Minnesota legislators consider $100 million or more for communities hit by unrest

Looters broke into Rob Yang's footwear stores in Minneapolis and St. Paul in 2020, wiping out an overflowing inventory of shoes that had piled up as pandemic restrictions blocked sales.

Yang is still struggling to bounce back after his insurance coverage fell far short of his losses. It's a common story along riot-damaged corridors.

"Things are slowly coming back," Yang said Wednesday as he surveyed renovation work on a University Avenue property he bought in St. Paul's Midway neighborhood in early 2021. "A lot of people pulled out of this area. ... For us to revitalize this area again and get developers to come in, we really need to reinvest in ourselves."

Nearly three years after the police murder of George Floyd sparked unrest across the Twin Cities, community groups and business owners are pressing Minnesota leaders to give more money to businesses and nonprofits for redevelopment.

Yang, who plans to rent his building to a small business, said he learned two weeks ago that he will get $166,000 from the state to help with the project. He said he knows many other businesses also need aid.

Minnesota legislators previously passed $80 million for a Main Street Economic Revitalization Program. This year, the House has proposed $126 million and the Senate suggested $100 million for grants and loans.

The two chambers, both led by Democrats, included the cash in their economic development budget bills. Since the details and dollar figures diverge, lawmakers are sorting through the differences this week.

The Senate's Promise Act takes the more expansive approach. It goes beyond damage from unrest and aims to help with broad economic challenges statewide. The proposal would devote $100 million over the next two years to communities hurt by civil unrest, structural racism, lack of access to capital, population losses or a regional lack of economic diversification.

"How do you think about communities that have been traditionally disenfranchised, but also other parts of our state that have other issues that need to have an economic infusion?" said bill sponsor Sen. Bobby Joe Champion, DFL-Minneapolis. "How do we make sure we don't forget about anyone, as best we can, while also paying attention to those that were affected by civil unrest?"

Meanwhile, the House version would dedicate almost $126 million for the Empowering Enterprise Program focused on the Twin Cities. The bill would give money to Minneapolis, St. Paul and various community organizations based in the two cities. The dollars could be used for economic relief programs "with the primary goal of assisting communities adversely affected by civil unrest during the peacetime emergency," the proposal says.

Rep. Hodan Hassan, DFL-Minneapolis, declined to be interviewed about the approach in the House bill she sponsored, but said in a statement that legislators are trying to strike a balance between advocating for their districts and for Minnesota as a whole.

"There are several areas in need of infrastructure improvements, and many of them are located in primarily BIPOC communities in Minneapolis and Saint Paul," Hassan said in the statement, using the acronym for Black, Indigenous and people of color .

"These once vibrant, pedestrian-friendly areas have storefronts still boarded up, broken windows, and low foot traffic. The House and the Senate are united in our commitment to investing in these areas."

The House version provides a clear path to fund real estate development, and that is the "missing piece" to reconstruction and recovery along corridors such as Lake Street, said Russ Adams, manager of Corridor Recovery Initiatives at the Lake Street Council in Minneapolis. The council would receive about $11 million to distribute under the plan.

Adams stressed that enormous needs left in the unrest's wake still linger.

"We put traumatic events in the back of our minds; our instincts are to try to move forward and not dwell," Adams said. "That's a bit of a challenge in terms of maintaining public and policymaker focus on some of this. It's important to remember the catastrophic destruction."

The state dollars that groups have been distributing through the Main Street program have been "pretty narrowly defined," said Warren McLean, president of the Northside Economic Opportunity Network in Minneapolis. He said that in north Minneapolis, much of the money was restricted to businesses along W. Broadway.

McLean said he hopes to see more flexibility in whatever lawmakers pass and stressed that the state's massive surplus provides a key moment to address longstanding problems.

"It's more of an opportunity to deal with disinvestment over years, over decades," he said. "You have a smoldering of conditions that once an incendiary act like George Floyd's murder occurs, then you have an explosion. And so if you start dealing with the underlying causes, you will not have a civil unrest that erupts."