Housing Justice
JCA is doing housing justice work across the Twin Cities metro, empowering our members and the Jewish Community to help protect tenants, preserve the naturally occuring affordable housing we have, and produce more housing that is affordable for the most marginalized in our community.
Get Involved
Hi! I’m Ian Rosenthal, JCA’s Housing Justice organizer.
Right now, thousands of Minnesotan families are threatened with displacement.
Will you join us in the movement for safe and affordable housing for all?
We have seen large scale investments - whether they be infrastructure, commercial spaces, or business developments - in proximity to multifamily rental units affordable to low income people and people of color. These investments or redevelopments lead to the gentrification of suburban communities. Gentrification manifests in the displacement of communities and the eradication of cultural centers. Property taxes and rents rise, so that people can no longer afford to live in their communities.
For over 25 years, we have organized for housing justice from preserving affordable housing in the western suburbs to inclusionary housing provisions, to housing trust funds and to funds for affordable housing at the state level of government. As a founding member that created the Suburban Hennepin Housing Coalition, We help link that collection of social service agencies to organizing and housing advocacy organizations. We are conducting this work as we always have, building coalitions, engaging members of the Jewish community as allies and working to change public policies that can preserve affordable housing, protect tenants and expand the supply.
We facilitate organizing teams throughout Hennepin County at the city level, which have helped pass renters protections in Minneapolis, St. Paul, St. Louis Park, and Edina.
More recently we helped repeal St. Louis Park's "Evicted before Convicted" ordinance that allowed police to force evictions even if tenants had never been charged with a crime, and were part of the historic campaigns to win rent stabilization in St. Paul, and a pathway to rent stabilization in Minneapolis.
