By KAYLEE MIRON & MADDIE YOUNG, Community Journalists-in-Training
Community members are concerned about the impacts of the high levels of pollution in the Phillips Community, and they’re trying to do something about it.
“Particularly in Minneapolis, there are higher rates of asthma, chronic lung conditions, and allergies in Black or Brown communities,” stated Marcus Milani, a doctoral student at the University of Minnesota and co-chair of the Phillips Neighborhood Clinic.
According to data from Minnesota Compass, this is no different in the Phillips Community, where 73.8% of the population is made up of Black, Brown, and Indigenous peoples.
Asthma and other chronic health issues directly impact the long term health of a community and it is concerning community members. One such community member, Carol Pass, spoke with The Urban Activist, about the issue of asthma.
Reporter’s note: Carol Pass passed away in May 2024.
“We’ve become family, friends, and we’ve watched one kid after another get asthma or heart conditions and stop going to school. Don’t want to go to school anymore. End up on drugs, end up in a street, and then eventually die of opioids,” said Pass, a longtime environmental justice activist before she passed, in a post written for the East Phillips Neighborhood Institute.
One of the issues that community health workers are concerned about is Interstate 94, a major highway that runs right next to Little Earth. Little Earth was developed in 1973 due to housing discrimination faced by Indigenous community members.
“The Indigenous community has a lot of air quality issues because the highway is right there,” stated Natalie Bullis, MPH, Operations Coordinator for Community Health at Pillsbury United Communities. Bullis works out of both Waite House, in the Phillips Community, and Brian Coyle Center in Cedar-Riverside.
According to a post on Streets.MN, some community members in Minneapolis are imagining a new future for I-94.
“For many Twin Cities residents, the automobile serves as the main means of transportation between our two cities,” writes Abbey Seitz, a professional urban and regional planner and a contributor to Streets.MN who wrote about visions for the future of I-94. “With the opening of accessible public transportation, I not only see the opportunity to restore a better connection between our two cities and communities within St. Paul but also the challenge for designers and planners to discover innovative uses of existing infrastructure.”
Members of the Phillips Community have also been gathering around the Roof Depot site, a warehouse built in 1947. Activists and organizers envision a future for the warehouse, adjacent to a former superfund site, where it houses a community hub, as well as an urban farm, housing, and rooftop solar array.
According to reporting from the Star Tribune, the Minnesota State Legislature agreed to a $2 million injection of funds into the community in 2023, and then an additional $5.7 million in 2024. $4.5 million was also granted to the City of Minneapolis so they could find a new site for their proposed Public Works yard. EPNI agreed to raise the remaining $3.7 million to purchase the site. In Sept. 2024, the Minneapolis City Council approved a year-long extension for the community so that they could raise the needed $3.7 million after activists failed to meet an earlier deadline.
Kaylee Miron is a sonography major at St. Catherine University. She is a student-athlete pursuing a career as a sonographer.
Maddie Young is an accounting major at St. Catherine University. She is a student-athlete pursuing a career in public accounting.
