ACER and La Asamblea are community-based organizations serving the African and Latino immigrant communities of Brooklyn Park, respectively.
Latino residents comprise about 6.5 percent of Brooklyn Park’s total population. An additional5 percent of city residents are of African descent. Although small in comparison to the total population, these two immigrant groups make up a large portion of the city’s renters.Around 30 percent of Brooklyn Park residents are renters; in comparison,65 percent of black residents and 60 percent of Latino residents rent their homes.
Affordable housing is an important issue for all Brooklyn Park residents. Approximately 56 percent of Brooklyn Park renters were cost-burdened by their housing in 2015, meaning they spent more than 30 percent of their income on housing. That same year, 26 percent of renters were severely cost-burdened, spending more than half of their income on housing.
Staff at ACER and La Asambleabecame concerned when they saw several instances where Section 8 housing in other first-ring suburbs was purchased and converted to market rate units.
They knew that if that trend spread to Brooklyn Park, immigrants would besome of the most vulnerable to displacement.