NAACP renews call for Warsame’s resignation, health emergency declaration over Heritage Park conditions

The Minneapolis NAACP chapter renewed its calls for Minneapolis Public Housing Authority Executive Director Abdi Warsame to resign and the city’s health department to declare a health emergency over mold and rodent-infested conditions at Heritage Park.

“They’re telling you that they have mold in their unit. Don’t that sound like a health crisis? So why is the health department silent?” Chapter Vice President Thomas Berry said outside MPHA headquarters July 28.

Calls for Relocation Amid Sweltering Heat

Berry called on the city to fast-track the relocation of Heritage Park residents amid a heat wave, noting some units lack air conditioning.

“There are residents over at Heritage Park who do not have AC units inside of their place. We know Abdi Warsame is currently inside an air-conditioned building,” Berry said.

“Our main concern is the relocation of these families, and then also the resignation of Abdi Warsame. We feel like it’s only right that he resign because he had from 2020 to 2026 to do something about this, and he ignored it as well.”

MPHA Defends Record and Ownership Structure

Warsame has led MPHA as executive director and CEO since March 2020. MPHA spokesperson Drew Halunen said the agency has worked to support Heritage Park as stakeholders, including the city and HUD, learned more about owner McCormack Baron Salazar’s shortfalls, deferred maintenance and mounting debts.

“Facts matter, and the fact is MPHA does not own, operate, or control any housing units at Heritage Park,” Halunen said. “Not a single household at Heritage Park had a lease with MPHA.”

Halunen said MPHA has invested more than $12 million in the property’s public housing units since 2022, helped 18 households relocate since April 2024, and led the effort to have a court remove the former owner in 2025.

City Allocates Emergency Funding for Repairs and Relocation

Minneapolis approved a $2.5 million emergency ordinance to fund relocation expenses for roughly 700 residents. Heritage Park could have faced condemnation and mass relocation, but an inspection found some apartments in stable condition, making move-outs optional for now.

City spokesperson Jess Olstad said residents remain a priority. “They deserve safe places to live. If residents feel unsafe and wish to voluntarily relocate because of that, the city and partners will work with them,” Olstad said.

The city said inspectors have examined roughly 326 units, 161 of them occupied, with 47 pending as officials secure resident consent.

Property manager Property Solutions & Services has worked through hundreds of open repair orders since last fall, which inspectors are still verifying.

The $2.5 million will fund receiver Certus to hire repair contractors and pay a not-yet-chosen provider to assist with relocation.

Allegations of Inflated Estimates and Resident Rent Hikes

Community activist Al Flowers accused Certus of inflating repair estimates to help sell the property. “They got some organization that would like to buy Heritage Park right now, and they’re trying to sell it,” Flowers said.

Certus CEO William C. Haase disputed the claim as “absolutely false and offensive.”

Bessie Rodgers, a Heritage Park resident who worked as a compliance specialist for McCormack Baron Salazar, lost her job when Certus took over management in December.

Her employment had come with discounted rent of $1,249 a month; losing it raised her rent to $1,432. “After the receivers took over, they said, ‘Oh, you’re not the employee.’ They said that’s regular market rent,” Rodgers said.

Haase said Certus offered interviews to all McCormack Baron workers and estimated five were rehired; Rodgers was not among them.

Rodgers said her former employer’s inability to pay contractors left the property without basic pest control.

“We had one vendor, and he was an exterminator, and he did the roaches, the rats, and all that. Just one man for all that, and then he got overwhelmed because he stopped getting paid,” she said.

McCormack Baron said in a statement that an independently audited record of its work “affirms the company consistently put tenant needs first,” adding that it covered more than $10 million in unfunded operating costs while deferring management fees.

Berry said MPHA’s oversight role required verification, not trust, in the former owner. “When you have a director, he’s not supposed to trust them. He’s supposed to trust his staff to go out and do their job because that’s what they’re getting paid to do — the oversight,” Berry said.

Decades After Landmark Hollman Lawsuit, Residents Still Await Dignity

Heritage Park exists because of the 1995 Hollman Consent Decree, which settled a 1992 NAACP fair housing lawsuit and required demolition of roughly 770 units of segregated public housing, replaced by the mixed-income development that opened in the early 2000s.

Gloria Jackson, one of the residents whose case led to that settlement, said she still cannot get repairs made to her townhome three decades later, even as mold builds up outside her kitchen windows.

Resident Nicole Rojas said she has been sick since moving in three years ago, and mold has forced her two children to sleep in the living room. “My apartment flooded. It took three hours for maintenance to even come to try to fix the problem,” she said. “My tiles are coming up, and you can see the black mold. And I’ve been sick.”

Despite winning her lawsuit decades ago, Jackson wants out again. “It took a long time, 10 years,” she said. “We want to get out here right away. If they give me the money right now, I’ll move out tomorrow.”

Clint Combs is a freelance journalist and contributing writer for the Minnesota Spokesman-Recorder. He welcomes reader responses at combs0284@gmail.com.