Contributing Authors: Dr. Shana Riddick, Arundhathi Pattathil, Keelia Silvis, Peter Schuetz, Yue Zhang, Justin Baker

Project Funders: Brooklyn Park Economic Development Authority, City of Brooklyn Park; Hennepin County; and State of Minnesota, Minnesota Housing Finance Agency.

In July of 2016, the Minneapolis Innovation Team, in partnership with HOME Line, published a report on Evictions in Minneapolis, which was inspired by Matthew Desmond’s book Evicted. The Innovation Team’s report found that 50% of tenants in the 55411 & 55412 zip codes were evicted in a two-year span. In August 2018, HOME Line, in partnership with CURA, completed a similar quantitatively focused analysis of evictions in Brooklyn Park and found that 98% of the eviction cases filed in 2015 through 2017 took place along the Zane Avenue Corridor between 63rd Avenue N and 83rd Avenue N. Four owner groups were responsible for 61% of evictions cases during this time period (Hare, 2018). These reports have enabled local policymakers and practitioners to begin the process of reshaping the narrative around evictions and helping to generate new and pressing questions many had not considered.

However, these reports did not take a comprehensive mixed methodological approach enabling community members, policymakers, and other relevant community stakeholders to address how and why these trends are taking place from the perspective of tenants and landlords themselves.

 

This project centers around three objectives:

  1. Increasing renters’ and management teams’ knowledge of their rights and responsibilities
  2. Unpacking concerns surrounding safety and security
  3. Engaging in community building (tenant-management relations and tenant-tenant relations)

By centering around these objectives, we seek to humanize the living and working experiences of renters and property management team members while addressing social conditions, relationships/interactions, housing issues, and the role of educational opportunities (i.e., understanding one’s rights and responsibilities in housing), all of which shape life within the city’s large apartment communities.

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Executive Summary


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