Report submitted to the Minnesota ERASE Campaign (End Rental Arrears and Stop Evictions). ERASE is an effort to ensure that the historic aid enacted by Congress reaches the lowest-income and most marginalized renters it is intended to help. We are working to eliminate rental indebtedness caused by the pandemic, prevent evictions, and create support for long-term policy changes to end housing instability and homelessness. Co-convenors of the campaign include ACER (African Career Education Resource); Housing Justice Center, and MHP (Minnesota Housing Partnership).
Introduction…
Over the past several months, CURA has completed research projects lead by CURA Director Dr. Edward Goetz and Senior Research Associate Dr. Brittany Lewis. Each project is related to affordable housing. An excerpt from “Seeking Closure: The Lowry Grove Report” by Dr. Goetz starts the roundup, followed by three projects lead by Dr. Lewis, “The Brooklyn Center Housing Report,” “Searching for Stability,” and finally “The Brooklyn Park Housing Project.”
Seeking Closure…
A Building Capacity with Black Women Action Research Project
Author: Principal Investigator, Dr. Brittany Lewis, Senior Research Associate
Contributing Authors: Dr. Shana Riddick, Arundhathi Sasikumar, Sophia Margaret Manolis, Carolyn Szczepanski
Introduction
Black women in Minneapolis have experienced economic crisis and housing shortages for far too long with little reprieve. Expected to be tirelessly ‘resilient,’ these women have to navigate not only their own daily experiences with racism but also have to navigate the complex systems established by the…
The USDA Section 515 Program and the Challenge of Preserving Affordable Housing in Greater Minnesota
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…