MINNEAPOLIS — When the Dundry House Apartments caught fire in early April, it seemed the building would be on the fast track to demolition.

After all, the building had been vacant for months, leading to squatters, an abundance of 911 calls, and nearly a dozen overdoses on the property. When the building caught fire, an estimated 20 people were inside. When the fire was put out, the roof had collapsed.

Nearly a month later, however, the building stands. People routinely break into the boarded windows. More 911 calls routinely come in. This, all as its owner desperately tries to get it torn down.

Help for the homeless

Built more than 100 years ago, the Dundry House apartments sit tucked between the Interstate 35W and Interstate 94 interchange. Since 2002, local non-profit Hope Community Inc. has owned the 25-unit building, using it to help people transitioning out of homelessness.

Hope Community Interim Co-Executive Director Will Delaney says for years, it was an overall positive for the community, helping people who had previously experienced homelessness find secure, long-term housing.

After the pandemic, however, Delaney says things began to change. A detailed timeline presented to WCCO News portrays an increase in crime beginning in 2022. Then, an encampment began forming in a vacant lot adjacent to the building.

In May of 2022, Hope Community began paying for around-the-clock security at the building. Delaney estimates in total, the non-profit spent close to $500,000 on security throughout the time they paid for it.

Despite the additional security, people began breaking into the building. On June 9, 2023, someone stole the building’s gas and water lines. There was nothing the non-profit could do, Delaney said. They had to close the building, work to find homes for other residents, and board the windows and doors.

“It was one of the most difficult decisions, certainly of my professional career,” Delaney said.

Squatters broke through the boards and into the building the same day, 911 records show.

An emergency call

Records provided to WCCO News from the Minneapolis Office of Community Safety show 147 individual 911 calls to the Dundry House property over the past 18 months.

When the boards went up and squatters broke in this past June, police continued to receive calls for “prowlers”, “unwanted persons” and other trespassers. Around Thanksgiving, there was a fire. There was another on Christmas Eve. Then, on April 4th, came the biggest fire to date. The entire top floor of the building was in flames.

“It is like the bottom dropping out kind of moment,” Delaney said. “Immediately I knew, oh no – we’ve got a major problem.”

Prior to the fire, Delaney said Hope had been working with another non-profit, interested in purchasing the property and continuing to use it as transitional housing. When the fire happened in April, any hope the building could be salvaged fell flat.

Minneapolis Fire Department reported 15-20 people inside the building when the fire broke out. Luckily, there were no reported injuries.

The building was reboarded once more.

The first call for a trespasser inside came five days later.

A problem property 

Delaney says he knew there would be no other option but to tear the building down. He says the day of the fire, he contacted the city – asking if they could assist in an immediate demolition.

Delaney was concerned should the building sit vacant, even after a fire, it would provide more chances for people to break in and set more fires.

The response from Minneapolis Regulatory Services Director Enrique Velazquez, obtained by WCCO News, shocked Delaney.

“They said because this was not an emergency, it didn’t meet their emergency definition from the city (to demolish),” Delaney said.  “That it was up to the property owner to demolish it.”

Delaney says his non-profit has been quoted that the job to demolish could cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

“We don’t have the resources,” he said. “I think every day this building stays standing, we’re risking another fire, another major incident.”

“I don’t know what the fix should be, but the building should go,” said Alex Johnson, who lives across the street. “It’s a lot going on here. It’s a lot. The police are always here. The fire department is always here… I don’t even know if there’s anything extra that the police can even do.”

Delaney says Hope plans to find a company to do the job. Still, it could take weeks.

“This is not a case of negligent landlords who are not paying attention, don’t care what happens – we care very much. We’re trying our best. We just need help from the city and other partners to do what’s right here,” he said. 

Late last week, an urgent-seeming tip came over the transom of the Racket Reader Action Desk.

“Don’t know if there is a story in this or not,” it began, “but our kid came home from Howe [Elementary School] today with a pencil bag of pro-corn propaganda and stories of a horrific mascot who performed a gameshow routine alongside skilled hip-hop dancers.”

The tipster provided photographic intel of the alleged “pro-corn propaganda,” pictured below, as well as a screengrab of Maizey, the “horrific mascot,” who you can see above.

Deploying our deductive expertise, we were able to determine the group behind both the corn-themed swag bag and the (allegedly) horrific corn mascot was none other than the Minnesota Corn Growers Association (MCGA), the industry group responsible for advancing corn interests throughout the state. The reader correctly asserted that this webpage, which outlines MCGA’s education outreach program, raises more questions than it answers.

They continued…

How are people getting paid for these performances? Did MPS get a big check for this from the corn lobby? Is there an anti-corn agenda currently in circulation that’s escaped my notice? Is corn actually “cool”? I guess it is better than D.A.R.E., but that’s not saying a whole lot. This all may be beneath your journalistic purview, in which case I do apologize, but I can’t be the only parent blinking in confusion and disbelief at this odd corporate intrusion.

After assuring her that this is well within our journalistic purview, Racket sprang into action. (This being assigned to the very real Racket Reader Action Desk, after all.) We hit up the Minneapolis Public Schools publicist with our newfound concern over the apparent corporate reeducation of our most precious commodity—children, not corn, to be clear.

What are students expected to gain from the in-school corn program? Is money—and if so, how much?—exchanged between MPS and MCGA? And, crucially, is corn in fact “cool”?    

Stonewalled! The school board’s comms team vowed to “look into this,” but that was six full days ago.

That left us with the Minnesota Corn Growers Association but, before reaching out, we needed to better understand this corn-boosting org.

A subsidiary of the National Corn Growers Association, the local arm of the operation tasks itself with advancing four core industry priorities: ethanol, sustainability, trade, and the Farm Bill.

In 2017, according to public data via Open Secrets, MCGA deployed six lobbyists and spent $160,000 in lobbying expenditures to rhapsodize the virtues of their prefered crop to lawmakers. That top issue—ethanol—matters most because almost 30% of corn grown in Minnesota is turned into fuel, per MCGA. (Our state is the nation’s third-biggest corn grower and fourth-biggest ethanol producer.) In recent years, studies have found that ethanol might be actually be worse for the environment than gasoline, complicating the wisdom of awarding the industry with vast government subsidies; producers are now fighting harder than ever for fuel-blend mandates that buoy demand for corn.

Anyway!

Back to topic at hand: How insidious and/or innocuous is advancing the corn agenda in Minneapolis Public Schools? Here’s Barbara Boelk, the prompt and polite spokesperson for MCGA who we bothered last week.

Minnesota Corn is proud to teach young people across the state about corn and corn farming. Using a fun, educational program, students in school districts in the metro and beyond learn about how corn is part of the renewable food, fiber, and fuel they and their families use every day. Schools opt in to the program, in much the same way that they opt in to other programs and assemblies that meet educational standards. Minnesota Corn does not give or receive payment for placement of programs with any school district. Students learn about Minnesota’s tradition of family corn farming, and its importance to local and state economies. In addition to learning how something grown locally impacts a student’s daily life, students can also learn about the vast array of career opportunities associated with corn farming, like on-farm roles, research, and technology to name a few.

The swag bags? They’re meant to instill a “positive memory” of the pro-corn demonstration, Boelk says. And you better believe she has no patience for the besmirchment of her group’s grinning corn-ear mascot. “[Maizey is] a fun-loving and joyful ear of Minnesota corn who loves being part of these types of programs where meeting the kids and participating in the program are highlights of the day,” Boelk concludes. It’s up to parents to balance Maizey’s relentless enthusiasm for corn with the real-world impact, positive and negative, the ag product presents.

As for whether corn is “cool”? Nobody spoke to that, though those rubber bracelets more or less put MCGA on the record. We know how this non-Minnesotan tot feels…