Minneapolis council member pushing to save Heritage Park Apartments
Minneapolis council member pushing to save Heritage Park Apartments
A Minneapolis council member is working to save Heritage Park Apartments, where years of neglect have left families facing unsafe living conditions. FOX 9's Karen Sculllin has the story.
MINNEAPOLIS (FOX 9) - A Minneapolis council member is working to save Heritage Park Apartments, where years of neglect have left families facing unsafe living conditions.
Heritage Park’s decline, resident struggles
What we know:
Heritage Park Apartments, built in 2006 to meet low-income housing needs in north Minneapolis, has seen conditions worsen so much that some units are now unsafe. Residents like Myra Cain have faced serious problems, including a bullet hole in her window that went unfixed for seven months and ongoing battles with rodents and insects for up to a year.
Cain said, "It be right there in the sink, the mice? No the mices was basically in every room but the flying ants was."
Another resident, Sara O’Connell, described how mold affected her family.
"Had mold coming from the vents and my 5-year-old son was throwing up every day and the doctor said this from ingesting mold, inhaling mold every day on a regular basis," said O’Connell.
In the last year-and-a-half, 25 families have been moved out and eight more still need to be relocated. About half of the 440 units are either empty or unsafe.
Pearll Warren leading efforts to save apartments
The backstory:
Heritage Park was once a symbol of hope and a promise of dignity and safety for families in north Minneapolis. Pearll Warren, a Minneapolis council member, said, "The promise was dignity the promise was safety the promise was children born on the north side would inherit possibility instead of neglect."
Warren is now leading efforts to bring attention to the problems and find solutions. She released a video highlighting the importance of stable housing, saying, "Housing is not just shelter. Housing is public safety. Housing is health. It’s education. It’s stability. It’s the foundation on which families are built and every family deserves that foundation."
Financial issues and the path forward
Why you should care:
The former owners of Heritage Park faced financial problems and failed to maintain the property, leading to its current state. The complex is now managed by a court-appointed receiver tasked with making repairs and stabilizing the situation. Warren is working to identify all the problems and secure funding for repairs, including $5.8 million allotted by the state in 2024.
Warren said, "I’m estimating 1.3 million for the roofs – because there are 38 roofs that need to be replaced."
Local perspective:
The Minnesota Public Housing Authority owns the land and oversees funding for about half the units, but said they were unaware of how bad things had gotten until recently. The agency relied on the former owners to report issues.
Warren pointed out a common problem with affordable housing, saying, "I think what we're seeing here is some of the things that happens a lot of times with affordable housing developments. Individuals think, oh, there's guaranteed money because I'm getting money from Section 8 or I'm get money from public housing. So that means little to no maintenance. No, that means that you're taking what you're receiving and you're reinvesting it back into the property itself, right? And I think that the reinvestment was not there."
Warren is now calling for financial audits to track how previous funds were spent and is waiting for structural engineers to determine if the buildings can be repaired or if some will need to be torn down.
Warren’s efforts highlight the challenges facing affordable housing and the urgent need for accountability and investment to protect families.
What we don't know:
It is not yet clear whether all the buildings at Heritage Park can be saved or if some will need to be demolished. The timeline for when state funding will arrive and repairs will begin is also uncertain.