Mapping Injustice Project Receives Grant to Fight Housing Inequality

The University of Minnesota has received a $615,000 grant to study potential solutions to housing inequality, according to a press release from the university libraries. "This transformational funding will allow the Mapping Prejudice team to build collaborations that can advance racial justice in Minnesota" and help to redress the negative impacts of housing discrimination. 

The grant, awarded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, will fund a think tank that aims to "nurture conversations — with the voices of Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) at the center — around local efforts to dismantle structural racism" and support research by Mapping Prejudice, a project that analyzes and helps the public understand the "sordid legacies of racial covenants" in Hennepin and Ramsey counties.

"Even after these racial covenants were made illegal under federal and state law, they continued to influence housing patterns and intergenerational wealth — or the lack of it." Thanks to its in-depth research, the Mapping Prejudice project "serves as the backbone of the Minneapolis 2040 plan, which has been hailed around the country as a daring new approach to land-use guidelines." In May, the city eliminated parking minimums, although efforts to reform single-family zoning have garnered criticism for falling short of the goals laid out in the plan.