagnose the issue.
In a word, you want to destroy society in order to solve a problem that doesn’t exist as you have framed it. That’s quite a gamble.
You don’t care. But that’s because for people like you, it’s not about solutions. It’s about narrative, and it’s about seeing yourself in the center of social change. You don’t want to fix things. You don’t want to focus on real solutions. You want to be a savior, and you want glory. And if you have to destroy everything in your pursuit, if community centers have to be burned, if young children have to be sexually more molested, so be it
I am a hiring manager in White Bear Lake. Training a new employee takes months. It’s a huge investment of time and energy. I need applicants who can:
1) pass a drug test
2) show up for an interview. Then actually show up to work. For five days in a row each week.
3) read and speak English. Our safety and work instructions are not published in multiple languages.
4) be healthy enough to stand for eight hours.
5) be mentally healthy enough to work with others through conflict and follow instructions.
6) have some kind of verifiable work history.
7) not have a felony conviction.
Tearing down statues, displaying BLM signs, serving up free sandwiches, and voting for Democrats has not helped a single homeless person cross the threshold of meeting those seven simple criteria. We must change the conversation to look at what we can do to help as many people of color become employable. I see finger pointing, blaming, and a lot of rhetoric. What I don’t see are qualified applicants who are people of color. No demographic can ever succeed without self sufficiency. That begins and ends with being employed. Rather than establish a new style of “urban reservation” for people of color in which they solely depend on the government for everything, let’s work together to employ people. I want people of color to be smashingly successful. It won’t solve racism, but it prevents racism from holding them back.
I love you.
I agree with one aspect of your op Ed. The failure of city leaders and the blatant hypocrisy from the city council. $94k/yr with full benefits I assume for a part time job. The dismantling needs to start at the top. Councilmen and councilwomen will throw the kitchen sink at a problem with one solution in mind, save their own jobs. Nothing changes until government is reduced. The bigger the government, the smaller the individual.
What a hellhole.