Families in Minneapolis who participate in public assistance programs face an especially challenging task of finding affordable housing in Minneapolis. Enforcement of the City’s amended civil rights ordinance prohibiting public assistance discrimination in housing, including discrimination against renters who participate in the Section 8 program, has taken effect.
The housing discrimination amendments to the civil rights ordinance, approved by the City Council in March 2017, prohibit landlords from denying public assistance participants the opportunity to apply for available housing, or refusing to rent to potential tenants because of the requirements of a public assistance program. The amendments also prohibit landlords from imposing unique rental standards or otherwise treating potential public assistance tenants differently from other tenants.
Landlords, however, still maintain the ability to screen all prospective tenants as permitted by law.
The Minneapolis civil rights ordinance has always prohibited discrimination based on a person’s receipt of public assistance. The amendments that took effect May 1 continue with that tradition. Sixty other states and cities across the country have similar protections against discrimination.
Report violations of the ordinance by calling 311 or the Civil Rights Department at 612-673-3012 or in person at City Hall, Room 239, or online.
The City’s Civil Rights Department is also accepting public comments on draft guidelines relating to what would constitute an “undue hardship” for landlords with respect to the requirements of a public assistance program. The draft guidelines can be found here. The department is accepting public comment on the draft guidelines until May 30, 2018.
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The City set goals
for Minneapolis to move to 100 percent renewable electricity for municipal
facilities and operations by 2022 and citywide by 2030. These goals serve as a
strategy to meet the City’s aggressive greenhouse gas emission reduction and
climate change goals by moving away from fossil fuels. The resolution
responds to overwhelming scientific consensus that climate change is a real and
existential threat to human civilization and is caused primarily by the
combustion of fossil fuels. The City opposes the rollback of climate policy at
the federal level and reaffirms its ongoing commitment to the goals of the
Paris Climate Agreement.
These commitments
came about with advocacy from the Sierra Club and iMatter.
The Sierra Club’s Ready For 100
campaign encourages cities to move to cleaner, cheaper, healthier energy
with 100 percent clean, renewable energy for all.
The national youth
organization, iMatter, is called to befriend
and support young people as they collectively step into their authentic voices
and power to disrupt the status quo and push local leaders to do what is
necessary to end the climate crisis and transition to a just, sustainable
society.
Minneapolis joins
Atlanta; Boulder, Colorado; Orlando, Florida; Madison, Wisconsin; Portland,
Oregon; Rochester, Minnesota; St. Louis; Saint Louis Park, Minnesota; San
Francisco; San Diego; Salt Lake City and other cities in 100 percent renewable
energy commitments.
Find more
information about Minneapolis’ action on climate change in the resolution
and the
City website.
Elections & Voter Services has now posted thirteen
available positions to assist at the in-person absentee voting (“early voting”)
station located one block from City Hall at 217 S 3rd St. Learn more about elections job openings here.
Absentee Voting
Team Member (Seasonal Election Support Specialist I) – 13 to be hired,
$18.39/hr
Providing customer service and assisting voters in the
absentee ballot process; processing absentee ballot applications; processing
voted absentee ballots; entering/looking up data in the Statewide Voter
Registration System (SVRS); and performing related clerical work.
Positions are full-time (32hrs/wk), and run from mid-June through
November. Some evenings and weekends required. Apply here.
*Especially encouraged to apply are those with fluency
in English plus one of the following languages: Somali, Oromo, Hmong, or
Spanish—to assist voters with limited English skills.
For questions, contact Election Administrator Tim Schwarz at
612-673-3136 or tim.schwarz@minneapolismn.gov.
You are invited to
learn about, and share feedback on, the City’s draft comprehensive plan at the
open house on May 14, 5:30 - 8pm, at Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Park
Recreation Center.
City leaders want to
know your thoughts about the new draft comprehensive plan. When finalized,
Minneapolis 2040 will serve as a framework of interdependent policies, topics,
action steps and maps intended to drive a citywide conversation about how the
city will grow and change over the next two decades in a way that will benefit
all residents.
Minneapolis 2040
covers topics such as housing, job access, new building designs and street use.
It’s the result of two years of engagement with the people of Minneapolis,
including more than 50 meetings and conversations with thousands of residents,
business owners and others.
Minneapolis 2040
open house:
5:30-8
p.m. Mon, May 14 Rev. Dr.
Martin Luther King, Jr. Park Recreation Center, 4055 Nicollet Ave. S.
Can’t attend on May
14th?
There will also be
an open house on Thur, May 31, 5:30-8 pm, at Powderhorn Park Recreation
Center, 3400 15th Ave. S.
Additionally, you
can provide feedback on the website until July 22. The complete draft
plan is available online at www.minneapolis2040.com.
In recognition of National Police Week May 13-18, each of the City’s
police precincts is opening its doors and inviting neighbors to drop by to meet
officers, crime prevention specialists and the precinct commander. Visitors can
tour the stations; take a look at police squad cars and emergency equipment;
watch demonstrations from the Bomb Squad, SWAT, Mounted Patrol and K9 units;
and the Minneapolis Fire Department. You can also pick up crime prevention
information and enjoy snacks.
8th
Ward events include:
3rd Precinct Open House
11 a.m.-2 p.m. Wednesday, May 16
3000 Minnehaha Ave. S.
5th Precinct Open House
5-7 p.m. Wednesday, May 16
3101 Nicollet Ave. S.
Proposals to build
and renovate streets, buildings, bridges, park facilities and other parts of
Minneapolis’ infrastructure over the coming five years are collected and
prioritized every year. The committee that does this work wants to hear from
you about what your priorities are, and you can share your thoughts at an input
session.
The input session is
an opportunity for you to get questions answered by the Capital Long-Range
Improvement Committee (CLIC) members and City staff. Previous meetings with the
public have helped generate new ideas about improvements that had never been
proposed before, such as adding sidewalks where they hadn’t existed in the
public system.
Remaining public
input session
6:30-8 p.m. Tuesday, May 15
North Regional Library, 1315 Lowry Ave. N.
Second floor meeting room
Public hearing
You can speak in favor of or against proposed projects or suggest other ideas by
attending the official public hearing 6 p.m. Thursday, May 24, City Hall,
Room 319.
Projects considered
for the next CLIC report are now available for review as the 2019-2023 Capital
Budget Requests on the CLIC reports webpage.
Minneapolis Bike
Month has a series of events celebrating cycling and encouraging new bikers to
go for a ride.
Minneapolis is one
of many communities across the country that celebrate biking the month of May. Highlights
of Minneapolis Bike Month include:
- Friday, May 18: Twin Cities Bike to Work Day
- Saturday, May 26: Family Bike Day
Find out more about
Minneapolis Bike Month and its events at www.mplsbikemonth.org.
Minneapolis is one
of the best biking cities in the country. As of 2016, Minneapolis has 135 miles
of on-street bikeways and 100 miles of off-street bikeways. For more
information about bicycling in the city, go to www.minneapolismn.gov/bicycles.
The first farmers markets of the season have opened,
and the City of Minneapolis has an online interactive map that makes it easy to
find farmers markets all over the city. Visit www.minneapolismn.gov/farmersmarkets for details for each market. The map is updated as
information becomes available on 2018 schedules.
The Kingfield Farmers Market is located at
4310 Nicollet Ave. S Minneapolis, MN and takes place every Sunday from 8:30 am
to 1:00 pm. The 2018 outdoor season kicks off May 20th and will run through
October 28th. The Kingfield Farmers
Market is a produce-focused market offering a wide variety of fruits and
vegetables along with prepared foods, coffee, hand made crafts, music, kids
activities and more.
Buying food directly at a farmers market strengthens
the community between the farmer and the eater, and it supports the regional
economy by allowing the local farmer to keep 80 to 90 cents per dollar of
sales.
Check out Homegrown
Minneapolis for more
ways to get healthy, local food on the table. Homegrown Minneapolis is a
citywide initiative expanding our community’s ability to grow, process,
distribute, eat and compost more healthy, sustainable, locally grown foods.
You can watch the speech live on the City Facebook page, Comcast Cable
channel 799 or the City’s website. The speech will also
be replayed on City cable channels; you can find a replay schedule on the City
website.
Public Works crews have begun the City’s
comprehensive street sweeping program. Watch
for temporary “No Parking” signs to avoid a ticket and tow.
Starting May 1 for approximately four weeks,
sweeping crews will take care of more than 1,000 miles of city streets in
addition to sweeping alleys. To make sure the crews can do the most complete
job possible, temporary “No Parking” signs will be posted at least 24 hours in
advance to make sure streets are clear of parked vehicles. Drivers need to
follow street sweeping parking rules or they may have their cars ticketed and
towed to the Minneapolis Impound Lot.
Residents, workers and visitors have a number of
ways to find out more about street sweeping:
-
“No
Parking” signs
– Crews will post “No Parking” signs at least 24 hours before sweeping any
streets. Parking will be banned from 7 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on the day a
street is swept. The “No Parking” signs will be removed as soon as
possible after a street has been completely swept to allow people to
resume parking. Drivers should not park along these streets until these
temporary “No Parking” signs are removed.
-
Phone
calls to residents
– In addition to the “No Parking” signs that will be posted the day before
sweepers come through, the City will make about 3,500 automated phone
calls each evening to let residents know their street will be swept the
next day.
-
Interactive
web tool
– Folks can use a tool on the City’s website to find out when the sweeping
crews are coming through their neighborhoods. By the Friday before the
first week of the sweep, people can go to www.minneapolismn.gov/publicworks/streetsweeping and click on “street sweeping schedule lookup”
to find out which week a street is scheduled to be swept. The weekend
before that week, they can revisit the website to find out which day of
the week the street is scheduled to be swept.
-
Videos
– Street
sweeping is explained in English, Spanish, Somali and Hmong in short
videos at www.YouTube.com/cityofminneapolis and on City cable channels 14 and 79.
Residents who have friends or neighbors who speak these languages are
encouraged to share links to the videos.
Knowing that not all
volunteers can participate in cleanup events or commit to maintaining areas,
the City offers a program providing supplies for a one-time, no-commitment
cleanup. The program provides litter cleanup supplies such as bags and gloves
at no cost including delivery.
The program is
available to Minneapolis residents, property owners, businesses, visitors and
other groups interested in volunteering to collect litter in their community. Cleanup
areas are limited to public sidewalks, curbs, boulevard greenbelts, green
spaces and other public property within the City of Minneapolis.
Learn more here
or call 612-673-2789.
Bridge closures March 2 through early August
- 38th St. bridge is closed over I-35W
- EB detour: Nicollet Ave. to 36th St. to 3rd Ave. S
- WB detour: 3rd Ave. S to 35th St. to Nicollet Ave.
- Bicycle Detour: 1st Ave. S (NB)/Blaisdell Ave. (SB) to 40th
St. pedestrian bridge to 3rd Ave. S
- Pedestrian detour: 1st Ave. S to 40th St. pedestrian bridge to
3rd Ave. S
- View
map for all 38th St. bridge detours (PDF)
Ramp closures March 2 through fall 2021
- 36th St. to SB I-35W is closed
o Detour: Portland Ave. to 46th St. (PDF)
Note:
There are a number of reasons this ramp is closed through fall 2021:
- During the 38th St.
bridge reconstruction, there is not enough room for vehicles to safely
merge from the ramp onto southbound I-35W
- Once I-35W highway
reconstruction work begins this summer, the number of southbound
lanes will be reduced and shifted at various times while crews work for
the three years after the 38th St. bridge reopens. This will make it difficult
for vehicles entering from 36th St. to safely merge onto southbound I-35W.
Additional closures March 2 to early
August
- Intersections of Stevens
Ave. and Second Ave. S between 37th St. and 38th St. are closed
Note: Residents will be
able to access Stevens Ave. and 2nd Ave. S from 37th St. or 39th
St. During the closure, two-way traffic on Stevens Ave. between 37th St.
and 38th St. will be allowed.
o Access Routes map (PDF)
10 p.m. Fri, May 18 through fall 2021
- NB
I-35W to WB I-94 will be closed
- Detour:
Hwy 62 to Hwy 100 to Hwy 55
- Note: There are a number of
reasons this ramp is closed through fall 2021:
- This ramp is being fully
reconstructed. Once complete, motorists will no longer merge on the
right side of WB I-94; instead, motorists will merge on the left side
and will have a dedicated lane through the Lowry Tunnel, helping to
reduce congestion. The Lyndale Ave./Hennepin Ave. exit will still be
accessible from WB I-94.
- Prior to the reconstruction of the
ramp, there are additional construction activities in the I-35W/I-94
junction that need to happen and will be in full swing starting in
mid-June 2018. Highway lanes will be reduced and shifted at various
times and construction of the new ramp piers would not allow traffic to
be safely switched around.
Mid-June through fall 2021
- NB
I-35W to WB I-94 will be closed
- Detour: Hwy 62 to Hwy 100 to I-394
Mid-June through fall 2021
- 31st
St. to SB I-35W will be closed to traffic, but remain open to buses
- Detour: Nicollet Ave. to 46th St.
Mid-June through fall 2018
- NB
I-35W to 31st St. will be closed to traffic, but remain open to buses
- Detour: 36th St. to 3rd Ave.
Mid-June through fall 2020
- SB
I-35W to 35th St.
- Detour: Continue on I-35W and take
the 46th St. exit to Nicollet Ave.
Mid-June through fall 2021
- 35th
St to NB I-35W
- Detour: Nicollet Ave. to E.
Diamond Lake Rd.
For more information and to sign up for alerts:
- To learn more about this project, including all current
traffic impacts and detour routes, click here
to visit the MNDOT website.
- Metro Transit bus routes will be impacted as a result
of construction. For updated route information, and to sign up for Rider
Alerts, click here.
- Follow MNDOT on Facebook at facebook.com/mndot and
Twitter: @mndotnews
- Email the MNDOT project team at: info@35w94.com
- Call the project MNDOT hotline
at: 612-284-6125
- For real-time travel information anywhere in Minnesota
visit http://www.511mn.org/or dial 5-1-1.
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