Eris Rosenburg | Red Phoenix correspondent | Minnesota–

Public housing and housing subsidies are under a two-pronged attack led by local political shysters and the foremost representatives of the U.S. financial oligarchy. At issue is an upcoming Minneapolis City Council vote on whether to grant the Glendale Townhomes public housing complex preservation as a historical site, thereby making it more difficult for this working-class neighborhood to be demolished and turned into more profitable investments for construction and real estate firms.

The complex was built in 1952 for veterans of the Second World War, but after white flight in the 1960s, was repurposed as public housing for predominantly proletarian immigrant families and members of oppressed nations and national minorities. Since then, the Minneapolis Public Housing Authority (MPHA), which is responsible for maintaining Glendale, has shirked its maintenance duties and left residents to fend for themselves. Tenants frequently complain of unaddressed mold growth and worn-down or broken appliances, amid a trend of shrinking educational and food security programs for the community.

But chronic mismanagement and austerity policies are not the only ills facing Glendale’s tenants. The MPHA has fought to privatize the zone, with the goal of eventually demolishing Glendale’s community and replacing it with high-rise apartments. Theoretically at least, these high-rise units would be open for current tenants once the construction completes, and who would be eligible for Section 8 vouchers. In reality, we are seeing dozens of Black and brown families who have lived here for generations face the threat of displacement with a false promise of being able to eventually return, with fewer benefits than they currently enjoy. Even more bluntly, this means that the City of Minneapolis is destroying a community, all while using flattering language to disguise robbery at gunpoint. A relevant consideration is that President Trump has vowed to cut or eliminate Section 8 housing vouchers — in effect abandoning the low-income families in Glendale and across the country to the raw vagaries of the market, and dooming many to homelessness and incarceration.

Enter Defend Glendale, a group of Glendale tenants and allies who have protected the community for years against gentrification and benefits cuts. Their most recent campaign has focused on demanding that the city council designate Glendale as a historically preserved site to make it more difficult for the MPHA to go through with any plans for demolishing the community. For its part, the City has not remained quiet on the topic of the historic site designation. Despite its own hand in developing the process of redlining, the MPHA has maliciously and falsely claimed that were Glendale to receive a historic designation, the Authority would no longer be able to perform maintenance for tenants (which it has already refused to do), and that supporters of the designation are therefore calling for redlining. This is categorically false, with MPHA’s real agenda being to push a policy of gentrification to maximize returns for shareholders.

Mayor Jacob Frey and his fellow bourgeois politicians on the Council are the common thugs of monopoly capital in Minneapolis, seeking to gentrify proletarian communities and condemning them to poverty so that parasitic shareholders can see their stocks rise a few cents. It matters little to them whether the tenants at Glendale Homes find a place to live or lose all their benefits amid escalating federal policies of austerity. Once again, we see that Democrats and Republicans are eager to reach across the aisle to wring profits from the bones of the workers.

Events are moving quickly this week:

• On Tuesday and Wednesday, the Coalition will be hosting a Phone Zap event from 9:00AM to 5:00PM to pressure City Councilmembers to vote yes to the designation.
• On Thursday at 9:30AM, the Council will be holding a final vote to determine whether to grant Glendale Townhomes historic status.

We would like to encourage all progressive-minded working people of the Twin Cities to link their struggles with the organizers at Glendale by taking part in the Phone Zap, showing up and putting pressure on the City Council later this week, and getting involved with the Defend Glendale and Public Housing Coalition. All workers deserve the right to dignified public housing unmolested by rent-seeking parasites.

All Power to the Working People!

This article was amended on May 15, 2025 for clarity.

Categories: Economy, Government, U.S. News