Minneapolis July Chapter Report

This quarter we’ve been quite busy co-hosting events with Freedom from the Streets, on community outreach for the Blue Line & Purple Line (as mentioned in the NE chapter report) and testifying at the Met Council. (see photos below)

Additionally, a MinnPost June 14 article by Kyle Stokes includes wise words shared by our own Candy Bakion. Excerpts below:

“They’ve seen it again and again, time after time,” said Candy Bakion, an organizer with the Metropolitan Interfaith Council on Affordable Housing. When a big transit project runs through a community, “somebody gets displaced, and mostly it’s the people of color.”

With construction beginning perhaps as soon as 2026, planners are trying to be clear-eyed about the project’s potential to fuel gentrification. Hennepin County hired a University of Minnesota researcher to convene an Anti-Displacement Working Group comprised of two dozen representatives of affected communities and governments along the route, including Bakion.

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Bakion said communication and outreach will be key to helping current North Side residents reframe their perceptions of the project — to see the new line as an amenity, not a threat. That perception has to be buttressed by policies that show government leaders are interested in preventing displacement.

“We just don’t want it gentrifying [the area],” she said. “We don’t want businesses that are here to be pushed out; we want those businesses to stay, and that access is supported by the transit development — and we want other businesses [to come to the area] also.”