NCR continues to disparage the NRP program and neighborhood organizations, claiming that neighborhood organizations have not historically represented renters. They continue to make this assertion despite several notable examples that show that neighborhood organizations have had considerable impact on renters' lives.

Following are just a couple of examples of work done by neighborhood organizations to support and protect renters.

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SSCO and UN Award

Did you know that United Nations Centre for Human Settlements placed the Minneapolis Neighborhood Revitalization Program on its elite Global 100 Best Practices List? This recognition was provided to programs that made outstanding contributions to improving the quality of life in local communities.

"NRP's submission to the United Nations highlighted an extremely successful effort by Stevens Square Community Organization to address the issue of affordable housing by teaming with private property owners to renovate and rehabilitate 618 units in 23 low-income apartment buildings." (Source: http://www.nrp.org/R2/AboutNRP/Awards.html)

SSCO also worked out a partnership with several rental management companies to provide a monthly rebate on rent to tenants who volunteered for the neighborhood block patrol and other SSCO activities. SSCO also has a volunteer group that reaches renters through monthly flyering to rental buildings, and has used their block patrol very effectively to inform renters and others of SSCO’s work. SSCO volunteers regularly set up tables on sidewalks and in stores around the neighborhood to meet residents, a practice that they continued until recently.

CLPC and Oak Grove Towers

Citizens for a Loring Park Community also showed how Minneapolis neighborhood organizations can have a national impact.

In early 1997, a volunteer for Citizens for a Loring Park Community came to my office with a letter that had been slipped under their apartment door at Oak Grove Tower, a high-rise rental building at 215 Oak Grove Street with several hundred low-income units. Filled with confusing legal jargon, the letter indicated that the management company had received a waiver from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) allowing them to opt-out of their contractual obligation to provide affordable housing (even though the building had been built with federal funds). The notice informed tenants that their rents would now be fair market… which meant rents would triple for many tenants within a few months.

The next day, we were door-knocking in the building, and asked tenants to come to a building meeting. Several dozen tenants showed up, and they had all received the same notice under their door.

At the time, there was less than 2% vacancy rates in Minneapolis, many of the tenants were seniors who didn’t speak English, many were living with AIDS or other disabilities, many were single mothers, so there were no other units in the city they could move to. We trained and organized residents, and asked them to reach out to potential allies (they recruited Legal Aid, Community Action of South Hennepin, and ACORN, among others). We were able to get several elected officials or their aides present at a building meeting (including from US Senator Rod Grams and Representative Martin Sabo’s offices), as well as representatives from HUD and the building management company—and television cameras—where they were able to hear from over 100 residents about the impact.

Following that meeting, State Representative Karen Clark organized a hearing of the legislature's Joint Housing Committee which met at Oak Grove Tower to hear directly from the residents.

As a result of this campaign, HUD was forced to issue for the first time what became known as Preservation Vouchers to tenants (these were also sometimes called "sticky vouchers"). These vouchers allowed tenants to stay in the building at their current rent, or they could take the vouchers with them to a new building.

The Gateway, a senior housing high-rise in Downtown, was owned by the same building management company, and HUD issued preservation vouchers to tenants of the Gateway as well.

But the impact was also national. HUD was planning to allow developers across the country who had received public funds to build affordable housing to opt out early from their agreements and raise rents to fair market rates. But, because of our campaign, HUD issued these same vouchers for similar buildings across the country.