One woman was injured in a shooting at a Minneapolis park on Friday.

According to Minneapolis Parks Police, just before 4 p.m., a woman was shot by another woman at the northeast corner of Peavey Park.

The woman was brought to HCMC with non-life-threatening injuries.

Authorities say the suspect left in a vehicle but was arrested later Friday night by Minneapolis police.

Elizabeth Jean “Betty” Norris commuted by bike in an era when that wasn’t all the rage in Minneapolis, wheeling her way to work from the south Minneapolis neighborhood where she was among the first Black homeowners, to downtown where she built a 30-year career with the U.S. Postal Service.

Norris died on June 9 following an illness. She was 93.

Norris worked the overnight shift as a clerk inside the big, beautiful downtown Minneapolis post office. It was an era when the Postal Service was among the most desirable career destinations for African Americans, said daughter Michele Norris, a national journalist who once hosted National Public Radio’s “All Things Considered” program. While employed there, Norris appeared on the cover of a Postal Service career textbook in bluejeans and a vest.

Michele Norris fondly recalled her mother’s get-up as she tooled her three-speed bike downtown: bell bottoms cuffed with rubber bands so they wouldn’t get greasy, purse in her bike basket and “Jackie O-style scarf on her head.

“She wore cowboy boots and bowties. She was an individual. … She was not following trends and in retrospect she was probably helping set them,” Michele Norris said.

Norris met her former husband on the job; he worked days as a counter clerk. The two had three daughters together, including Michele.

She found other ways to make the post office more than just a workplace. Norris created a library inside the station, as it was challenging for overnight workers to make it to the public library during the day. With a single room lined with books, she created an organizational system and a system for lending.

“In a world that had not yet opened up in the way that it has now, there were a lot of people of color, a lot of women, a lot of people from small-town America that had made their way to the Twin Cities … that if circumstances were different, might have been able to get a college education,” Michele Norris said.

Betty Norris read everything: newspapers, Westerns, British mysteries. She liked theater and TV, too, said granddaughter Aja Johnson, who remembers watching “Downton Abbey” together and sharing ice cream. The two spoke daily until her grandmother’s death, Johnson said.

Her sweet tooth was prolific. Norris particularly loved root beer floats and coffee ice cream, which became Johnson’s favorite, too.

“I think the lesson there for me and for my family, too, is she kind of put joy at the forefront of her life, and was always laughing and always finding reasons to be happy. … I think that’s what we’ll miss most about her,” Johnson said.

Norris was an example for her as she moves into adulthood, said Johnson, who is a law student. She lived on her own until 90 years old, Johnson said.

“She was a cool woman. She grew up in the Depression and was always fiercely independent up until she passed, always put herself first,” Johnson said.

‘Fearlessly loyal to the state’

The Norris family are fourth-generation Minnesotans — which is somewhat unusual. Many Black families made their way to Minnesota during the Great Migration from the Southern states, but the family predated that. Norris was born in Duluth before her family ended up in the Twin Cities.

When Norris and her husband purchased a home in south Minneapolis, in the 4800 block of Oakland Avenue, they were the sole Black family in what was then a white neighborhood. Neighbors hurried to sell their homes as property values began to fall. Nobody wanted to live next to the Negro family and people hung nasty signs outside their homes, Michele Norris said.

But their homes wouldn’t sell. Norris did not shrink and hide her family away. When prospective buyers were at the neighboring homes, Betty sent her brown-skinned daughters out to play in the backyard so they knew exactly who their neighbors would be.

“Mom showed her character and she didn’t cower and she didn’t hide, she didn’t pull the curtains,” Michele said. “They probably worked even harder to make sure their house was a standout, knowing that everyone was watching them.”

Eventually, the only buyer a neighbor could find was another Black family; the Norrises formed a close bond with them. Over time, the neighborhood and schools integrated.

“She really was a Minnesotan, fearlessly loyal to the state, to the sports teams, to the way of life, to the politics of Minnesota, all of that was deeply reflected in who she was,” her daughter said.

Services have been held.

An affordable housing project planned for the ambitious Upper Harbor development along the north Minneapolis riverfront has been delayed — and may need to be reimagined — after the project’s applications for critical state subsidies were rejected two years in a row.

The setback comes as other parts of the 48-acre redevelopment are moving forward. Streets have been constructed and utilities installed. Developer United Properties reports the centerpiece First Avenue amphitheater is on track for completion by next year’s concert season, plans are forming around a health and wellness hub proposed to be run by InnerCity Tennis, and the Park Board has broken ground on a 20-acre park that will reconnect north Minneapolis with the Mississippi River.

The first phase of construction, which started this spring, was also supposed to include a mixed-use affordable housing building with 170 rentals — two-thirds of them at 30-50% area median income — and 17 perpetually affordable townhomes. But the financing uncertainty has delayed construction to next spring at the earliest, with the possibility that its deep affordability levels may have to be re-evaluated.

Bill English, a past president of the Minneapolis Urban League who has been beating the drum for living wage jobs and affordable housing at Upper Harbor since he served on the project’s collaborative planning committee five years ago, has been urging Northsiders to pay attention to what’s going on. He said he’s worried about gentrification if affordable housing isn’t part of the project.

“This year the state gave more money to affordable housing than has ever been done in the history of the state,” he said. “Yet where’s that money going?”

Northside developer Devean George, whom United Properties tapped to lead the construction of over 500 units of affordable housing at Upper Harbor, said the project team may have to “tweak” the affordability levels, but promised that the building will not become luxury apartments.

“It’s still going to be an affordable project. It just may be a few extra things that add benefits may have to be taken out, that we just couldn’t afford,” George said. “Right now we have a deep mixed-income that’s really inclusive of everybody… We’re going to try to keep the project as consistent as we’ve been talking about, but we may shrink down the number [of units] or cut it in half.”

Public subsidies that the building has already received include $5 million in affordable housing trust funds from the city of Minneapolis, $2 million in Livable Communities Demonstration Account funds from the Metropolitan Council, and $1 million in affordable housing incentive funds from Hennepin County.

George’s company Building Blocks applied for $12 million more in deferred loans from Minnesota Housing, the state housing finance agency, in 2022 and 2023. The applications were both rejected despite leaping from a score of 76 to 130 from one year to the next. Last year, successful metro-area projects competing for funding in the “workforce housing” category scored between 133 and 145 points.

“We kind of retooled the project to be more competitive and really had hope that this summer we would be closing all of our financing and starting construction,” said Tom Strohm of United Properties. “It probably impacts the subsequent, second phase of affordable housing right? So that’s one of the questions that we’ve had to ask ourselves. We can’t start applying for the second phase of affordable housing before we get the first phase secured.”

The second phase of affordable housing construction, originally scheduled to begin next year, includes two more mixed-use housing developments.

Minnesota Housing scores multifamily projects higher when they include deeply affordable units, when they’re employing innovations, cost-efficiency and community involvement, and when they’re led by developers of color and women. The agency selected 28 projects out of 97 multifamily applications received last year, including in Minneapolis a new senior complex at 3246 Nicollet Ave., new permanent supportive housing by Aeon and preservation funds for buildings owned by Little Earth of United Tribes, RS Eden and Simpson Housing.

The Upper Harbor project scored higher than a few others that were chosen. Minnesota Housing Commissioner Jennifer Ho said hard decisions have to be made depending on how much money is left in the pot after the highest-scoring, most competitive projects are selected first. Upper Harbor’s $12 million ask was steeper than most, which presents a challenge for getting picked up, she said.

“Sometimes projects have been partially funded by others and they’ve got more leverage, they’re more ready to go,” Ho said. “It also depends on the size of the project — preservation per door tends to be less than a new construction deal… The Upper Harbor Terminal project is great, and it’s also a big project.”

George said he understands Northsiders are going to be disheartened about the prolonged wait for affordable housing at Upper Harbor, but that the development team is working on a yet more competitive application for state funds this year.

“This has taken some time,” he said. “The main thing would be to keep hope and understand that we’re still working to make this right.”