Building a truly just future requires courageous, bold action – from all of us.

Here’s what I believe:

  1. Every person in Minneapolis deserves to feel safe in their home and in our city regardless of race, gender, sexuality, income, zip code, or level of ability.

  2. We must develop a new and better public safety system that values the life and safety of all people.

  3. We must dismantle systems of white supremacy that perpetuate harm towards Black, brown, AAPI, Indigenous, immigrant, and LGBTQ communities and women.

  4. Minneapolis should be at the forefront of climate action.

  5. We must promote environmental justice and health by investing in communities that bear disproportionate impacts of pollution and toxins.

  6. We can advance a truly multiracial democracy in which every person lives with dignity and can act with power in public life.

  7. Housing is a human right. The city has a responsibility to ensure that every person has a safe, decent, and affordable place to live.

  8. We must build economic prosperity and workers’ rights for all so every person has the opportunity to thrive.

  9. Our streets should make it safe and comfortable for everyone to get around, no matter how they choose to do so.

  10. The effects of the pandemic and recession have hit historically marginalized communities the hardest. We must rebuild equitably.

How we will build a shared vision that centers these values:

Moving toward a truly just future requires courageous, bold action – from each of us. We can build the Minneapolis we deserve right now. I hope you will join in this work.

We want to use this campaign to help Minneapolis move through this unsteady moment in a way that helps us build the city— and the city government—we want and deserve. Doing so will take engaging in thoughtful conversation, healing as individuals and as a community, and stepping forward with purpose toward a changed city. It will take courage, creativity, and commitment.

We need to use and build tools, processes, and spaces where people can work across differences of race, geography, class, and generation to to share ideas, experiences, wisdom, hopes, and fears. We need to wrestle with the challenges we face in real and, let’s be honest, challenging ways. While doing so, we need to hold onto the promise that doing so will help us move toward a city in which every person in Minneapolis can thrive. 

I am excited to connect with you throughout this campaign – in online community meetings and events and on the phone (and hopefully in-person soon) – as we work to reshape our city into the home each of us deserves and dreams to make real.  

In the weeks and months to come, we will be engaging with leaders and communities across the city to build out a community-informed vision and supporting plans.

 

Centering racial justice and antiracism in all policies and processes.

Minneapolis is at a moment of reckoning on racial justice. Decades of policy rooted in white supremacy have resulted in unacceptable levels of disparity along lines of race and class. The geography of our city—and things like home ownership and pollution exposures—still reflects the racist zoning and redlining in the first half of the 20th-century. Police violence harms certain communities—particularly Black, Native, brown, disabled, immigrant—more than others.

In order to build a city that truly works for everyone, we need to actively understand how we got here, repair harms, and build deliberate government policies, systems, and supports to advance racial equity.

Our aim is to make antiracism and racial justice at the core of all policy and the processes used to develop policy. This aim is reflected throughout the vision and policy below. 

+ Click to read how we will move toward being a truly racially just city.

  • Removing racist policies by using a race equity lens to analyze exisiting policies and outcomes.
  • Being accountable to antiracist polices, practices, and attitudes
  • Working closely with Dakota people to ensure access to sacred sites and medicines
  • Forming a reparations commission to study reparations for Black Minneapolis residents whose ancestors were enslaved
  • Combatting the increased hate crimes and racism targeted towards Asian-American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) communities
  • Working with undocumented immigrants to ensure their needs are incorporated into city policy
  • Decriminalizing substance use disorder and poverty, which continue to disproportionately contribute to the mass incarceration of communities of color

Building a new public safety system that honors the dignity of all people.

Every person in Minneapolis, no matter their race, gender, class, zip code or level of ability deserves to feel safe in their home and throughout our city. This is the foundational value underlying my holistic public safety plan to Build Community Safety and Transform Policing.

Minneapolis needs a public safety system that invests in violence prevention and intervention at meaningful levels and includes police as part of this holistic vision.

We need to ask police to do less overall, so they can focus on what we really need them to do, which includes responding to, investigating, and actually solving violent crime.

We also need to rebuild trust between MPD and Minneapolis residents. Rebuilding this trust means much more than a PR campaign. It means actual change in our policing system so policing no longer harms people in our community, particularly Black, brown, Indigenous, and immigrant neighbors. I am committed to unequivocal transparency in policing, both in the racial injustices of our current system and in police misconduct. I will champion accountability based on this transparency.

Our current system was never intended to keep all people safe. We cannot afford to continue to invest in a system of policing that fails to keep all of us safe, that fails people in marginalized communities. That’s why I am in support of the public safety charter amendment, and my vision for implementation includes police as an essential part of a holistic public safety approach. 

Minneapolis has an opportunity to lead the nation and the world in building a public safety system that values all people. I believe we are up to the challenge.

Check out my comprehensive public safety plan to Build Community Safety and Transform Policing that I created with input from dozens of policy experts and community leaders.

+ Click to learn how we will build public safety.

  • Working alongside the community and the City Council to define, invest in, and advance a new and better model for public safety. This work requires changing the city charter. Changing the charter will help to make public safety the purpose we aim to achieve and remove the language that limits our ability to reimagine and build a public safety system that truly keeps everyone safe
  • Working alongside the community and City Council to design effective systems for transparency, oversight, and accountability
  • Designing an emergency response system that increases use of mental health and deescalation professionals, while reducing the number of responses requiring armed law enforcement.
  • Training public safety teams using evidence-based best practices including a trauma-informed approach. Supporting public safety officials to make sure they have the mental health supports needed to truly serve the community
  • Investing in proven public health approaches to safety, community-led violence prevention initiatives and restorative justice
  • Investing in and supporting youth-development opportunities
  • Working with sex workers to develop programs that center their immediate needs and lived experiences while working to ensure their safety and to end trafficking
  • Working with survivors of sexual assault to ensure that a new public safety department has a survivor-first mentality that allows them to feel safe, cared for and to pursue justice in the ways they need
  • Funding initiatives and programs to address and reduce the harm of domestic violence

Ensuring safe housing for all.

Housing is a human right. An affordable, safe, and stable place to call home is the foundation of living with security, opportunity, and dignity. The effects of redlining and other racist housing policies in our city continue to be barriers to housing and further perpetuate the deep racial wealth gap.

We have a responsibility to make sure we are moving unhoused people toward stable housing and increasing access to sustainable affordable housing options for every person and family, especially those with low-incomes, renters, retired and elderly people, people with disabilities, citizens returning from incarceration, and anyone else facing systemic barriers to housing.  

+ Click to read how we will guarantee housing for all Minneapolis residents.

  • Passing rent stabilization
  • Fighting gentrification and displacement by working with impacted communties and learning from best practices from across the globe
  • Advancing evidence-based eviction-prevention models to support people and families before they are in crisis, and increase city-funded tenant protection services and eviction defense funds
  • Expanding shelters and purchasing hotel rooms for people experiencing unsheltered homelessness using federal CARES funding to provide shelter, while pursuing solutions for long-term housing
  • Ending the use of city funds for the eviction of homeless camps and finding safe sites for people with barriers to housing to stay
  • Developing resources and supports for landlords to apply on behalf of tenants facing instability
  • Building and increasing access to more affordable housing at 30% AMI especially for people who face systemic barriers to housing
  • Advancing access to homeownership for those who want it and making sure these approaches are culturally-sensitive in how they are designed
  • Supporting the tenant opportunity to purchase (TOPA) and right to first refusal policies
  • Fighting the privatization of public housing in Minneapolis and preventing the displacement of public housing residents
  • Expanding government-subsidized housing options by working with federal partners to advocate for the full funding of Section 8 and take steps to work directly with the Minneapolis Public Housing Authority to equitably administer vouchers
  • Ensuring that renters can report unsafe conditions in their housing and that landlords are held accountable for poor property management
  • Increasing targeted investment in energy conservation and retrofits to significantly reduce the energy burden of families with lower incomes
  • Funding public housing through a maximum public housing levy, and defending public housing residents from displacement.

Addressing climate change at the urgency and scale that is required.

The 2020s will be the defining decade on climate action. Minneapolis should be at the forefront of climate action.

Minneapolis has taken good steps on climate change, but more than good work is needed in this moment. Our city needs a Mayor who puts climate action as a central to building a city that is safe and healthy for every resident.

The science of climate change shows that we need large-scale, fast action now to reduce emissions across sectors and make sure every person can thrive through the climate change era. Even more, we need action that creates equitable access to the benefits of a clean energy transition, provides accessible low-carbon transportation options, and builds climate resilience for everyone. 

Climate resilience for everyone will require targeted efforts in communities that are more vulnerable because of systemic racism, historic underinvestment, and financial insecurity. It also means creating pathways into the work of building the clean energy economy and climate resilience for everyone –   Black, brown, white, Indigenous, immigrant, young, and old.

+ Click to read how we'll lead on climate.

  • Delivering a Green New Deal for Minneapolis. The promise of the Green New Deal is that it combines bold climate action with the essential work of economic justice for the many people our current economy has failed. There is a lot of work to do to get fossil fuels out of every part of our city, and we have many people in our city willing and ready to do this work. A Green New Deal will bring these things together to build a safer, healthier Minneapolis.
  • Making climate action a defining priority for our city — including emissions reductions in line with what current science shows is necessary
  • Developing paths for everyone — residents, government, nonprofits, businesses — to contribute to the positive change needed. Minneapolis has not updated its climate action plan since 2013. Working with city staff and the community, I commit to updating this plan within my first year of office. Our city’s new plan will include emissions reductions, building climate resilience, and ways for every Minneapolis resident to be part of making the plan happen.
  • Continuing to build out a transportation system in which people have access to low-carbon and carbon-free transportation choices including transit and safe biking and walking options.
  • Considering climate change and climate resilience in every infrastructure investment Minneapolis makes

Advancing a multiracial democracy.

Our future as a democracy depends on advancing a multiracial democracy built by us and for us. In Minneapolis, we have the opportunity to show the world how to do this. We can advance a truly multiracial democracy in which every person lives with dignity and can act with power in public life.

The current crisis of our democracy—one that we saw unfold in the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol— is rooted in systemic racism and historical harms. Now, more than ever, it’s essential that we work to understand, reconcile,  and repair harms so we can rebuild a strong democracy and future that works for all of us—Black, brown, Indigenous, immigrant, white.

Together we can reimagine and reshape our governance processes and create pathways into a public life for each person in the city.

+ Click to see how we will advance a multiracial democracy.

  • Addressing and undoing systems of oppression and racism that continue to marginalize people and intentionally leave them out of the democratic process
  • Enacting participatory budgeting
  • Building inclusive spaces for healing connecting; building relationships across divides of race, geography, and climate; and remaking our city with a more collective vision
  • Investing in making sure every eligible voter knows how to vote and feels empowered to do so.
  • Continuing to make our elections accessible to all voters, regardless of zipcode
  • Making sure city government leadership – including department heads and mayoral staff – are reflective of the breadth of diversity in Minneapolis
  • Strengthening community-led visioning processes for the future of our city
  • Uplifting and centering the experience, talent, and wisdom of the BIPOC community in formal and informal policymaking processes
  • Staying in the ongoing work of democracy-building together, even when it gets hard

Building prosperity for all people.

Despite promises to address deep inequities, Minneapolis still leads the country in racial disparities in unemployment, housing, health, and income. The COVID-19 pandemic has brought increased economic instability to so many people and families, and it’s only increased the deep wealth gap we have between low-income people and wealthy people in this city.

It’s essential that we work across multiple sectors to rethink and reimagine how we deliver pathways to prosperity for everyone in Minneapolis.  We need to build infrastructures and supports that advance workforce development and family-wage income opportunities, and we need to ensure that we center the human dignity and self-determination of all people to choose what kind of life they want to build for themselves and their families. 

We can build a city where people and small businesses flourish and everyone can share in the prosperity of what it means to live in a vibrant, resilient, healthy community. 

+ Click to read how we will build prosperity.

  • Advancing targeted wealth-building for marginalized communities, including supporting entrepreneurship and business development as well as home ownership programming
  • Addressing unemployment disparities that impact communities of color
  • Building business support to increase employment for communities of color
  • Advancing community health and wellness initiatives to support health equity for all
  • Piloting universal income programs in communities disproportionately impacted by income inequities and joblessness
  • Creating pathways for all Minneapolis residents into jobs and careers with family-supporting wages and benefits
  • Developing new and increasing programs to make sure every Minneapolis community – Black, brown, immigrant, Native, white, formerly-incarcerated and disabled – can help build climate-resilient Minneapolis powered by clean energy
  • Targeting energy efficiency and energy conservation programming toward under-resourced communities to reduce the energy energy burden many families bear
  • Fighting gentrification and displacement as our city continues to grow

Centering economic justice and workers' rights.

We need to build an economy that works for every worker—where everyone makes a living wage and can join a union. Our city must be willing to protect and prioritize the lowest paid and most marginalized workers. 

As a city, we have to build an environment where we don’t fall into a scarcity mindset. We can’t continue to pit small businesses and workers against each other while allowing corporations to not contribute their fair share.

+ Click to read how we will advance economic justice.

  • Supporting a worker’s constitutional right to join a union, and remain in solidarity with striking workers who are fighting for fair contracts
  • Fighting all efforts of preemption by the state, threatening our city’s $15 minimum wage and efforts to increase it
  • Ensuring the enforcement of Earned Safe and Sick Time
  • Increasing city funding and initiatives to combat wage theft
  • Working with small businesses to make sure that the city supports them through the enactment of new policy and ongoing enforcement of exisiting policy
  • Developing policy to prevent the explotation of immigrant small business owners
 

Demanding environmental justice for all people.

Communities that have faced disinvestment, where mostly Black and Indigenous people live, have been forced for too long to carry the weight of pollution and environmental degradation. This has real impacts, like higher rates of asthma in the Philips neighborhood and communities on the Northside.

We must invest in communities that have borne the brunt of past environmental racism and injustice and work with people in these communities to find and fund solutions.

+ Click to read how we'll advance environmental justice.

  • Targeting investments through the Minneapolis Green New Deal to environmental justice Green Zones
  • Ensuring that every resident’s home is energy efficient and free of hazards like lead, pests, mold and other asthma triggers
  • Moving towards zero waste and shutting down the downtown garbage burner (HERC)
  • Investing in fast, reliable, and green transit, while prioritizing Green Zones
  • Speeding up transportation electrification and reducing vehicle emissions
 

Improving transit + investing in climate-resilient infrastructure.

Our streets should be safe and comfortable for people to get where they’re going, however they choose to travel. That means vibrant public spaces, safe and welcoming sidewalks, green infrastructure, protected bikeways, and transit that works.

Historically, our transit system has perpetuated injustice. This continues today as busy roads bring increased pollution and accidents to the communities that surround them. We can undo this, and build a transit system that aligns with our values.

+ Click to read how we'll improve our transit system and infrastructure.

  • Quickly building a network of fast, reliable transit like arterial BRT, and focusing our investments in transit-dependent neighborhoods.
  • Accelerating Vision Zero investments to eliminate traffic injuries and fatalities
  • Building climate resilience into our street designs, with innovative approaches to stormwater
  • Designing and maintaining city water infrastructure to handle the climate impacts that are here and those we know are coming
  • Prioritizing communities that have been harmed by freeways and arterial roads
  • Working with the Met Council towards publicly subsidizing transit to provide lower or free fares.

Advancing public health.

The health of our communities is an environmental, racial, and social justice issue that demands all of us to rise up to advance the health and well-being of everyone in our city right now.

Our air quality is a public health issue that must be addressed. Asbestos and lead in our buildings and homes is a public health issue that requires strict regulation. Our deep racial disparities in this city are a public health issue that call for immediate action. Substance use disorder is a public health issue that requires us to advance harm reduction strategies and meet people where they are. And the mental health condition of our friends, family, and neighbors requires us to work towards solutions and supports that center their well-being.

When we address these crises head-on and take bold action together, we can develop polices that support the rights, health, and livelihood of everyone in Minneapolis. 

+ Click to see how we'll advance public health.

  • Addressing the root causes of addiction, like poverty and lack of access to housing
  • Expanding access to comprehensive healthcare, including mental health and substance use disorder services, for LGBTQIA+ people, particularly trans people, people with disabilities, unhoused people, and other marginalized folks
  • Increasing harm reduction education and resources by working with experts doing that work on the ground
  • Expanding access to NARCAN
  • Increasing investment in lead abatement to make sure every kid in Minneapolis grows up without lead exposure
  • Using culturally-sensitive approaches to build trust and participation in basic public health measures like vaccines

Rebuilding with equity and resilience after COVID-19 and civil unrest.

The COVID crisis, recent civil unrest, and the health and economic fallout reinforce what we already knew. Our city isn’t working for all people.

Our city has significant work to do to rebuild in light of immediate crisis. We also need to do so in ways that make us truly resilient and able respond to crises – whether health, safety, economic, or climate – in effective and equitable ways going forward.

So many people in our city have already stepped up to help each other, to support struggling families and small businesses, to help shelter unhoused people, and more. This work shows the best of who we are as a city, and we need a city government that will partner with, support, and resource the leadership we are seeing all over the city.

As we move through immediate crisis and look forward, we will also need to make sure our rebuilding efforts center the need to maintain and grow opportunity and wealth in historically-marginalized communities.

+ Click to see how we'll rebuild with equity.

  • Increasing investment in rebuilding small businesses on Lake Street and Broadway Ave, especially Black, brown, Indigenous and immigrant-owned businesses
  • Prioritizing small-business supports and investments that honor and reflect the people living in the communities most impacted
  • Utilizing CARES funding to provide additional rental and mortgage assistance for individuals, families, and small businesses
  • Providing culturally competent information and resources about the COVID vaccine, and ensuring distribution is equitable throughout our city
  • Making sure residents and small businesses know how to access city services and processes, and that they have the support to do so easily
  • Recognizing that the crises we’ve experienced as a city are rooted in historical traumas – traumas that affect Black, brown, indigenous, and immigrant communities more – and involve ongoing trauma. Effective response needs to be trauma-informed.
  • Growing our investment in a strong, responsive city public health system.
  • Going through a transparent public process to evaluate and learn from city responses to the current recent crises and implementing better practices going forward

FAQ

Do you support a charter amendment on public safety?

Yes. Maintaining the status quo on policing is not the path to a safer Minneapolis.

A new Department of Public Safety that puts police, fire, violence prevention, and emergency management under a unified structure will help us build a more holistic, effective approach to public safety. See my plan to Build Community Safety and Transform Policing for more details.

I am also clear that as long as I am mayor, police will be an integral part of our more holistic public safety system.

Are you going to abolish the police once elected?

No.

Do you support a charter amendment for rent stabilization in Minneapolis?

Yes. I support a charter amendment to allow the City Council to draft a rent stabilization ordinance to address rising rents across Minneapolis.

Everyone deserves a safe and decent place to call home—but that is becoming out of reach for so many people in Minneapolis. More than half our city’s residents are renters, especially young people and people of color. These residents make Minneapolis such a vibrant, welcoming place for so many people to call home. Yet 44 percent of renters are cost-burdened. We need rent stabilization as part of a comprehensive approach to addressing the housing crisis.

I am also clear that rent stabilization alone will not solve the housing crisis in Minneapolis. That’s why I have proposed a comprehensive plan to invest in more housing and more deeply-affordable housing as well as renter protections and pathways to home ownership.

Will you work to address housing affordability and houselessness in Minneapolis?  

Yes. Safe, affordable housing is the foundation for healthy people, healthy families, and healthy communities. We need to prioritize housing for low-income and unhoused people. We need to ensure seniors and those with disabilities have a safe place to call home.

We need to address discriminatory practices that lead to housing instability for our Black, brown, immigrant, refugee, and Native communities. We need to increase the number of affordable homes in our city and increase access to affordable housing for more people. And we need to advance a resilient, stable housing market so that everyone in our city has a safe place from which they can build the prosperous life they deserve.