Updates - UHW

May 17, 2023

Creating Architects of Destiny

Imagine the strength it takes to parent your children when faced with the challenge of not being able to afford the rent for your home.

That was Tira’s reality in 2009 when she bravely navigated through being forced out of her home and found herself in a shelter. Determined to create a better future, Tira connected with a program at a partner organization that eventually led her to Urban Homeworks. There, she found a deeply affordable rental home that gave her family the stability and breathing room needed to get back on their feet.

Through her resilience and with the support of Urban Homeworks, Tira became the architect of her own destiny, securing a brighter future for herself and her loved ones. Ten years later, Tira is a homeowner and considers herself family to Urban Homeworks because of our role in her life.

"Even though I moved out, I'm still UHW family and always will be UHW family."

Stories like Tira’s are possible when we come together to build a future where everyone has a safe, dignified, and affordable home. Housing instability is affecting too many people in our community. In fact, nearly half of Twin Cities renters are cost-burdened, paying more than 30% of their income on rent each month. That’s why Urban Homeworks’ mission to provide dignified, affordable housing options is so critical.

Maintaining affordability is not easy, however. There is a funding gap of $5,000 for each of the 134 rental homes that Urban Homeworks manages. We’re calling on monthly donors, who we call Stability Makers, to help us fill funding gaps like this and make a tangible impact for more families like Tira’s.

Stability Makers have already given the equivalent of keeping 7 UHW apartments affordable in 2023 alone, and we need your help to grow that number even more!

Tira’s story is a testament to the importance of safe, dignified, and affordable housing. Because of the stability she found at Urban Homeworks, Tira was able to build up her credit, pay off her vehicles, and become a homeowner!

We hope you’ll join us in our mission to create more stable homes so that everyone can thrive.

Will you become a Stability Maker today and help us reach our goal of 25 for $5k?

Maintaining affordability and dignity for one rental home takes: 16 donors giving $25/month, 8 donors giving $50/month, 4 donors giving $100/month, 2 donor giving $200/month, OR 1 donor giving $400/month.

Plus, if you join before June 30, you can choose a special gift as a token of our gratitude. Show your support for housing justice with a “Housing is a Human Right” vinyl sticker, enamel pin, t-shirt, or the full package, depending on your gift amount.

$15/month

vinyl sticker, 3″ x 2.28″

$25/month

enamel pin, 0.5″ x 1″

$50/month

t-shirt, sizes XS-2XL

$100/month

your choice of all/any of the gifts listed

Attention Current Stability Makers!

We are so grateful for the dedication and strength of our current Stability Makers who contribute over $80,000 together annually. We want you to be part of this journey too! Here are two ways you can participate and help us reach our goal of 25 for $5k:

1. Increase your current monthly gift:

By increasing your monthly contribution, you amplify the impact you’re already making and help us create more stable homes for families in our community. As a token of our appreciation, you’ll receive ‘Housing is a Human Right’ swag if you increase your gift before June 30th, 2023.

2. Invite a friend to become a Stability Maker:

Spread the word about our mission and invite your friends or family members to join the Stability Maker community. When they sign up, you’ll receive matching “Housing is a Human Right” swag as a gesture of our gratitude for organizing your community around making Housing a Human Right! Don’t forget to ask your invitees to put your name in the comment/referral section of the donation form.

April 7, 2023

Acting Through Hope for a Better Future

Spring means something different to every one of us — warmth, sunshine, new life. For DeAndre, Trina, and their five kids, this spring means the celebration of their one-year anniversary as new homeowners!

I love sharing stories like DeAndre’s because they demonstrate the power of hope and perseverance, the power of community in meeting our long-held dreams, and the role that each of us, including you, have in that work.

DeAndre’s dream of being a homeowner is just one example of the way we come together to transform hope into reality. DeAndre shared, “I grew up in a single-parent household. My mom did the best she could, but I wanted to break that [homeownership] barrier. I wanted to be the first one to build some generational wealth.”

DeAndre spent much of his time moving between Minnesota and Chicago when he was a kid. Not only was it expensive for his single mom, who was doing her best to support him and his siblings, but it was difficult to be uprooted continuously.

He became a permanent Minnesota resident in 1998 and moved to North Minneapolis in 2000 where he’s been ever since. Even though he was planted in North over 20 years ago, he continued to be unstable due to problems with landlords and other barriers that come with renting.

DeAndre’s experience involved relying on non-responsive landlords who didn’t care about the condition of his unit, often leaving him to feel powerless over his own home. With all he endured, the breaking point was when he was forced out unexpectedly in the middle of the pandemic. His fiancé, Trina, was pregnant, and they had 4 other children all under the age of 7. It was stressful to be forced out of what he thought was a reliable living situation with just weeks to find a new home for his growing family.

When DeAndre had his first child at age 27, he knew he didn’t want his kids to face the same challenges he did growing up. He wanted them to have one home — a place to feel safe and secure, to come back to and say, “that’s where I grew up.”

He wanted his family to be rooted and sustained in community.

DeAndre didn’t know what it would take but was determined to be a homeowner. He had a stable job with Hennepin County and a longstanding relationship banking with US Bank on West Broadway, one of Urban Homeworks’ close partners. He stopped in one day to ask what he needed to do to buy a house.

To his surprise, he found that he was in a financial position that would set him for homeownership success.His hunt for a home began. He put in 6 offers that were all rejected in the impossibly fast-paced, housing market — a market that continues to push first-time buyers out of ownership opportunities as homes are bought up by outside investors looking only to achieve profit. With each rejection, DeAndre’s hope wavered — he began to question if homeownership was truly for him. At the brink of hopelessness, Troy Bowman, an Urban Homeworks’ Finance committee member and mortgage originator at US bank, shared that UHW had just completed the construction of a brand-new affordable home, and DeAndre met the criteria to purchase!

After touring the house twice, DeAndre couldn’t stop dreaming of all the possibilities this house would give him and his family. He loved that it was a brand-new home with new, stainless-steel appliances, a spacious backyard, and potential for building equity with an unfinished basement roughed out for two bedrooms and a bathroom. He was shocked that such an opportunity was available to him.

DeAndre recalled, “When I was a kid, I used to look through magazines and look at furniture and houses. I always wanted to know how I would be living and what kind of home I would be in. Everything I looked at wasn’t even as good as this house.”

His hope, determination, and connection to community were invaluable to this outcome. After much excitement and anticipation, DeAndre closed on the house in May 2022!

Within the first couple of months, he built two additional bedrooms in the unfinished basement, growing his three-bedroom into a five-bedroom home that now comfortably fits him, his fiancé, and their five kids, ages 6 months to 8 years old.

This summer, he plans on focusing his efforts on the backyard by building a vertical garden, planting a clover line, and paving another parking stall near his garage. DeAndre has built an estimated $30,000 in equity to his home in just one year.

“I’ve never been able to do a garden before. When you’re a homeowner, you have more opportunity, more leeway, you just know you have someplace to be, you have something to maintain. Owning a home is a job in itself, but it’s a job worth having.” DeAndre shared.

DeAndre’s unrelenting hope for homeownership became his reality, and the ripple effects of that determination are growing beyond his front porch. He’s already seen firsthand how settling into his home and getting to know his neighbors is cultivating trust that didn’t exist before.

DeAndre shared, “Community means a lot to me… A lot of people have taken it upon themselves to build a safe community here in North Minneapolis. Everybody in my neighborhood owns their home and values taking care of their home. And we take care of each other.”

DeAndre found the stability he needed for his family and the foundation he needed to start working on his own dream. He recently opened an LLC and started saving to begin his own business in the real estate industry!

At Urban Homeworks, we work to be community-centered in everything we do because it takes all of us to accomplish the work of housing equity. It takes the determination and resilient hope of folks like DeAndre working toward a better future for their family. It takes hard work from UHW staff, board, and volunteers to remove barriers, provide resources, and respond to community needs.

And it takes you — giving generously to overwhelm this mission with the resources it takes to make more homes available to more people.

Urban Homeworks is putting $4.9 million to work in the community this year, $1.9 million from supporters like you, that will directly benefit individuals who are just one stable home away from achieving their dreams.

Will you join us in this ambitious hope by donating to Urban Homeworks today?

When you support Urban Homeworks, you do more than perpetuate hope through stories like DeAndre’s. When you invest in the power of “home,” you invest in a more connected and equitable future.

DeAndre’s powerful story demonstrates the importance of acting through hope for a better future. We ask you to do the same – to mirror his hope, to honor his determination, and to give generously as part of this community so that even more families like DeAndre’s can find the home they dream of.

With determination that we can come together for meaningful change,

April 5, 2023

Open Letter to Mayor Frey & Director Brennan from Members of the Rent Stabilization Voting Majority

Dear Mayor Frey and Director Brennan:

As you are aware, a majority of Minneapolis voters chose in 2021 to authorize the City Council to enact a rent control ordinance in Minneapolis. In June 2022, the City Council established the Housing/Rent stabilization work group to study and make recommendations for a policy framework to address housing/rent stabilization. Twenty-five individuals representing a wide variety of perspectives were appointed to this group and met during Fall and early Winter 2022 to fulfill this charge.

We are writing as the working group members who each voted in support of the sole rent stabilization policy framework that emerged with majority support from this process. We are a diverse group – including renters, developers, tenant organizers, property owners, and service providers who assist those experiencing housing instability. While we commend the work done to lead and facilitate the working group process, we are writing to express our concern about the subsequent treatment of our work and recommendations.

As appointed members of the working group, we took seriously the responsibility given to us and engaged fully in the working group process. We spent three months researching and discussing the housing market and an array of intricate rent stabilization policy options. We attended ten meetings during workday hours and spent many evenings reviewing materials and preparing for these meetings. Each of us engaged in these discussions with an open mind, a genuine interest in learning from other working group members, and a desire to fully contribute our own knowledge and perspectives. Throughout the process, our foremost goal was to design a policy framework that would be best suited for Minneapolis’ complex housing market. After many months of diligent work and consideration of options, we each chose to vote for a policy recommendation that we felt best suited the city’s needs. That policy framework, often called Framework 5, emerged as the majority recommendation from the working group, garnering support from 56 percent of its members.

After investing considerable time and energy into the working group process, we were then surprised and dismayed by the subsequent reactions to our work. Only hours after the working group released its recommendation and the results of its vote, the Mayor expressed his unqualified opposition to our recommendation. While we understand that not everyone will agree with our recommendation, we expected our work to be given a more thorough and thoughtful review, particularly given the complexity of the policy issues involved, as well as the time and effort we invested in this process.

More recently, we have been similarly dismayed by the representation of the working group’s decisions in the draft rent stabilization work group report. During the second meeting of the working group, members were informed by the facilitators that a policy framework receiving 51 percent or more of the group’s votes would be considered the “consensus” recommendation. Framework 5 was the only framework that reached the threshold of support to be considered a “consensus” recommendation. However, the draft final working group report does not accurately reflect this decision. Instead of presenting Framework 5 as what it is – the sole consensus recommendation – it is instead given equivalent treatment to a minority recommendation, a confusing and misleading representation that fails to reflect the decision-making standards that were clearly established.

We have no regrets about investing our time and energy into the working group process and are honored to have been able to contribute to the charge given to the City Council by Minneapolis voters on rent stabilization. However, we do ask that our contributions and work be treated with respect and that our decisions be reflected with accuracy. We ask that the working group report accurately reflect the decisions that were made by that body and clearly elevate and distinguish Framework 5 as the sole framework recommendation that received majority support. We further request that more thoughtful and deliberate consideration be given to the working group’s majority recommendation and the details it contains. We strove to do our work in this process with diligence, thoughtfulness, and a spirit of open-minded collaboration. We ask that our resulting work and recommendations be treated with the same spirit and open-minded consideration.

We would be happy to continue to offer our knowledge and expertise as the City continues to deliberate on its approach to rent stabilization. Please do not hesitate to be in touch if our perspectives or assistance would be useful in any way in that process.

Thank you,

AsaleSol Young, Urban Homeworks
Dan Suitor, HOME Line
Jennifer Arnold, Inquilinxs Unidxs por Justicia
Jimmy Harris, Renter
José A. Zayas Cabán, Renter
Kadra Abdi, Metropolitan Consortium of Community Developers
Mary Kaczorek, Mid-Minnesota Legal Aid
Maura Brown, Alliance for Metropolitan Stability
Peggy Clark, Minneapolis Public Housing Renter
Rico Morales, Hennepin County Lived Experience Advisory Group
Yolanda Roth, Landlord

If you have lingering questions about rent stabilization, check out some of the resources linked below!

February 27, 2023

Black History Month 2023: Black Resistance

The theme for this year’s Black History Month was “Black Resistance”: “Black resistance strategies have served as a model for every other social movement in the country, thus, the legacy and importance of these actions cannot be understated…”, read more on this year’s theme here.

This month we shared ways to celebrate, organizations to donate to, events to attend, and steps to take to celebrate Black History Month on our socials. This post recaps just a few of those opportunities.

CELEBRATE: listen to Black musicians and artists, watch films and TV shows made by Black creators, follow Black creators online

LEARN: read Black literature, engage with podcasts, documentaries, books, archives, classes, and museums focused on Black history

GROW: engage deeply in personal antiracism work, have difficult conversations with the people around you, challenge workplace practices that are steeped in white supremacy

TAKE ACTION: support Black-owned businesses, restaurants, and Black artists, donate to Black-led organizations, movements, and nonprofits, look into workplace giving, get involved with your neighborhood’s or local community’s mutual aid

ADVOCATE: support policies that fight against engrained systemic injustices, testify at hearings, attend meetings, volunteer, attend rallies or protests, contact your representatives, sign petitions

More resources:

Black History Month offers us the opportunity to intentionally take time to learn more about the parts of history that have often been erased, rewritten, or ignored; to take time to reflect on the parts of white supremacy that live within us; to redistribute our resources and wealth to those most harmed by the systems some of us benefit from; to celebrate the Black leaders, scientists, speakers, writers, educators, artists, changemakers, movements, and ideas that have shaped our world.

Though today marks the last day of February and the last day of Black History Month, we hope that your learning, reflection, celebration, and efforts continue into the days, weeks, months, and years that follow.

February 23, 2023

Spring 2023 Updates from Urban Homeworks

Equity & Engagement Updates

This January, Urban Homeworks began doing Restorative Circles with our residents and with our staff. Restorative Circles, sometimes called “Talking Circles” or “Peacemaking Circles”, are an Indigenous creation and practice. Circles can be used for a variety of reasons, but for UHW, our goal is to build and strengthen relationships between residents and to heal harms, increase accountability, embody antiracism, and foster connectivity between staff. We are grateful to work with the Conflict Resolution Center to host these circles and look forward to the growth of both groups over the next few months.

In addition to our Circles, UHW has already had 3 POD meetings this year with our residents! In January we discussed how the state government works, taking a special look at upcoming rent voucher and rent stabilization policies and how they might affect residents; in February we had a special guest from community give a presentation all about renter’s insurance; and this month we are hosting a special watch party of our Housing Justice Forum! It’s been a joy to do this work with our residents!

Attending rallies for Bring It Home, Minnesota, testifying at hearings for important legislation like HB 685, and meeting one-on-one with representatives—the UHW team has been hard at work on policy this year! Of special note, Temi Ogunrinde, UHW’s Equity & Engagement Director, testified at a February hearing of Bring It Home—check out Temi’s portion HERE.

It takes more than $350,000 in donor support to fund and fuel UHW’s Equity and Engagement work each year. Your gifts provide the resources to advocate, empower, and organize our neighbors toward a more equitable future. Though the year has just begun, we are already so proud of what we have done and especially proud of what is to come!

Staff & Board Updates

We are happy to announce that Board Members Rev. Jim Bear Jacobs and Danyika Leonard will be serving as our 2023 Board Co-Chairs. Former Co-Chair Claudia Oxley will be our 2023 Board Secretary and Board Member Lee Schafer will be our 2023 Board Treasurer. We are also welcoming four new members to our 2023 Board! All already deeply connected to UHW and the work, please join us in welcoming Ravie Singh, Sadaqah Jones, Lindsey Hunter, and Tiffany Dykes to the board!

We also welcome Katie Rein to staff this year, joining our Development and Marketing team as our Development Coordinator! View our full staff and board HERE.

Sound like a team you want to be a part of? We are currently hiring an Asset Manager, learn more and apply HERE!

Real Estate Updates

Our newest renovation at 3335 Vincent is now listed on the market! If you’d like to learn more about this story or just see the inside of one of our renovated homes, join us at an Open House on Saturday, March 25th. Learn more and register HERE.

We are also excited to share that our newly-built property at 2131 Bryant sold at the end of February! Here’s to building ownership and wealth for one more family in North Minneapolis!

We are equally excited to begin construction on five new passive-certified homes in North Minneapolis this year. These homes will bring incredible energy efficiency and cost savings to their future owner. Our plans for construction have been approved and we plan on breaking ground as soon as it thaws!

UHW has the incredible privilege of matching your dollars, community priorities, and staff expertise to make these home are possible. It takes $120,000 each year, and as we step up into even more developments in 2023, we hope you’ll step up with us. If you’re interested in learning more, contact us or donate here.

General Updates

We are SO excited to share that we have kicked off a rebranding effort with Neka Creative! Taking time to review our mission, vision, values, branding language, and overall appearance, we seek to ensure that the way we discuss our work best reflects the heart of it—our residents, community members, and neighbors.

Check out our upcoming events HERE.

Check our our past events HERE.

the EE Team smiles, standing in front of a new garage being built on one of our properties

November 7, 2022

Updates from Equity & Engagement

Dear Urban Homeworks Community,

My name is Temi Ogunrinde and I am the new Equity and Engagement Director at Urban Homeworks. This is more of a welcome back than a welcome, as I was a part of the UHW team last year! It feels good to be back and in this new role; I am ecstatic to join the team as we work to dismantle one of the foundations of systemic racism: policy. As we continue to grow influence in the political sphere, we want to remain unapologetically centered on our community, taking their ideas and hopes for an equitable housing ecosystem and supporting policy that matches.

I am not the only new member of the Equity and Engagement team either—please join me in welcoming our new Resident Organizer: Yuri Harper! Yuri is also not a stranger to the UHW family! She worked with us as a Northside Achievement Zone (NAZ) Family Coach, doing beautiful work as a partner to our organization. I am truly so excited to dig into this work with Yuri, our Volunteer Manager Ashley Satorius, and the rest of the UHW team.

As you may know, this is an election year. Hot off the press is our 2022 voter guide that will be handed out to each resident, aimed to help explain the impact each position on the ballot has on individuals’ day-to-day life, as well as resources for learning more about who is on the ballot, voter rights, and voting. Following the election on November 8th, UHW is throwing a Post-Election Celebration for residents! Civic engagement takes so much time and energy, we want to honor and celebrate our residents for making their voices heard, as well as share next steps for holding our future elected officials accountable.

With the Holiday season coming up, we’ve also begun collecting gift card donations for our families. Our goal is to give each resident household several gift cards to places like Cub, Target, Visa, Holiday Gas, and Walmart, so they can purchase whatever they may need to celebrate this season and prepare for the coming winter.

As always, we cannot thank you enough for your unconditional support for our organization, our staff, and most importantly, our residents. I am looking forward to seeing the impact of your support in these last few months of 2022 and into the new year!

All the best,

October 26, 2022

End-Of-Year Giving with Urban Homeworks

As the end of 2022 draws near, we want to remind you of tax-advantageous ways to donate to your favorite charities this holiday season.

Donate Stock:

Donating stock allows you to avoid capital gains taxes. For example, if you bought a share of Apple for $100 and sold it five years later for $300 your capital gain on that share is $200. Instead of selling the share and being taxed upwards of 20%, you can donate that share to your favorite charity and neither you nor the charity will pay taxes on that money. You can also deduct the full fair market value at the time of the gift from your taxable income if you are itemizing your deductions, lowering your total taxable income.

Don’t want to change your stock portfolio? Donate shares of the appreciated stock, then repurchase the same number of shares immediately after. This eliminates the capital gains on your previous shares and resets your “cost basis” to the current price, possibly saving even more taxes when you sell the new shares in the future.

Qualified Charitable Distribution (QCD):

You are required to begin drawing from your traditional IRA at age 72, and those distributions are taxed at ordinary income tax rates. Your annual income is then boosted, potentially bumping you into a higher tax bracket. The QCD rule allows you to donate those distributions to a charity and deduct the donation from your total taxable income. To make a QCD, contact your IRA custodian and let them know that you’d like to donate some or all your IRA distributions to the charity of your choice and they will cut the check from your account to your designated charity!

Bunching Charitable Gifts:

The standard deduction is $25,900 for joint filers, $19,400 for heads of household, and $12,950 for single filers and those married filing separately. That means that unless your deductions exceed your respective level, there is no advantage to itemizing deductions. If you find yourself close to the threshold, bunching your gifts could be beneficial to you. For example, if you are single and donate $10,000 a year to Urban Homeworks, you don’t exceed the standard deduction. However, if you decide to donate $10,000 on January 1 and $10,000 on December 31 in the same year, your deductions would be $20,000 surpassing the standard deduction threshold, making it advantageous to itemize your deductions and lowering your taxable income.

Donating to Urban Homeworks:

We would love for you to consider donating to Urban Homeworks using these methods this year! To the right you will find the information needed to make a stock or bond transfer.

Important: Gifts of stocks are typically transferred without information that identifies the donor. Please notify Urban Homeworks of your gift to ensure you are properly thanked and receipted for tax purposes. Contact Emily Lassiter, Senior Development Officer, at 612-429-0374 or EmilyL@urbanhomeworks.org.