The Kris Nelson Community-Based Research Program at the Center for Urban and Regional Affairs (CURA) builds the power and capacity of community-based organizations to create social change through partnerships with the University of Minnesota. We match the research and technical needs of organizations with student research assistants to carry out community-defined and community-guided projects. CURA works with organizations selected for the program to create…

Introduction

Sitting around six tables in a bright room, about forty-five civil servants from the Minnesota’s Department of Human Services joined a day-long planning session of a new policy initiative that aims at advancing two-generation approaches that improve outcomes for children and parents altogether — the Minnesota 2-Generation Policy Network. Some of the participants were apprehensive as they often got many emails and invitations…

Community Based Research Graduate Student Project Spotlight

Fact sheet: Housing and Race in Minneapolis

Through the Kris Nelson Community-Based Research Program, Jack Gramlich (MPP '24) has supported the research and advocacy goals of the Make Homes Happen Coalition over the last year. Together, Jack and his community partner worked to produce a fact sheet that visualizes key insights on racial disparities in the Minneapolis housing market, which supports the project's broader research goal of evaluating the City's progress on meeting its housing goals.

My community partner, the Make Homes Happen Coalition, focuses on racial disparities in the…

The Blue Line Extension Anti-displacement Executive Summary is now available! The Blue Line Extension has been in the works for over a decade. For at least that long, corridor communities have been challenging governments and private sector actors to be considerate of the local population to ensure that they are not displaced as a result of development. In response to these concerns and to ensure the Blue Line Extension transit investment benefits current corridor residents and businesses, Hennepin County and the Metropolitan Council initiated an anti displacement initiative and contracted with the University of Minnesota’s Center for Urban and Regional Affairs (CURA) to work with…

The Kris Nelson Community-Based Research Program at the Center for Urban and Regional Affairs (CURA) builds the power and capacity of community-based organizations to create social change through partnerships with the University of Minnesota. We match the research and technical needs of organizations with student research assistants to carry out community-defined and community-guided projects. CURA works with organizations selected for the program to create…

Hennepin County contracted with CURA to convene an Anti-Displacement Work Group that centered community voices and brought together diverse stakeholders to study and recommend anti-displacement strategies to help ensure the value of light rail will benefit current corridor residents, and minimize physical, cultural, and economic displacement.

After meeting for more than a year, the work group published their recommendations in May 2023 for public review.

Read the recommendations report

Blue Line Extension Anti-…

CURA is pleased to announce the recipients of this year′s Fesler-Lampert Chair in Urban and Regional Affairs and Faculty Interactive Research Program Award. 

Elizabeth Wrigley-Field (College of Liberal Arts, Department of Sociology, Minnesota Population Center, Institute for Social Research and Data Innovation) is the 2023-2023 Fesler-Lampert Chair in Urban and Regional Affairs with this research project, How racial stratification and neighborhood socioeconomic deprivation intersect in Minnesota’s mortality.

Additionally, two Faculty Interactive Research Program proposals were funded…

The Kris Nelson Community-Based Research Program at the Center for Urban and Regional Affairs (CURA) builds the power and capacity of community-based organizations to create social change through partnerships with the University of Minnesota. We match the research and technical needs of organizations with student research assistants to carry out community-defined and community-guided projects. CURA works with organizations selected for the program to create shared…

CURA’s Artist Neighborhood Partnership Initiative (ANPI) provides small grants to artists of color and Native artists working in neighborhoods in Minneapolis, St. Paul and the surrounding suburbs. ANPI grants recognize the valuable role that artists and the arts play in the work of fostering neighborhood wellbeing, and are intended to support the leadership of artists in these efforts. This grant program is particularly focused on directly funding individual artists or groups of artists working to build a more equitable Twin Cities.

We are…

We have created a 2022 version of the AMI Cheat Sheet, updated using HUD’s Area Median Income for the Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington metropolitan area, which increased to $118,200 for a family of four.

This is the fourth update: find the 2017 edition here, 2018 edition here, 2019 edition here, 2020 edition here and…

Nationwide, 1 in 44 people is identified as autistic[1] in Minnesota, where more evaluation services are available, the rate is 1 in 36.[2] Autism Spectrum Disorder, or ASD, is a pervasive, neurological, and developmental disability that can include impairment in reciprocal social communication and social interaction, sensory intensity, and restricted,…

We've updated the AMI Cheat Sheet for Minneapolis and St. Paul for 2021 using HUD’s Area Median Income for the Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington metropolitan area, which increased to $104,900 for a family of four.

This is the fifth update: find the 2017 edition here, 2018 edition here, 2019 edition here, and 2020 edition here.

…

We have created a new version of the AMI Cheat Sheet, updated for 2020 using HUD’s Area Median Income for the Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington metropolitan area, which increased to $103,400 for a family of four.

This is the fourth update: find the 2017 edition here, 2018 edition here, and the 2019 edition here.

Download a pdf version of this 2020 AMI Cheat Sheet for…