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A new study from the Center for Urban and Regional Affairs at the University of Minnesota released this month, reviews rent stabilization policies nationwide and housing trends in Minneapolis, finding, in part, that BIPOC renter households face dramatically steeper affordability challenges than white renter households. Read the full report.
As social justice activists and organizers, what questions do we need to ask, and what principles must we keep in mind, to make our movements for justice fruitful in this critical moment? A new 24 page zine/pamphlet featuring the art/work of Ricardo Levins Morales' shares eight short lessons, drawing on his his over five decades of organizing. Download the free PDFs.
Writing for Shelterforce, University of Minnesota Professor Ed Goetz explores how "transparency in housing transactions and in subsidized housing practices is a simple and powerful means of producing and sustaining movements for policy change." Read more.
A recent report by the Indigenous Environmental Network and Oil Change International finds that Indigenous-led resistance to 21 fossil fuel projects in the U.S. and Canada over the past decade has stopped or delayed an amount of greenhouse gas pollution equivalent to at least one-quarter of annual U.S. and Canadian emissions. Read the report.
As the climate emergency, social crises, natural and everyday disasters continue to rock our communities, Transition US invites all doers and dreamers, activists and community leaders to a virtual summit — from Sept 24 to Oct 10 — to amass a movement for local, cultural, and ecosystem sovereignty and healing. Learn more, see Minnesota participants and register here.
Through the Main Street Covid Relief Grants Program, the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development is making available $10,000 - $25,000 grants to Minnesotan-owned and operated businesses that can demonstrate financial hardship as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak. A total $64,200,000 is available. Learn more.
Unique Projects is a new category for funding from the Metropolitan Council that supports innovative transportation projects that reduce adverse environmental impacts, improve racial equity, and support multimodal communities. Learn more.
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North News explores how "optimistic community leaders believe that with genuine community input, a thriving North Minneapolis will rise thanks to its own creative genius, visionary entrepreneurs and civic-minded activists. Northsiders will see themselves each time they pass some new amenity because they shared in its design." Read more.
Writing in the Como Midway Monitor, a supporter of the Keep St. Paul Home campaign explains that "I see how the predatory practices of corporate landlords who spike housing costs without cause is a continuation of [racialized] violence and exclusion — and how voting yes for rent stabilization is a significant step I can take for racial equity." Read more.
The Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder reports that "attorneys with the Minnesota Anti-Eviction Project place the 'very conservative' statewide estimate at 13,330 evictions for the first month when nonpayment of rent evictions resume—more than 10 times the pre-pandemic monthly number." Read more.
In its latest issue, Sierra, the national magazine of the Sierra Club, worked with Minneapolis photojournalists Patience Zalanga and Kerem Yücel to document the exhilaration and the grind of being a Black urban cyclist in the Twin Cities, connecting with more than a dozen riders, including Alliance board member Anthony Taylor. Read more.
MPR showcases how "two new initiatives hope to raise awareness of these racially restrictive covenants and their impact, get them removed and also raise money to increase Black homeownership in the city. And it starts one lawn sign at a time." Read more.
A piece in Jacobin explains how "landlords hate rent control because... it limits the rent they can extract from tenants, and it limits the control they wield over their properties. Not coincidentally, that’s also why rent control is such a good thing for the rest of us." Read more.
Next City explores new Right to Stay and Right to Return policies in Austin, Texas, "which allow working-class families currently living in the gentrifying neighborhood to find permanently affordable places to stay, and also allow displaced families with historic ties to the neighborhood to be preferred for affordable units." Read more.
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*This Friday,* Sept 24, 11am-12:30pm
Unlike advocacy efforts targeting elected officials or institutional leaders, efforts like Keep St. Paul Home and Yes 4 Minneapolis are mobilizing residents to vote for policies that will put our region at the leading edge of dramatic systems change for racial equity. Join us for a conversation with leaders at the forefront of these movements to make change through the ballot box this November. Register.
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Thurs, Sept 23 - Sat, Sept 25
Focused this year on Indigenous Sovereignty and Environmental Justice, Solidarity Street Gallery is an art and cultural festival along Payne Avenue on the East Side of St. Paul bringing together artists, performers, entrepreneurs, civic leaders, community organizations, neighbors and visitors through curated art exhibits, music & other performance arts, interactive activities for all ages, and an eco-park that highlights local Native sites and environmental innovations. Learn more.
Wed, Sept 29, 12-1pm
Join the Vision Zero Network for a discussion reflecting on ways that work within traditional traffic safety models – particularly related to law enforcement and the criminal justice system – perpetuates unjust and unsafe systems for people of color and low-income people, and ways to adjust Vision Zero efforts for positive change. Register.
Wed, Sept 29, 5:30-7pm
Join the Center for Economic Inclusion and the Coalition of Asian American Leaders to learn about their 2021 deep dive into how Minnesota's AAPI community uses financial resources and how cultural and community factors impact the economic well-being of the community, with entertainment, food, and a panel discussion of local leaders sharing their experience on how the research findings have and/or will shape their work to better serve the AAPI community. Register.
Thurs, Sept 30, 1:30pm
Join the University of Minnesota and the City of St. Paul to explore the challenges and possibilities of guaranteed income through a gender lens. What lessons should policymakers take away from the Saint Paul pilot and other experiments about how best to structure guaranteed income programs to advance gender and racial equity? Register.
Wed, Oct 6, 3:30pm
How do we think about the intersections of organizing and wellness, and how we try to sustain ourselves for our movements? Join Headwaters Foundation for Justice for a conversation about what radical rest offers to each of us involved in movement work — and how resting might just be an act of resistance. A local somatic practitioner and artist will also be in the mix. Register.
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Last week, Alliance member organizations Sierra Club North Star Chapter and Move Minnesota co-hosted an event with the BlueGreen Alliance and Congressman Dean Phillips to celebrate the METRO Orange Line Bus Rapid Transit Project on 35W and push Congress to pass comprehensive funding for infrastructure so we can build similar BRT projects throughout our region. Follow Sierra Club North Star Chapter here and Move Minnesota here!
Send photos of organizers and campaigns in action to carolyn@thealliancetc.org! Add an optional short caption, and let us know how you would like to be credited (name, organization, website, social media handle, etc.)
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