CURA senior research associate Dr. Brittany Lewis and graduate research assistant Molly Calhoun’s North Minneapolis evictions research was recently published in “Collaborations: A Journal of Community-Based Research and Practice.” 

Abstract: Single Black mothers face the highest risk of eviction in the United States. In North Minneapolis, a community manufactured to contain undesirable populations through housing discrimination, decades of urban disinvestment, and unfair lending practices, the situation has become further exacerbated by the rise in distressed-property investment and disproportionate…

The City of Minneapolis is moving to initiate a “community preference” policy, to give residents residing within certain neighborhoods preference to receive assistance for specific city affordable housing programs or projects. Such preference policies have been adopted by other cities, including New York, San Francisco, and Seattle in order to mitigate the displacement of residents from neighborhoods experiencing rapid increases in housing costs. 

CURA researchers Edward G. Goetz and Aaron Sepulveda modeled several different kinds of preference policies for the City of Minneapolis to estimate the impacts of different policy choices available to the city. The…

Minnesota’s English Learner student population has consistently grown in recent years and is growing at a faster rate than the total student population. A complex web of funding streams intends to support English Learners; however, concerns have been raised over whether designated funding is reaching English Learners and whether it is providing adequate support. This report aims to address those concerns through the following study aims: 1.) Provide a clear understanding of English Learner funding streams and how the funding is spent, 2.) Get a sense of whether the current funding is meeting students’ needs, and 3.) Offer suggestions of how English Learner funding could be improved.…

The main objective of this project is to conduct a mixed methods research study that seeks to determine the impact of the Asian American Organizing Project (AAOP) has made to the Minnesotan-Asian community since 2016. The goal of this project is to be able to share AAOP’s efforts and achievements with the community, supporters, volunteers and funders. After robust quantitative and qualitative analysis, it was concluded that AAOP’s Civic Engagement efforts have substantially increased in scope and size. Throughout these years, AAOP’s main outreach methods have increased to include phone canvassing, door canvassing, hotspot canvassing, surveys, social media, pledges and registration along…

The vocabulary of neighborhood policymaking in the U.S. generally contrasts neighborhoods of concentrated poverty on the one hand with opportunity neighborhoods on the other. Policymakers target “racially concentrated areas of poverty” and researchers write about the disadvantage and dysfunction of these neighborhoods. For decades, U.S. housing policy has been oriented toward moving lower-income households out of those neighborhoods and into what policymakers regard as better environments where the families will have access to greater opportunities in education and employment. In many cities, however, residents of low-wealth neighborhoods are resisting the stigmatizing of their…

In the past 20 years, after decades of disinvestment and decline, central cities have seen a reversal of fortune and are experiencing rapid growth, particularly in the urban core. Many large cities are now struggling with housing shortages and affordability problems. There is vigorous debate amongst policy makers, scholars, and activists about the role that new market-rate apartments play in alleviating housing affordability issues. Prior research suggests that new market-rate construction may result in more affordable housing in the long-run, but much less is known about how this type of new…

In the coming decades, Minnesota is poised to lose nearly 10,000 units of rental housing in the United States Department of Agriculture's Section 515 Program. This housing currently exists in nearly every county in Greater Minnesota, and comprises a substantial proportion of rental housing for very low-income households. In partnership with Minnesota Housing Partnership (MHP), a nonprofit organization based in St. Paul that supports the work of affordable housing and community development organizations, I propose a mixed-method research project focused on the Section 515 Program in Minnesota. Through analysis of secondary data maintained by USDA and primary data collected from interviews…

This project aims to better serve students in Minneapolis Public Schools who speak a minority language, which is currently 32% of district students. As is true of monolingual English-speaking students, a subset of these bilingual students experience significant language impairment. This negatively impacts their social and academic success. Because most standardized assessments used to identify students with language impairment are English-based, alternative approaches are needed to assess the language skills of students whose home language is not English. Thus, the current study will develop a new assessment approach that uses a test-teach-retest dynamic assessment format to assess…

Representing one of the highest rates in the country, one in every 42 children in Minnesota is identified with autism spectrum disorder. Without intervention, adolescents risk a sharp decline in social support, stalled neurological progress, and a marked increase in depression and anxiety. Often shut off from educational and social supports that were available in childhood, adolescents experience significant roadblocks as they strive for independence. Similarly, young adults with autism can feel isolated and undervalued as members of our community. This project seeks to shift the status quo by pairing teens and adults with autism in one-to-one mentoring relationships as part of a…