Mpls Public Housing Allows Peace Park & Vegetable Gardens to Stay

I think we should keep the gardens because they're good for our bodies and there are hardly any gardens as it is. They help our community and our health, and it's a community effort to make the city beautiful. I have a dream that the community is healthy and the gardens are the most pretty in town, and adults volunteer to help Youth Farm kids and make new friends. That's my dream. -Rachel Taylor, age 10

We really care about our garden, I hope you do too! Youth Farm is cool and we will be able to feed the people who really need the food. -Shanna Woods, age 10

I have a dream that the gardens will stay! And the gardens make Lyndale a better place to live. -Laura Smith, age 9

This was the message Youth Farm and Market Project gardeners delivered to the Minneapolis Public Housing Authority (MPHA) at a very well attended community meeting to discuss the fate of the Youth Farm's vegetable gardens and the Peace Park south of the Charles Horn Terrace (CHT) Towers at 31st and Blaisdell Ave.

Youth Farm learned last December that MPHA was considering plans to develop the one acre parcel of land behind the public housing towers for affordable housing. MPHA stated that given the severe shortage of affordable housing in the city, they needed to look at the development potential of all land they owned, with the CHT Tower's green space being one of the largest pieces of undeveloped land. In response, the January 22nd community meeting on the fate of the green space was organized by CHT residents, working with the Lyndale Neighborhood Association and Youth Farm.

High rise residents and youth farmers have been growing flowers and vegetables on the land since 1997, as a result of a unique and wonderful partnership between MPHA, Charles Horn Terrace residents, the Lyndale Neighborhood Association, Hennepin County Sentenced to Serve and the Youth Farm and Market Project. By rototilling and watering residents' gardens (many of whom are seniors), youth farmers help residents to grow their own food, while learning from them in return. Responding to the request of CHT residents to have an affordable supply of healthy produce, Youth Farm participants and staff provide a year-round market, selling produce from Roots and Fruits and Co-op Partners and featuring Youth Farmer grown produce during the growing season. Plans are proceeding to create a Peace Park in land adjacent to the gardens as well. This past fall the Lyndale Neighborhood Association provided a $5,000 grant through the Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design program, and youth farmers and CHT residents planted more than 100 perennial plants donated by Red Cardinal Farms. Residents and youth farmers also watered and cared for 54 trees planted by MPHA in August.

Youth Farm students in the neighborhood, CHT residents, and community residents eloquently explained the many values the green space provides for the community, including providing organically grown food for low-income neighbors, a way for neighborhood youth to use their time and talents to beautify the community, and an opportunity for youth to learn about growing, harvesting, cooking and marketing produce. As youth farmer Rebecca Taylor stated, "We have worked hard for years to make it look beautiful and all those years of work would go to waste." Meeting attendees stated at the end of the meeting their support for having affordable housing in the Lyndale community, and their strong feeling that this housing development should not come at the expense of the CHT gardens and Peace Park.

CHT residents and Youth Farm were overjoyed to hear the week after the meeting that MPHA had decided not to develop any of the existing green space. MPHA cited the demonstration of community support as the primary reason behind their decision to look elsewhere in the neighborhood for affordable housing options. This was not a victory of the community's needs for green space over the community's need for affordable housing. Rather it was a decision to honor the partnership and hard work invested in that piece of land, and recognition of the role green space plays in strengthening our communities.

With the gardens secured, CHT residents, MPHA staff and the Youth Farm and Market Project are proceeding with plans to develop a multi-ethnic community farmer's market in the southwest corner of the CHT Towers property. Included will be Latino and Somali farmers, since roughly a third of the CHT residents are Somali, and there is a large concentration of Latino households in the immediate vicinity. So come on down to the Lyndale Multicultural Farmer's Market this summer!