*Cam Gordon's Ward 2 newletter has: *
*Just Deeds Project.* The City is offering free services to help property
owners remove racial covenants from their propertiesโ legal title. Racial
covenants were recorded on residential properties in Minneapolis by
developers and homeowners beginning in the 1910s to prevent the sale and
use of these properties to non-white people. The Mapping Prejudice research
project has compiled a map of over 8,000 properties in Minneapolis with
racial covenants. Many of these are located in Ward 2. City staff will
assist homeowners in completing the application process and Hennepin County
will waive fees associated with the process. You can learn more about this
promising project at
https://www2.minneapolismn.gov/government/departments/attorney/just-deeds/
<https://lnks.gd/l/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJidWxsZXRpbl9saW5rX2lkIjoxMjksInVyaSI6ImJwMjpjbGljayIsImJ1bGxldGluX2lkIjoiMjAyMTAzMjkuMzc5MjAxNDEiLCJ1cmwiOiJodHRwczovL3d3dzIubWlubmVhcG9saXNtbi5nb3YvZ292ZXJubWVudC9kZXBhcnRtZW50cy9hdHRvcm5leS9qdXN0LWRlZWRzLz91dG1fY29udGVudD0mdXRtX21lZGl1bT1lbWFpbCZ1dG1fbmFtZT0mdXRtX3NvdXJjZT1nb3ZkZWxpdmVyeSZ1dG1fdGVybT0ifQ.l-5QMYcxJWkznget-PNYVhSJvO-frsq_9IGiR2AVNU8/s/642564072/br/101168832194-l>
or by emailing <email obscured>.
A couple of comments from me:
In Ward 2 it is only Longfellow that seems to have any
racially-exclusionary covenants in housing deeds. Indeed, what one could
call the "historic Minneapolis"--the oldest and most established areas of
our city, on both sides of the river--have no such racial exclusionary
provisions in property deeds, according to the Hennepin County interactive
map the site contains.
It is important to emphasis that such exclusion was a housing developers'
and realtors' fad, rather than anything reflecting a racial reality in our
city, which had, until the 1980s, a very white population. Those
Minneapolis-area realtors copied fadish trends in other cities that had a
much more pronounced racial mix and a white determination to segregate
housing than we had here. In effect, we imported the solution to a problem
we didn't really have in the years in question.
Most of the racial exclusion clauses/covenants to deeds pertain to the
richest areas of Minneapolis--around the lakes, and the far northern
corners of North and Northeast. It would seem that these wealthy owners do
not need city subsidies to remove a covenant from their property's deed,
just to have a "clean" deed (the exclusionary provisions are not
enforceable any more, of course).
From the Hennepin County map on can see that the "Just Deeds" movement,
with its taxpayer subsidies to remove the exclusions from individual
property deeds, is really a Hennepin County--or a suburban--problem. Not a
big thing in the greater part of the city of Minneapolis.
But then, it's Minneapolis that is liberal-to-progressive (not the suburbs)
and thus more likely to have lots of upper-middle class whites who want to
remove faint vestiges of their perceived racial guilt with public
subsidies. Doing things like using tax dollars rather than your own is one
of the ways you get rich and stay rich.
Connie Sullivan
Como, with no race-excluding property deeds
*Just Deeds Project.* The City is offering free services to help property
owners remove racial covenants from their propertiesโ legal title. Racial
covenants were recorded on residential properties in Minneapolis by
developers and homeowners beginning in the 1910s to prevent the sale and
use of these properties to non-white people. The Mapping Prejudice research
project has compiled a map of over 8,000 properties in Minneapolis with
racial covenants. Many of these are located in Ward 2. City staff will
assist homeowners in completing the application process and Hennepin County
will waive fees associated with the process. You can learn more about this
promising project at
https://www2.minneapolismn.gov/government/departments/attorney/just-deeds/
<https://lnks.gd/l/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJidWxsZXRpbl9saW5rX2lkIjoxMjksInVyaSI6ImJwMjpjbGljayIsImJ1bGxldGluX2lkIjoiMjAyMTAzMjkuMzc5MjAxNDEiLCJ1cmwiOiJodHRwczovL3d3dzIubWlubmVhcG9saXNtbi5nb3YvZ292ZXJubWVudC9kZXBhcnRtZW50cy9hdHRvcm5leS9qdXN0LWRlZWRzLz91dG1fY29udGVudD0mdXRtX21lZGl1bT1lbWFpbCZ1dG1fbmFtZT0mdXRtX3NvdXJjZT1nb3ZkZWxpdmVyeSZ1dG1fdGVybT0ifQ.l-5QMYcxJWkznget-PNYVhSJvO-frsq_9IGiR2AVNU8/s/642564072/br/101168832194-l>
or by emailing <email obscured>.
A couple of comments from me:
In Ward 2 it is only Longfellow that seems to have any
racially-exclusionary covenants in housing deeds. Indeed, what one could
call the "historic Minneapolis"--the oldest and most established areas of
our city, on both sides of the river--have no such racial exclusionary
provisions in property deeds, according to the Hennepin County interactive
map the site contains.
It is important to emphasis that such exclusion was a housing developers'
and realtors' fad, rather than anything reflecting a racial reality in our
city, which had, until the 1980s, a very white population. Those
Minneapolis-area realtors copied fadish trends in other cities that had a
much more pronounced racial mix and a white determination to segregate
housing than we had here. In effect, we imported the solution to a problem
we didn't really have in the years in question.
Most of the racial exclusion clauses/covenants to deeds pertain to the
richest areas of Minneapolis--around the lakes, and the far northern
corners of North and Northeast. It would seem that these wealthy owners do
not need city subsidies to remove a covenant from their property's deed,
just to have a "clean" deed (the exclusionary provisions are not
enforceable any more, of course).
From the Hennepin County map on can see that the "Just Deeds" movement,
with its taxpayer subsidies to remove the exclusions from individual
property deeds, is really a Hennepin County--or a suburban--problem. Not a
big thing in the greater part of the city of Minneapolis.
But then, it's Minneapolis that is liberal-to-progressive (not the suburbs)
and thus more likely to have lots of upper-middle class whites who want to
remove faint vestiges of their perceived racial guilt with public
subsidies. Doing things like using tax dollars rather than your own is one
of the ways you get rich and stay rich.
Connie Sullivan
Como, with no race-excluding property deeds
