Jewish Community Action Supports Vote on Rent Stabilization

Below is the testimony submitted to the Minneapolis City Council by our Housing Organizer Aaron Berc during committee deliberation on rent stabilization measures.

POGO Committee Chair & Council Vice President Jenkins & Members of the POGO Committee, my name is Aaron Berc and I am a proud resident of Ward 4.

For the last three and half years I have had the honor of working at Jewish Community Action as our Housing Organizer in Hennepin County, and am writing to you to today in support of the two ordinances that would initiate a ballot initiative that would allow The City of Minneapolis to adopt a rent stabilization policy.

For the last several years, JCA members have worked across the Hennepin County with renters: we have knocked doors with Inquilinxs as they organized the Sky Without Limits Cooperative in south Minneapolis; we have organized county-wide support for renters facing displacement and gentrification in Brooklyn Park and Eden Prairie; we have brought renters and homeowners together to advocate for and pass tenant protection ordinances in Richfield, St Louis Park, Golden Valley, and Edina. We see every week the impact of rising rents on our neighbors, and how our neighbors who are low income, working class, Black, Indigenous, disabled, queer, and trans, bear the largest burden of the violence that is displacement.

In a city where a majority of our residents are renters, we believe it is only just that everyone has a voice when it comes to this decision as to whether or not we should be allowed to limit rent increases.

Not only do we support the policies being heard before the Committee today because we see the tremendous negative impacts of the racialized commodification of housing on our community, but we’re also called to support this guided from our own tradition.

Each night in our evening prayer we say the Hashkiveinu which asks God for an evening of rest. We say “Ufros Alienu Sukkat Shlomecha — Spread over us a shelter of peace.”

We’ve watched too many of our neighbors’ peaceful shelters be torn away from them. Our prayers only do so much without action. We are obligated to one another.

Thank you for your time,

Aaron Berc