New Year’s Resolutions

  The end of the year in the social service world brings final quarterly reports, holiday greeting cards, and press releases of each organization’s quantitative successes. Though the last year was abound with uncertainty with the ushering in of a new administration, the ring of optimism surrounding the new year, metered with carefully crafted action…

Introduction

Three months into my year-long term as Eastside Financial Center’s Systems Change Innovator, I continue to navigate my space. Instead of biking the distance the Green Line doesn’t cover as the EFC’s previous VISTA did, I drive to work in a dark blue 2003 Ford Focus I bought off the Minneapolis Craigslist. I navigate down…

The care crisis

Jennifer Davis became a PCA because she wanted to help other people. She quit because she needed to help herself. "I only get one back," she said. The labor - lugging frail bodies, draining catheters, stretching sleeves to fit stiff limbs - was strenuous and underpaid. Now Jennifer draws blood. She works less, and gets paid more. To our ears…

Sabotage

The Minnesota state legislature is poised to gut home care workers’ latest contract. Home care workers won a raise from $6.15 to $11 an hour after voting in 2015 to unionize. SEIU Healthcare Minnesota brokered a new contract with the state this year, to raise their minimum pay to $13 an hour. But that raise…

Student debt

Financial counselors at Lutheran Social Service were jolted again last night, as state legislators axed funding for student debt counseling. Amid brutal cuts, legislators actually added the $200,000 provision to late drafts of the higher education omnibus bill. The funding would have gone to student debt counselors at LSS. LSS had lobbied for the funds since January. But…

East side divided

From her window, Teresa Munson watches her neighbors cross the cul de sac where she lives, on their way to the Bruce Vento Trail. “I see parents taking their kids up there to show them the native species,” she says. “We have wood ducks up there. We have bats and deer.” She sighs. “And I…

Payne-Phalen elections

Payne-Phalen has elected six new members to its board of directors. They are young, racially diverse, and refreshingly green. The district council's annual meeting, on April 25, was long and heated. Board President Eric Foster's tone was exasperated, as former board members squabbled over bylaw changes and correct parliamentary procedure. "There's a book in the…

Affordability on Payne

Payne Avenue could get nearly 100 new units of subsidized housing soon, even as construction costs rise and public subsidies wane. Recent plans show a four-story building, located at 848 Payne, that will rival the city's biggest recent developments. The units will be "affordable" by government standards. Yet ironically, many east siders won't be able to afford the rent. Here's what you should know about 848…

Lenny Xiong

Since quitting his job at a smoke detector plant, Lenny Xiong has risen to the pinnacle of small-time farming success - a 12-acre farm, an arsenal of tractor add-ons, a deal with a pickle company for 100,000 pounds of cucumbers - very cautiously. He turned down a membership with the Hmong American Farmers Association in…

Renters go to court

Maria Johnson had lived in the same apartment complex for four years. But when she tried to renew her lease in 2015, she was rejected. The problem, her landlord said, was her credit score. Johnson is one of seven renters who are suing their landlord, MSP Crossroads Apartments LLC, for housing discrimination. They are black,…