Updates

June 15, 2021

Celebrate Juneteeth!

Juneteenth celebrates the emancipation of those who had been enslaved in the United States nearly 2 1/2 years after Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation on June 19th, 1865. Check out the list of activities organized by the Minneapolis Parks & Recreation Board and Juneteenth Community Board commemorating Juneteenth:

June 13-19: Juneteenth Story Strolls Story Strolls are a fun way to enjoy reading while spending time outdoors. Community members are invited to visit the park and walk the path as they read the book. This is a self-guided tour that families can enjoy at their leisure. Story Stroll signs will be up on a continuous basis for the week. “Black is a Rainbow Color” by Angela Joy Location: Trails near Theodore Wirth Beach area “Juneteenth for Mazie” by Floyd Cooper “Juneteenth for Mazie” by Floyd Cooper Location: Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Park “The Undefeated” by Kwame Alexander “The Undefeated” by Kwame Alexander Location: North Commons Park. Presented in collaboration with Hennepin County Library.  Presented in collaboration with Hennepin County Library June 15 (Dusk/9 pm): Drive-In Movie: “42” Location: Minneapolis Parks and Recreation Board Headquarters Register Here June 17 (6-8 pm): Community Panel Discussion – Bridging the Gap Virtual June 18 (7-9 pm): Shingle Creek Juneteenth Family Night Location: Creekview Park – Announcement of Essay Contest Award Winner and Coloring Contest  – DJ music provided Djdime – A special announcement from General Granger  – Youth dance performance  Distribution of Juneteenth Activity Bags June 18 (Dusk/9 pm): Outdoor Movie: The Great Debaters Location: Creekview Park All June 18th activities presented in collaboration with Shingle Creek Neighborhood Association and Creekview Park.  June 19 (10 am -Noon): Community Panel Discussion – Public Safety: Where Do We Go From Now Virtual (1 pm – 3 pm) Music in the Park – DJ D.I.M.E., Jovonta Patton, Royal Family Music Group Flight for Freedom – Kite Flight Location: Bethune Park 9 pm Outdoor Movie: Jumanji: The Next Level Location: Webber Park

More ways to learn about Juneteenth:

June 1, 2021

People Oriented Development (POD Power)…

The first quarter of 2021 pushed us into new places of growth and strength. While 2020 was a challenging year of reacting to traumatic and confusing events, 2021 has been a time to build on the relationships and trust deepened throughout such a difficult time.

In this first quarter of 2021:

• We hosted two virtual POD meetings with residents, with 23 residents attending (a POD is a group of UHW residents who live within two blocks or less of one another).

• We distributed $250 to three PODs for February community-building activities.

• Four of our residents attended a class hosted by our partner Hope Community to receive support in purchasing a duplex in the community.

We also paid out $125,000 to 70 different Minneapolis residents to help with overdue rent and utilities because of COVID-19 losses. Out of those individuals:

• 50% were UHW residents
• 25% were residents of Al Maa’uun housing (a partner organization we collaborated with)
• 25% were undocumented families who did not qualify for government assistance earlier in the pandemic

We have begun training with 10 of our residents to better organize and leverage power within their community as we work together for equity and justice. The class was a part of the Virtual Housing Justice Forum hosted by Urban Homeworks in partnership with elected officials, community members, and partner organizations on May 20th over Zoom. Visit www.urbanhomeworks.org/hjf to see highlights from the forum.

We’re grateful to directly hear the stories and see the impacts YOUR SUPPORT has in our community, like:

• The person who tears up every time she recounts how UHW helped her after the Drake fire left her and her five kids homeless;
• The family who, upon receiving their rent support check, invited us in and shared stories from the whole family about how COVID impacted them;
• And all the families who are grateful to have a safe home for their children to study and do school work thanks to the support you and our partner NAZ (Northside Achievement Zone) provide.

June 1, 2021

A message from our Executive Director…

Peace and Liberation Urban Homeworks Residents, Families, Donors, and Supporters!

It has been two full months since I officially stepped into the role as Executive Director and seven months since accepting the post as Interim. Do I get less sleep these days? Absolutely. In the last two months, some of our residents started the Neighborhoods Now course through the University of Minnesota’s Center for Urban and Regional Affairs (CURA), while others concluded a homeownership course offered through our partners at Hope Community. We elected two board co-chairs – introductions coming soon. We closed on our office sale to Juxtaposition Arts to aid in their community art-space expansion. And in this first quarter, we saw our number of families enrolled in the Northside Achievement Zone (NAZ) reach 25% – and we will not stop there! This quarter has been filled with opportunities for us to model our values – to model the core of our mission and vision. We have developed new partnerships and strengthened old ones. In quarter one, we asked ourselves what it truly means to Neighbor in times like these. Neighbor is one of our longstanding Core Values.

To Neighbor means humbly accepting that there is ongoing work on oneself and a conscientious effort to do that work. It means stepping up and responding to the suffering of others with mutual aid and support. Step Up is seeing a need and acting, in partnership, alongside those who have that need. We believe in stepping up in ways that honor our communities, not silence or overshadow their voices with our own. We apply our Core Values internally and to the way we landlord our rental units, develop housing and people, and steward the communities that have trusted us to provide dignified, affordable housing for 26 years. As paired with our mission and vision, our values drive us to work on dignified, affordable housing while standing against all forms of racism and systemic oppression that our communities face daily. This is what it means to Step Up and Neighbor. As we work to increase the number of affordable rental opportunities across the city and make homeownership more accessible to those we currently rent to, we will continue to stand in solidarity with the marginalized and oppressed just as Jesus did when He walked this earth.

Thank you to everyone who took a moment to celebrate us as we moved forward into the future with a renewed sense of purpose and passion. Thank you to our residents who continue to demonstrate belief in our work by sharing your stories and journeys with us. You show up and continue to build community regularly. We are inspired by and so grateful to you for your demonstration of grit and resolve. And thank you to those of you who signified your support with an increased donation in quarter one. We recognize the courage it takes to have your spending reflect your values. We get this done with each one of you. For change comes by us, together. Quarter two is already off to a promising start!

Until next time – may we all continue to work for justice, may we all experience peace,

AsaleSol Young,

Executive Director

May 24, 2021

Learn more about Danyika Leonard, Urban Homeworks Co-Chair

• 

Danyika Leonard joined the Urban Homeworks board in the Spring of 2020 and began serving as the board co-chair in April 2021.

She is the Principal and Co-Founder of the Ujima Collective, which exists to create solutions and empower those seeking to address issues impacting the Black community. Their work encompasses collaborative efforts of educators, organizers, artists, youth workers, and teachers committed to doing community safety, equity, and racial justice work.

Danyika is also a policy director at Education Evolving, where she advocates for policies that clear barriers and create opportunities for educators to design student-centered learning experiences that equitably honor the unique assets, interests, identities, and aspirations of all students—and prepare them to thrive in the 21st century.

She sees herself as a restorative practitioner by calling, and social worker by trade. Her work has focused on building innovative collaboratives of state, county, and local organizations for system and policy innovation for educational achievement and holistic family success. She has experience in community organizing, housing & workforce development, policy work, and youth and family empowerment, and design thinking. As an advanced results-based facilitator and Art of Hosting Practitioner, she is passionate about bringing people together to get things done.

Danyika holds a Master of Public Affairs degree from the University of Minnesota Humphrey School of Public Affairs and is a 2016 Roy Wilkins Community Policy Fellow. She lives in North Minneapolis with her husband and two children.

May 24, 2021

Learn more about Claudia Oxley, Urban Homeworks Co-Chair

• 

Claudia Oxley, Co-Chair, joined the UHW Board in 2020 and stepped in as Interim Chair in November. Her 10-year relationship with Urban Homeworks arose out of her desire for others to have access to home environments in which children and adults can thrive. She believes that UHW’s active engagement in legislative policies that eliminate racist and economic barriers to housing and wealth building is critical to furthering the kin-dom of Jesus in our community.

Now retired, Claudia served as a leader of significant organizational changes in several businesses within U.S. Bank and other large corporations in the Twin Cities for almost 30 years. She has an MBA in Finance from the University of Minnesota. She chairs another non-profit board and is a member of First Covenant Church of Minneapolis. Claudia lives in St. Louis Park where she plays with dirt and calls it gardening.

April 21, 2021

A collective sigh of relief…

Yesterday, many of us experienced a collective sigh of relief. An exhale after a long-held breath. We breathed. The collective breath was deep, knowing the work is far from over as we bury 20-year-old Daunte Wright and mourn the loss of 16-year-old Ma’Khia Bryant.

But strength and resiliency are not lacking in our communities. Continually, we experience and witness neighbors in North and South Minneapolis show up for each other, hold each other, and acknowledge the pain and trauma these moments inflict on all of us – whether conscious of it or not.

At Urban Homeworks, we ask ourselves what it means to neighbor in times like these. Neighbor is one of our longstanding Core Values. To us, to neighbor means humbly accepting that there is ongoing work to be done on oneself and a conscientious effort to do that work. Another Core Value that guides us is Step Up, which is seeing the need and taking action. We apply our Core Values internally and to the way we landlord our rental units, develop housing and people and steward the communities that have trusted us to provide dignified, affordable housing for 26 years. As paired with our mission and vision, our values drive us to work on dignified, affordable housing while standing against all forms of racism and other oppressions that our communities face daily. We must speak out. It is our duty to stand in solidarity with the marginalized and oppressed just as Jesus did when he walked this earth.

Jesus did not look away, nor did he minimize the voice or struggles of the oppressed. He acted in solidarity, as he confronted any notions of profit over people. As he developed close relationships with those the dominating society had rejected and demeaned, he modeled loving activism; he modeled Step Up, and he modeled Neighbor. He did so until the dominating culture deemed him such a threat to their way of life, to their systems of greed and oppression, that they killed him, and justified his murder for public consumption. The actions Jesus chose show us that he not only valued life of the soul, but valued the life of the body, as well. Jesus showed us with his life that the pursuit of justice is an act of care and love for the entire human being.

Do not look away as your neighbors mourn, as your neighbors grow disheartened knowing that while Chauvin was convicted on two counts of murder and one count of manslaughter – police across this nation murdered 64 people since testimony began on March 29th. (See NY Times article for reference.)

Do not look away or cast blame, but rather Step Up and Neighbor with us. We cannot turn our backs when those paid to protect and serve us, only protect and serve some while senselessly murdering or assaulting others. At Urban Homeworks, we believe Jesus would not look away, turn his back, or throw shame or blame on those being oppressed. We are guided by the model of activism that Jesus demonstrated in the Bible as we stand with our neighbors and fight for their collective voices to address injustice.

At Urban Homeworks, we feel the relief of the verdict and the weight of all the work still needing to be done. We are so grateful for this incredibly resilient and compassionate community. Thank you to all those who reached out directly with words of support and with supplies and cash donations when we put the call out in preparation for the conclusion of the Chauvin trial.

Tomorrow afternoon, less than one block from Urban Homeworks, the family of Daunte Wright will mourn the young person they lost. In partnership with Brother’s Empowered, Appetite for Change, Raising Cane, and Restoration Incorporated, we will be there providing sustenance and support. We invite our larger community to volunteer and join us in this effort to hold sacred space. If you wish to help set up or distribute food, please contact Marque Jensen, our Equity and Engagement Manager, at 612.208.8104.

In gratitude for the Urban Homeworks Community, and in solidarity with all those fighting for systemic justice,

AsaleSol Young,

Executive Director

Urban Homeworks