Waite Park neighborhood climate committee to meet July 14

We invite you to join us for the inaugural meeting of the Waite Park neighborhood climate committee on Thursday, July 14, at 6:30pm. The meeting will take place outdoors at Waite Park.

This is a project of the Waite Park Community Council. Our objective is to facilitate a long-term conversation about how we can create a more just, sustainable and resilient neighborhood as our planet warms.

Our special guest for this meeting will be Laura Benson, an Audubon Park neighborhood resident who is involved with the campaign for the Minneapolis People's Climate and Equity Plan.

If the meeting site is not visible from the south Rec Center doors, we will post information about where to find us there. In the event of rain, the meeting will take place on Zoom. Please RSVP here so that we can keep in touch and share information if meeting details change.

New transit pass aims to help renters and property managers

The Waite Park Community Council is helping Move Minnesota promote a Metro Transit program that provides low-cost public transit passes to residents of multifamily housing. 

Rental property owners can purchase the passes for tenants for $14 a month per unit through the Residential Transit Pass program. A standard, individual unlimited ride transit pass typically costs $120 a month.

The Residential Transit Pass is available exclusively to property managers and building owners of residences with 10 units or more.

The pass brings savings and convenience for residents, but there are also benefits for property managers. Offering this pass as a perk can help retain and attract tenants. It can also serve as an alternative to off-street parking now that the city has removed minimum parking requirements for new developments. 

Renters and others are encouraged to share this information with property owners/managers. Please contact renterhelp@waiteparkcc.org if you would like help starting a conversation with your landlord or property manager.

Property managers who are interested in learning more about the Residential Transit Pass can email Molly Burns-Hansen at mollybh@movemn.org.

Waite Park homeowners can also help get the word out by sharing this information with neighbors who rent. 

Join us for a neighborhood meeting on racial covenants in Waite Park

The Waite Park Community Council will host a special neighborhood meeting on Thursday, June 30, to address a shameful chapter in the city and neighborhood's history in which Black residents were prohibited from buying or renting homes in the community.

Racial covenants were documents recorded against a home's legal title which banned property owners from selling, renting, or allowing their home to be used by people of certain races. The discriminatory language was not always the same, but most covenants targeted Black people.

Racial covenants were recorded on homes in Minneapolis by developers and homeowners starting in the 1910s. The use of racial covenants forced Black community members to live in racially segregated areas where they could not get mortgages, buy property, or build wealth.

Racial covenants were outlawed by 1968 and are no longer enforceable. Yet, Black people and other people of color in Minneapolis still experience the harm caused by these covenants. In 2010, Minneapolis’ population included 69% white residents and 19% Black residents. However, in the neighborhoods where racial covenants had been common, the population was still 73-90% white.

From 2016 to 2020, the Mapping Prejudice team at the University of Minnesota used technology and volunteers to review thousands of documents looking for racial covenants. They found over 8,000 racial covenants recorded against properties in the City of Minneapolis alone, including more than 200 in the Waite Park neighborhood.

The City of Minneapolis is offering Minneapolis homeowners the chance to learn about and discharge the racial covenants recorded on their properties. It also allows homeowners to reclaim their homes as equitable spaces.

Join us for an informational meeting on the city's Just Deeds project to learn how homeowners can eliminate this hurtful language and reclaim their homes as equitable spaces. Assistant City Attorney Amy Schutt will give a presentation on history of racial covenants and other discriminatory housing practices in Minneapolis, and also take questions from residents.

The meeting will take place at 7pm on Thursday, June 30, on Zoom. Register or sign-in to the meeting at https://tinyurl.com/WPCCjustdeeds

Watch: The TPT documentary ‘Jim Crow of the North’ tells the story of racist, restrictive real estate covenants in the Twin Cities.