Minneapolis public housing tenants blast two-tier system at Minnesota Supreme Court

ST. PAUL, Minn. (CN) — Residents of Minneapolis public housing argued they have a right to sue over unchecked substandard living conditions at the Minnesota Supreme Court Tuesday.

Tenants claim the Minneapolis Public Housing Authority has sidestepped fundamental safety requirements by not obtaining city rental licenses — leading to little or no oversight to force the agency to make proper repairs.

“What that has resulted in is feces backed up in the basement of my clients, persistent rodent infestations and the litany of other problems that show that just letting MPHA exist on its own without city oversight is not doing what public housing was intended to do,” the tenants’ attorney, Anna Prakash, said.

The housing authority claims discretionary immunity protects it from liability, arguing the agency followed Housing and Urban Development guidance on housing conditions and unit inspections for over 35 years.

Minnesota Supreme Court justices grappled with how far to bend immunity Tuesday, questioning the tenants’ attorney over the issues with a black-and-white reading of the law.

“This is what government agencies do every day, there’s tons of gray in the law, and they have to have room to make discretionary decisions,” Justice Karl Procaccini said. “It can’t just be that every time a court rules on some unanswered question, that suddenly now it’s clear and the immunity goes away.”

Prakash countered that the housing authority is not entitled to immunity because its duties were ministerial, as city code mandates inspection of all rental properties.

“It can’t be that immunity works such that an entity can just try really hard to get the law right, get it wrong, and then be immune,” she said. “If that was the way immunity worked, then any agency, any government entity could say, ‘hey, we tried hard, we consulted lawyers and oops, we made a mistake, but don’t hold us liable.’”

Tuesday’s hearing stems from a 2021 class action claiming the City of Minneapolis and housing agency discriminated against public housing tenants by failing to provide the same health, safety and licensing services afforded to private-sector renters.

Tenants claim the city requires private landlords to get rental licenses and pass inspections but has historically permitted the public housing agency to operate without such requirements, creating a two-tiered level of safety.

Key claims from lead plaintiff Kimberly Lowry include hazardous living conditions — including sewage backups, asbestos and mold in her single-family home — and refusal to inspect properties even when tenants reported issues through proper channels.

Following a lower court ruling in favor of the housing authority, the Minnesota Court of Appeals rejected the idea that public housing exists in its own bubble where city safety codes don’t apply — ruling the covenant of habitability applies to public housing tenants just as it does to everyone else.

MPHA argues obtaining rental licenses would be in defiance of a 1992 directive from HUD, which could affect the agency’s standing with the department and result in a loss of federal funding.

When questioned by Justice Sarah Hennesy over the “frightening implications” that come with allowing an agency the discretion to skirt the law, MPHA said the number of conflicting directives put the agency in a tough spot, and it decided to follow federal authority.

“To answer your concern about whether this just gives free rein to agencies to decide on what they think the law is … if the other agencies weren’t on board, there would have perhaps been another process involved,” MPHA’s attorney, Gretchen Sperry, said, underlining the 35-year-old HUD agreement.

“It’s only because of a very novel and untested theory of damages brought by these plaintiffs that is sort of undoing all of the understandings that these agencies have worked under for the last several decades,” she added.

To the tenants, this case is far simpler than the housing agency makes it out to be.

“The question before this court, in its simplest terms, is whether my clients can sue their landlord,” Prakash said. “It’s not about discretion to enforce the housing code … it’s not about any liability finding against MPHA … . The basic question here is whether the courthouse doors are even open to my clients.”

Hennesy seemed to agree, speaking to a “gut-level” concern about the idea of a “second class” of Minneapolis citizens living in properties that don’t comply with housing codes.

“It seems like the city and MPHA bargained away the tenants’ rights in reaching an agreement that the MPHA not purchase a license, and then the city won’t enforce that code,” she said. The agency replied that HUD still conducts routine inspections.

Should the court side with Minnesota tenants, Justice Paul Thissen showed concern over how to limit the potential $150 million windfall to class members who may not have had a habitability problem, and are just looking to take advantage of a technicality.

Prakash said this case is not about technicalities, but rather substandard living conditions left unchecked for three decades — regardless of whether failure to get a license and follow inspection protocol was the root problem.