Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, social unrest and a divisive election season, the Southeast Como Improvement Association (SECIA) has chosen a new executive director, who her colleagues call “a lawyer with the heart of an organizer.”

Jessica Focht-Perlberg, a Minnesota-born attorney, social worker and community organizer, has a long history of community advocacy and activism around her home state. She graduated with a degree in social work, legal services and psychology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and later received a graduate degree in social work. Focht-Perlberg then returned to her home state to attend law school at Hamline University.

SECIA president, Karl Smith, said he knew long before she applied for the job that she was the perfect fit.

“She has a very strong background and a deep commitment to the organization,” he said.

Focht-Perlberg was selected from four candidates for the position. She left her mark on several communities in multiple states with her relational approach to community work.

Relational organizing, according to Focht-Perlberg, is all about finding common ground before you get to work.

“Having that base of relationships that can feed these ideas, that’s more sustaining,” Focht-Perlberg said. “As you build a base of relationships across communities together on a number of different issues, you have that kind of sustaining, relational base from which to work from.”

Following college, her journey began in Madison, Wisconsin, where she helped establish a chapter of the faith-based community organization Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF), founded in 1940 by activist Saul Alinsky.

Focht-Perlberg continued on what she called a “windy path,” and after leaving IAF, she went on to work with families struggling with significant disabilities and accessibility to education, health care and other resources.

She graduated from the Hamline University School of Law in 2010. There, she focused on how to further restorative justice from within the legal system and spent most of her time studying how to apply compassion to law.

“In her relatively short time here, she began a legacy,” said Jodi Bantley, the associate director for civic and community partnerships at Metropolitan State University, who worked there with Focht-Perlberg. “I do see her as very much of a leader … having the capacity to envision things working better for people in whatever arena she’s in.”

Legal work stuck with Focht-Perlberg, and she worked for five years as a staff attorney for a non-profit law firm, representing individuals below the poverty line after two years of similar volunteer work.

However, legal work with three children and her husband working full time as a teacher started to wear on Focht-Perlberg, and she found herself being drawn back toward her advocacy roots. She became a community organizer in the Marcy-Holmes Neighborhood Association in 2019.

But when the executive director position opened in Southeast Como, where she and her family have lived for 11 years, she jumped at the opportunity. And it paid off.

“It’s just really exciting to think about being able to do this work literally in my own community,” Focht-Perlberg said. “This is my neighborhood.”

With a diverse and student-dominant population in Southeast Como, Focht-Perlberg said she is also passionate about engaging with previously underrepresented voices and student voices.

Luis Mendoza, a University of Minnesota undergraduate SECIA intern, said he is excited about SECIA’s hiring choice and hopes that Focht-Perlberg continues with strong student engagement.

“The world’s changing a lot, especially locally,” Mendoza said. “She’s been really active in this process of reimagining … and seeing how we can affect different identities in the community.”

With racial unrest, the national politics and the pandemic, Focht-Perlberg knows she has some challenges ahead for bringing the community together. According to Focht-Perlberg, while advocacy is important, it is not the same as change, though the most important thing they have in common is “the power of the relationship.”

“What I have always loved about all the different types of work I’ve done is the opportunity for building meaningful relationships based on trust and common cause,” Focht-Perlberg said.

Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly characterized parts of Jessica Focht-Perlberg’s work and community organizing history. The story has been updated with the correct information.

Editor’s Note: Luis Mendoza is a former employee of the Minnesota Daily.

For the last month, Marcy-Holmes residents took to social media to warn fellow students and neighbors about a man who calls himself “the Prophet” — a masked individual in a van who claims he was sent by God to end the Black Lives Matter movement.

Jeremiah Olson, a 39-year-old University of Minnesota alum, drew attention for wearing a mask around Dinkytown, leaving flyers on cars with religious and racist rhetoric, threatening people over social media, driving a van with the word “racist” spray-painted across the side, taking pictures of people inside their homes and filming his confrontations with strangers in bars or other public places.

Speculation about Olson’s mental health popped up on Facebook comments and Reddit posts alongside confusion about who should be handling the situation — mental health professionals or the police.

Last week, Hennepin County Community Outreach for Psychiatric Emergencies (COPE) put Olson on a 72-hour mental health hold, according to MPD crime specialists. His current whereabouts are unknown. He has not made any public posts on Facebook or YouTube since Sept. 22.

As more residents encountered Olson, worry grew among the University community. Olson’s YouTube channel has several videos of aggressive confrontations with strangers, rhetoric condemning BLM as a hate group and videos of him taping young women without their consent and following them at night.

“I feel worried for the young women out here,” said Lance King, a Marcy-Holmes resident who saw Olson’s van outside his home three days in a row but was unaware of who he was. “Me being a father … it’s too much.”

The Minneapolis Police Department had not taken any proactive steps when Olson’s posts started gaining attention because he was not technically doing anything illegal, according to MPD crime specialists. The Marcy-Holmes Neighborhood Association, alongside the MPD, hosted two crime walks in the area last week to alert the community about Olson.

“It’s a tough deal,” said Brody Hultman, a fourth-year student at the University who often visits his friends in Dinkytown. “It’s a confusing situation, and it’s hard when people are close to the boundaries but not breaking any laws like this.”

Mental health and law enforcement in Minneapolis

COPE is a mental health emergency service that helps adults in Hennepin County if they or a loved one is experiencing a mental health crisis. For a person to be admitted for an involuntary 72-hour hold, they must meet a very narrow set of criteria. The hold is meant to allow mental health professionals to perform an evaluation for psychiatric distress.

Olson met those criteria, according to MPD crime specialists.

COPE was not available for an interview regarding how it works alongside law enforcement or regarding Olson’s status.

Conversations surrounding police reform have been circulating nationwide. Reform suggestions include providing police further training on mental health crises or reallocating police funds to additional social services like social workers and mental health professionals.

In Minneapolis, most MPD officers take crisis intervention training, which is meant to provide a basic understanding of mental health crises and how to handle them following a 911 call.

“We’ve gone from being just a small unit … now we’re at the point where our whole department is certified,” MPD Officer Adam Chard said.

In some precincts, social workers and mental health professionals are available to accompany police officers if they believe they are dealing with an “emotionally disturbed person,” said MPD Crime Prevention Specialist Abdirashid Ali. “Honestly, I would say it’s been very successful.”

The program, however, was halted for COVID-19 safety, according to Ali.

The community responds

While nearby resident Hultman expressed his concern about the lack of legal action police can take, he also said he would rather keep mental health programs and police separate.

“I’d like to see more investment strictly in mental health professionals,” he said.

Eva Slattery, a teaching assistant and Marcy-Holmes resident, said that while Olson’s presence makes her nervous, it does not necessarily change the way she approaches her personal safety, no matter what the police are doing.

“[Being a woman] makes me an easier target,” Slattery said.

Slattery also said she has many concerns about mental health training for police, being a person with autism herself.

“I think having mental health responders alongside police officers is the best way to do it,” Slattery said. “As an autistic person … if someone grabbed me during a meltdown, I might explode, but [mental health outbursts] can be hard to identify.”

Slattery’s roommate, Lucinda Carter, said that if Slattery encountered a police officer during an outburst, she would be more worried about Slattery than the officer. For that reason, Carter said having a mental health professional to evaluate the situation would be better for all involved.

In early September, a Salt Lake City police officer shot a 13-year-old boy with autism while he was experiencing a mental health crisis. His mother had called police to request a crisis intervention team to help transport him to a hospital for care.

Carter emphasized that it is not just police officers that need to change but law enforcement’s approach to mental health as a whole.

“There needs to be a buffer between being aggressive and forceful,” Carter said. “The amount of people who are incarcerated right now who really just need a doctor, just need support but instead are just in jail because of their reaction to something … it’s not just that it wasn’t okay, it’s that they didn’t get the support they need.”

With the 2020 elections close at hand, some University of Minnesota students feel forced to look at voting in a new way.

In the spring primaries, polls showed 70% of University voters in favor of former candidate Bernie Sanders in most area precincts. When Joe Biden swept Minnesota, some disillusioned student voters started to reevaluate how — or how not — to cast their votes, and what that could mean for their future.

Youth engagement expert Kei Kawashima-Ginsberg said that while data shows that a majority of young people believe in democracy and the power of voting, a multitude of obstacles can make the process more difficult.

“When it comes to young voters, there’s a lot of barriers, both mechanical and structural ones,” Kawashima-Ginsberg said. “Psychological and emotional ones can, at times, really dampen voter turnout. Disillusionment is definitely one of them.”

Barriers like family immigration status, historical disenfranchisement and lack of access, both geographically and socioeconomically, have contributed to lack of voter turnout in the past.

Students at the University’s Twin Cities campus voted at a rate higher than any other large, public four-year institution in 2018, with a turnout of nearly 60% — well above the 39.1% national average on college campuses.

While voter turnout among college students has been historically low, it is the student populations that can often turn the tides of an election, said University professor and expert on voting behavior and third-party politics Larry Jacobs.

Voting turnout in 2018 reached a 100-year high, according to a data analysis by the Washington Post. The data largely credits young adults, ages 18-24, who are attending college, with the spike.

Begrudging Biden voters

Roommates Alex Stephenson and Alexandra Alvarez have more than a living space in common: both are unhappily voting for Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden.

Stephenson, a fifth-year music major at the University, was on the “Bernie Bandwagon” before Sanders dropped out of the race.

“It felt like a very unique message,” Stephenson said of Sanders. “He was willing to listen to younger voters in a way that a lot of the other candidates don’t.”

After Biden’s Minnesota win, Stephenson said he considered voting third party. But after the police killing of George Floyd, Stephenson said he felt a third-party vote would not be enough to achieve the larger objective of removing current President Donald Trump from office.

Ultimately, Alvarez said that is her goal, as well. The family science major was deciding between several Democratic candidates, such as Andrew Yang and Tulsi Gabbard, before settling on a vote for Biden.

“It came down to the belief that Biden’s cabinet would be better in comparison [to Trump’s],” Alvarez said. “Biden is at least a little bit more respected around the world… Our stance on the world stage should be more important.”

While both considered voting third party, they agreed that the change needed to break down a two-party system cannot be achieved in one election cycle.

Stephenson, when asked if he considered not voting at all, said that actively choosing not to vote is a sign of privilege, and a way of thinking that needs to be dismantled.

“Not voting implies that the system doesn’t really affect you much,” Stephenson said. “The elections do actually have major consequences for all of us… and it’s the responsibility of people to make their voices heard.”

Alternative choices

Voters who find themselves not wanting to vote for or apathetic toward Democrat or Republican candidates do have a third option — anybody else.

Grant Udstrand was considering Tulsi Gabbard. After Gabbard dropped out in March, Udstrand felt that his issues with the platforms and actions of both major parties stifled his vote.

“I believe the two-party system is a travesty,” Udstrand wrote in an email to the Minnesota Daily. “… [I]t subverts and silences the nuanced positions of people to have two major political parties that are somehow supposed to represent the common interests of two large swaths of society.”

Despite finding the platform of the Libertarian party “ridiculous,” Udstrand will be casting his vote for Libertarian Jo Jorgensen’s election bid.

“I understand that the pure libertarian platform is ridiculous,” read Udstrand’s email. “Jo Jorgensen may not agree with me on everything, but I don’t find Kamala Harris (who I legitimately believe is actually who will be running our government if Biden wins) or Donald Trump the types I can trust.”

Udstrand is not alone in his decision, nor is he one of the first Minnesotans to move away from the Republican-Democrat voting binary.

“Minnesota has a long history of voting for third-party candidates,” said Jacobs.

A blue state since Nixon, Republicans consistently won the Minnesota vote in the early 20th century. Before 1976, 10 of the 19 elections since 1900 were won by Republicans, with the majority of Minnesota voters in the 1912 election voting for Theodore Roosevelt of the Progressive Party.

Third-party candidates have seen relative success in Minnesota, like former pro-wrestler and then-Reform party member Jesse Ventura and 1992 independent presidential candidate Ross Perot. Ventura won the 1998 gubernatorial election. Perot had more ballots cast in Minnesota than the national average, according to a report by MinnPost.

However, third-party voting is not without its problems.

“I think the stigma exists to propagate a system that serves nobody but the landed elite, and that even if all people like me can do is make a third-party have a spot on the debate stage, that is more than enough for me,” wrote Udstrand.

It has often been criticized by experts and the general public on both sides of the aisle for throwing significant votes on candidates who generally do not win anyway.

“In a close election between a Democrat and a Republican, third-party voting will tip the election one way or the other,” Jacobs said.

Ultimately, most experts agree that regardless of how or for whom, eligible citizens voting is one of the most important paths to getting their voices heard.

“If you are not participating, you are not heard,” Jacobs said. “All the concern that I hear from students about structural racism… it means nothing if they don’t turn out and vote and exercise their rights as citizens.”

After over two years of community engagement and careful planning, the housing development set to raze Dinkytown McDonald’s is moving forward — but with a few more changes.

The new structure, which would include seven stories of mixed-use housing with just over 300 units and 834 bedrooms, was approved by the Minneapolis Planning Commission on Sept. 8. It will eventually go to the City Council before construction is expected to be officially set into motion.

“[The project] will be moving forward without an anticipated problem with finalization,” said Chris Lautenschlager, executive director of the Marcy-Holmes Neighborhood Association.

CA Ventures, the developer in charge of the project, expanded the building’s footprint to three-fourths of the block from the previous one-half. It will encompass the corner of Fourth Street Southeast and Fifteenth Avenue Southeast, plus parts of Fifth Street.

This new plan includes redevelopment of the building that Pizza Hut, Subway and TCF Bank occupy, plus the Dinkytown McDonald’s, the Five Guys and Pagoda restaurants, Dinkytown Wine and Spirits and storage space owned by the Book House.

The housing structure, primarily catered toward students attending the University of Minnesota, was shortened due to community feedback. It will now be seven stories, but was initially proposed at 25 stories, then cut to ten.

The Dinkytown McDonald’s will be replaced with a new McDonald’s on the bottom floor of the complex.

The City Council stalled the project in Feb. 2020 due to the density of the apartment. Several appeals were filed at the time by community members over lack of minimum required parking spaces and the structure’s height. However, the deadline for appeals has now passed, with no clear objections to the development moving forward.

Despite many obstacles, Director of Development of CA Ventures Ryan Sadowy called the project a “flagship asset” for the company.

“It’s something that we can be very proud of,” Sadowy said. “Sometimes the hardest ones, though, are the most rewarding.”

Kristen Eide-Tollefson, owner of the Book House and member of the group Preserve Historic Dinkytown, said that while she is mostly content with the changes to the development plan, it is imperative that students living in the area are not taken advantage of with high prices and limited housing or retail options.

“The spirit of Dinkytown is not exploiting students,” Eide-Tollefson said, adding that the real “spirit of Dinkytown” is to “support and serve,” which is why one thing she would like to see is a grocery store.

Over the past two years, many students voiced their concerns about what would replace what many considered beloved Dinkytown staples, such as the liquor store and the McDonald’s. Some students pushed for a full grocery store to be made available in the neighborhood, citing worries about student food insecurity and lack of access to resources without transportation.

CA Ventures is trying to provide that, according to Sadowy, and has been trying to find a grocer interested in working with them for a significant amount of time.

Sadowy also said that the project is committed to affordability, not only for student housing, but also for retail, in order to promote and support small local businesses rather than larger chain companies.

“I think at the end of the day, that what we’re going to have out of [the project] is going to be well received from all, and that’s more important than a couple of sleepless nights,” Sadowy said.

Construction is expected to begin in summer of 2021.

After a tight special election win in August, newest council member Jamal Osman is ready to serve Ward 6.

Osman, who ran against 11 other candidates, was one of the favorites to win the close-call election. Two days past election night, the city released a statement declaring Osman the unofficial winner. Minneapolis City Council confirmed the win on Aug. 20.

“I had a lot of support from the community … My campaign was all about the residents,” Osman said. “The community got my message.”

A tumultuous summer, an empty seat

The Ward 6 council member was originally born in Somalia and came to the U.S. from Kenya when he was 14. He went to high school in St. Paul, and after starting a family, he moved around Minneapolis before settling in Phillips West, where he now lives with his wife, Ilo Amba, and his “five beautiful children.”

“The first time I heard [Osman was running for office] I thought ‘Oh no,’” said Mahamoud Wardere, a former candidate for Minneapolis mayor and the first Somali-American to run for office anywhere in the United States in 2001. “‘You’re a nice guy who helps people, why do you want to be a politician?’”

Wardere is a well-known activist in the East African community. He currently works for CommonBond Communities, one of the largest nonprofits for affordable housing in the Upper Midwest, where he met Osman and worked with him for more than six years.

While new to politics, Osman served in the nonprofit sector for over a decade and then for CommonBond Communities via Seward Tower East . There, he worked as a resident advocate helping residents with education, employment and housing issues.

“I saw this job as what I was doing already, defending residents,” Osman said, “Now, on a bigger scale, I get to do it for 37,000 residents in Ward 6.”

Those 37,000 Ward 6 residents are scattered between six neighborhoods in downtown and south Minneapolis, including Cedar-Riverside.

Housing, while on Osman’s platform, is not a new issue in Ward 6 or Minneapolis. Osman replaced Abdi Warsame, who left the council seat empty in March to become the new head of the Minneapolis Public Housing Authority.

As a result, the ward has been without council representation through the onset of COVID-19 lockdown orders and through the protests that followed the police killing of George Floyd.

When Warsame departed the seat, a contentious debate about the establishment of an Africa Village mall in Cedar-Riverside was underway. The mall is promised to include affordable housing, small business resources and a farmers market.

Osman admitted he does not know much about the project, but he said he is excited about what it could mean for housing in Ward 6 and education about African culture. “As I continue doing my work, I will do a lot of research and make sure that I’ll make a decision that will benefit the community,” Osman said.

After he was elected, Osman asked Warsame’s former policy aide, Ryan SanCartier, to stay in his office, something SanCartier said he was happy to do.

SanCartier also expressed his excitement on Osman’s election and that Osman plans to both continue some of Warsame’s work and introduce projects of his own.

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey congratulated Osman via social media, making sure to mention Osman’s passion for housing reform.

Excited to see @Jamal4Ward6 stepping up to serve Ward 6! His leadership and experience on affordable housing will make his voice indispensable on the City Council.

Congratulations Jamal — can’t wait to work with you in City Hall! https://t.co/BgwxJUWKRR

— Jacob Frey (@Jacob_Frey) August 14, 2020

A listening approach

On top of concern for housing, Osman said he is also passionate about addressing the opioid crisis, mental health resources and youth homelessness — conversations that have been ongoing in Cedar-Riverside and beyond.

“It’s a public health emergency, and … these kids are dying. They are dying and they know they’re not getting the help they need. There’s a lot of things that contribute to [that],” Osman said.

“The city should see this as a public health emergency, a crisis. They should address it as such, not just problems Ward 6 has,” Osman said.

However, Osman’s next actions for these issues are not yet fully formed. The newest council member is green in the world of politics and said he wants to spend a lot of time hearing from the community before taking action on things such as police reform and further COVID-19 precautions.

He also wants to “do a lot of research” before taking on other projects.