- There are people here in Minneapolis intentionally selling their home at a loss, even in one of the most expensive housing markets in history.

And they are doing it for racial justice, to repair damage done by a century of housing discrimination under Jim Crow of the North.

Minnesota still struggles with some of the worst racial wealth and homeownership disparities in America.

But through a range of activism, policy change, and even artistry, real change is happening.

Free the Deeds employs a multifaceted approach: raising awareness, creative expression, community outreach, and reparations.

Reparations are often talked about as a repair for chattel slavery in the US.

As a so-called free state, reparations in Minnesota would also be linked to a century of housing injustice.

Working towards reparations sounds powerful and tangible, but how does it actually work?

It works like this.

A nonprofit land trust organization purchases homes and the land they sit on.

Then income-qualifying buyers can purchase that home at an affordable rate.

The homeowner now owns the home, but leases the land beneath it from the land trust for a small monthly fee.

And when they choose to sell that home, they must sell it to another qualifying buyer through the land trust.

This means each home will remain connected to the land trust forever, and therefore remain affordable forever.

- It's a complex model, but at the heart of it, it's about increasing affordable housing in perpetuity.

Every new family that comes into that house is passing on affordability to whoever is next.

They recently sold their 200th house.

That means that there's 200 houses that are perpetually affordable in Minneapolis.

- In another step towards justice and repair, the City of Lakes Community Land Trust is working with African American organizations and leaders to help create a down payment assistance fund for future homeowners of color.

Free the Deeds decided that's where their repair should be.

- They're really proud of the fact that almost half of their demographic is African American homeowners.

(chill music) - In order for this model to work, the land trust needs to buy homes and as cheaply as possible.

And that's why I'm here today, to talk to some folks who are taking a major hit in selling their home to the trust and to learn about their unconventional decision.

Shirley, nice to meet you.

So tell us about how you all got involved in the land trust, and what made you want to sell your home to the trust.

- The home belonged to our son and he passed away in 2021.

He really loved the location.

He really liked the neighborhood and the diversity.

So it matches exactly what our wishes were to build a legacy for Dan, and also to have the property perpetually affordable.

- [Speaker] Hands up!

- [Crowd] Don't shoot!

- [Speaker] Hands up!

- [Crowd] Don't shoot!

- With George Floyd's death, it became even more important because, we didn't know how we could participate directly in the social justice movement, but this seemed to be a way that we could make a contribution.

(chill music) - Hey, Rachel.

- Hi, nice to meet you.

- Nice to meet you.

- Come on back.

I feel very fortunate to have to have had the opportunity to live in a house and to own a house and to build equity in it.

So I wanted to be able to pass this house along to somebody who would be able to build equity in it.

I'm well aware of the housing crisis that we have in Minneapolis and nationwide.

I had an opportunity to contribute to a solution to that problem by selling the house to the land trust where it would stay in affordable housing forever.

I was able to sell the house to the land trust for $210,000.

The market value was 315,000, and I was still able to make enough money to make a down payment on my new house.

It's so unfair for people who are renting, and they don't have that equity that they're building up.

- Have you thought at all during your process of selling your home how this step is working towards racial justice?

- Absolutely, yeah.

That was, you know, one of the main reasons that I wanted to sell to the land trust because I know that there is a lot of racial disparities in the city.

You know, I was able to buy this house because my parents helped me put a down payment on it, and not everyone has that option in their lives.

I think a lot of people are resistant to even accepting that there's privilege in their lives.

There's a lot of work to be done, and I'm hopeful that we as a community and a city will put the work in to make improvements.

- All the different sectors that have come together to make progress.

- [Acoma] Free the Deeds is reflecting on their work and looking to the future.

While they have made inroads in community, the public response has been evolving.

- I had a vision of Free the Deeds being something that just spread like wildfire.

The fact that this work is slow and relational and conversation-based and heart-based, while it means that it didn't launch in the ways that the movie in my head launched.

It's a choice point, right?

They can say, I'm ready to engage with this or I'm not ready.

One of my most beloved and favorite interactions was a person came up to me.

She was a white woman.

She looked up her house, she found out she had a racial covenant on it, and I was still sort of timid at that time: "Would you be willing to put up one of our signs, and would you be willing to think about reparations work?"

And she said, "Are you kidding me?

It's the least I can do.

It's the least I can do!"

- And I feel like this is just a step towards the beginning of reparations.

I think the more that we talk about reparations, the more normal it gets, the more that word is in our vocabulary and people have a grasp on what it means.

- I feel like this is one opportunity or way for us to think about connecting that otherwise wouldn't be here.

- The work continues here in Minnesota, and beyond.

After hiding unseen for decades, the history of those once commonplace racist housing practices is not only getting widely told, it's also being acted upon in very concrete ways.

But there's more work to do, and there's more stories to tell.

(orchestral music)