Outlasting a field of 11 candidates, Jamal Osman won the August 11 special election for the Ward 6 seat on the Minneapolis City Council. He replaces Abdi Warsame, who resigned in March to become executive director of the Minneapolis Public Housing Authority.
That move left residents of Ward 6 — which includes the Seward, Cedar-Riverside, Philips West, Elliot Park, Stevens Square, and Ventura Village neighborhoods — without council representation for months, at a time when the city was dealing with several issues directly affecting ward residents: a lack of affordable housing and growing homelessness; the unrest and damage to Ward 6 businesses following the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers; the future of the policing in the city.
Osman, who will be sworn in to council on Aug. 28, came to Minnesota as a refugee from Somalia when he was 15. He graduated top of his class from the now-closed Arlington High School in St. Paul, and then got a sociology degree from Metropolitan State University. He now works as an advocate for renters facing eviction for a nonprofit housing group, CommonBond Communities, and does work training organizations like the Boys and Girls Clubs on how to recognize the first signs of mental health distress. Osman, 36, is married and has five children.
Osman says his priorities as a council member will be adding more affordable and public housing, investing in services that help Ward 6 residents struggling with opioid addiction and mental health issues, and reforming — but not dismantling — the Minneapolis Police Department.
The council member-elect recently reflects on his election win and elaborates on what he wants to do on council. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
MinnPost: A big topic during the race was homelessness. During the campaign, you said you would expand public housing. How would you do that?
Jamal Osman: There’s not an easy answer. If you are making minimum wage, you can’t afford a one bedroom apartment. It’s very difficult to rent here in Ward 6. I believe 90 percent of residents are renters. Everybody is competing to get to affordable housing or something close to it. I would definitely advocate for more affordable and public housing. We have plenty of space for investors to come and build new housing, or even the city. We need housing as soon as possible. You can see the trends. The homeless and other residents are unable to find any affordable housing, or public housing, for that matter.
MP: You also mentioned during your campaign that you’d improve the relationship between the ward’s landlords and tenants, especially immigrant tenants. How would you improve that relationship?
JO: We need to protect renters against properties that have poor managers. Companies need to start respecting renters. A lot of youth here, you can see, are homeless. When I dig around and ask them why they are homeless, they say that their landlord kicked them out for minor things. With my work as a resident advocate, I try to create an environment where the landlords and tenants have a good relationship.
Let’s say a landlord says there is nothing they can do to help a tenant, and that the renter needs to leave. I believe in mutual termination of the lease over eviction. Both parties agree to termination so that the resident can move on and rent another place, and doesn’t have to have bad credit or a bad rental history. Landlords here evict people over minor things, like yelling. Over very small, minor things, they kick people out. I keep telling people they don’t have to leave. You can go to the courts. The only way a lease can be broken is through the courts. A lease is a contract. When I see a family of four, immigrants who are dealing with eviction, I say “take the landlord to court.” And I give them information on resources to help in court.
MP: What would you do if another homeless camp, like the one at Powderhorn Park, comes back?
JO: The camps could come back. They could be here in Ward 6 or in Powderhorn Park. But the problem is not the camps. The problem is a lack of services. People here have a housing crisis. On top of that there’s the mental health issue, the opioid issue. We should not be focusing on the camps. We should be focused on the service part of it.
People don’t just become homeless. They become homeless because of a lack of opportunity, and mental health issues. There are different barriers that make people homeless. On top of that there is not enough affordable housing, not enough public housing here. The city should address this as an overall crisis. And the state has some responsibility to provide resources.
MP: On to the other major topic of the Ward 6 race; policing. What do you make of the city cutting money from the police budget and hiring civilian violence interpreters for mediating conflict?
JO: For too long the Minneapolis Police Department has been an organization that lacks community oversight and direction. They have been too powerful. The resource and funding they get — we should definitely look at it. And maybe we should take those resources and spend it in community, however that looks.
MP: What does community-driven policing mean to you?
JO: I am not too familiar with the language of the charter amendment proposal about the Minneapolis Police Department. I need time to take a look at it. To be clear; I do not support dismantling the police. I want the police to be part of our community. I think, right now, we need community safety to be the main thing. There are a lot of crimes here in the community right now, and we need police more than ever. We need to make sure they are community driven police working for the community.
MP: How do you get a police force that works for the community?
JO: The police should be from Minneapolis. A lot of police don’t live here. I think we need to provide the resources and opportunity for people in Minneapolis, for young men and women of color to get those resources for them to be police, for them to represent their community. The police should reflect the culture and diversity in Minneapolis.
I never want to see an incident like what happened to George Floyd happen again. Police culture, everything has to change. We need to reimagine police. As a future council member, I want to make sure that the people in my ward all feel safe and united with the greater Minneapolis community.
MP: If Minneapolis police, or other public safety personnel, kill or injure someone else, how would you address the community?
JO: I believe police work should be public to everyone. Police serve residents. They don’t need to be hiding things with control over it. Police information should be public. I will continue fighting for that. That’s why creating a community driven committee that can oversee what police do and their conduct will have a great importance. That kind of committee would see day-to-day police work. If something happens, I will make video immediately available.
If we see an individual from police, and see that occur on video, see them kill someone, they should be arrested right away like every other individual. Police shouldn’t have higher power than everyone else.
MP: Ward 6 was hit really hard by COVID-19, both in the number of those who contracted the virus and the number of businesses that have suffered from shutdowns. If that trend continues as you take office, what should the city do to help?
JO: A lot of people have lost their jobs. A lot of hard working people live here in Ward 6. Many lost their jobs. People are struggling. A lot of businesses closed due to COVID-19. And, during the unrest in Minneapolis, a lot of businesses burned. As soon as I get to office, I want to address the damage of COVID and the unrest. I want to make sure we are going to help those individuals get back to normal, and have their jobs back and businesses reopen. We need to assign a committee to look at the effects of COVID-19. We need to make sure small businesses are coming back. They are the part of the community that holds our community together. I will do anything I can to support them to get back to normal.
MP: How will you remain engaged with your constituency?
JO: I will have office hours where residents can talk to me. I will go to every neighborhood association, every community meeting, and make sure that I am part of that. We have huge diversity in our community. It’s not just Somali, not just East African. Ward 6 has all kinds of residents. What the community needs is unity.
MP: I know you played soccer growing up. What position did you play?
JO: I played right-wing midfield, assisting goals and scoring goals. I played a lot of good soccer players who made it professionally. Right now, at 36, I can’t play like I used to. I sometimes play on Sundays, pickup games. I also play with my kids.
Nice interview, thank you!
I suggest Council members check out the results of Camden New Jersey’s rebuilding their PD.
“…Camden, New Jersey, may be the closest thing to a case study they can get. The city, home to a population about 17% of Minneapolis’ size, dissolved its police department in 2012 and replaced it with an entirely new one after corruption rendered the existing agency unfixable.”
Camden and Newark took different approaches to their traumatic experiences with their local PDs. The comparison of how they changed, and the effects today are worth knowing.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jun/25/camden-newark-new-jersey-police-reform
“…Currently, the Camden police budget is $69m, up from $62m in 2013. And the number of police has gone up from 200 to 380 people. The crime rate is at a 50-year low, and excessive force complaints (which are reported from the police department itself) have dropped from 64 to three in two years, according to a country spokesperson.”
Richard Owens’ comments about Camden, NJ, are excellent. I made a similar comment several weeks ago. Whether replying to me or another person, one commenter replied that Camden is not a good example as it is much smaller than Minneapolis.
I disagree with that commenter’s assertion. Reimagining the police department and starting over, and keeping officers who have never had serious complaints, can work. Scaling to our needs, at a greater use of law enforcement employees, and essentially using a similar psychology and method of controlling officers as has been in effect in Camden, can lead to less officer-on-citizen violence.
Changing the contract and the arbitration rules is also something which we must examine and fix. Hardly all officers are bad at their jobs. However, there are those who abuse their time in uniform and believe that because they wear a shield, a uniform, and a side-arm, they can behave as they wish — or as comes natural to them in the heat of an argument. This concern arrives from three or more factors: 1) Some officers are not psychologically suited to be in a position of authority over other people, 2) The vetting process for officers is not sophisticated enough to weed out poor choices, and 3) The training process has been inadequate to assist officers learn how to cope well with upsetting situations.
Placing the blame on all Minneapolis Police Department officers for what a subset of the officers are guilty of is not the best approach. I am glad to see I have a member of the city council serving me who recognizes that dissolving the police department is not a good idea.
We do have violent crimes in Minneapolis which needs strong officers to attend to in the course of their jobs. Officers need the support of our community to effectively serve us. Many youth have handguns and have been using them to disturb the peace and engage in other behaviors which are not suitable for those living in a close community. Work on assisting families develop helpful parenting skills are also of great importance, as many of the families with crimes in their legacy are single parent families who do not have the support they need and who become parents before they are emotionally and socially mature.
I look forward to meeting Jamal Osman. His campaign staff did not come to my apartment, and I did not vote for him, but he appears to be on the right track and has many really fine ideas.
Thanks, also, to Richard Owens for his prescient comments.
Unfortunately, the narrative around what happened in Camden seems to be largely fiction. Keep reading:
https://progressive.org/dispatches/camden-didnt-defund-police-department-kalet-200630/
https://www.google.com.mx/amp/s/www.wired.com/story/disbanding-police-really-meant-camden/amp
https://www.google.com.mx/amp/s/www.businessinsider.com/camden-new-jersey-police-disbanded-but-theres-more-to-story-2020-6%3famp
Unfortunately, the narrative around what happened in Camden seems to be largely fiction. Keep reading:
https://progressive.org/dispatches/camden-didnt-defund-police-department-kalet-200630/
https://www.google.com.mx/amp/s/www.wired.com/story/disbanding-police-really-meant-camden/amp
Unfortunately it appears that several of the candidates who ran for this seat registered falsely. A July 26th and 31st investigative report on Channel 9, “Residency questions raised for Ward 6 candidates for Minneapolis City Council,” revealed that one of them, Jamal Osman, the election winner, recently rented a tiny apartment in the ward in order to claim residency, while he remains married, has a wife and five children, and apparently sleeps with his family in the suburbs.
I’m disgusted. New voters are asked to prove their residency; why should candidates for elective office be allowed to register under false pretenses?
The Minneapolis Canvassing Board should not certify Jamal Osman’s election.
I want to thank David Markle for bringing the fact that Jamal Osman may not be fully qualified to serve as Ward Six Council Member to our attention, and citing the KMSP9 (or, Fox29) report. I have previously served as DFL Ward 2 Precinct 10 and Ward 6, Precinct 3 chairman of our local caucus, now in Ward 6. I have also previously served as a member of the board of directors for DFL Senate District 60, in which Ward 6 is located.
I contacted the Ward 6 office immediately after reading Mr. Markle’s post and asked the Office to contact Mr. Osman to have him immediately move into Ward 6, and to sell his home in the other location, if he owns a home in another location.
Mr. Osman’s interest in serving in our Ward is of interest to me, but his actions may not be legally permissible. His residency may find its way into court, and create a situation where he is not permitted to serve.
There were several fine candidates with experience and intelligence needed to serve well. Another candidate, whose votes were counted as the next highest, may end up serving as our Member of City Council.
The following link provides the story that Mr. Markle referred to in his post, above:
https://www.fox9.com/news/residency-questions-raised-for-ward-6-candidates-in-minneapolis-city-council-race
As I no longer watch television on a regular basis, I was unacquainted with the current name of Fox9. When I watched on a more frequent basis, it was Fox29 and earlier, KMSP9.
That said, I believe Mr. Osman has not been honest with the City in his statements of residency, nor with voters in the the Ward. If he is able to effectively argue that his residency in Riverside Plaza, where I live, is sufficient to have him considered as our duly elected Member of City Council, I will accept him without hesitance. Right now, however, he is on thin and melting ice.
I contacted Minneapolis 311, the switchboard and information arm of the City of Minneapolis, about Mr. Markle’s concerns. To their knowledge, there is nothing in Minneapolis called the Minneapolis Canvassing Board. However, the individual with whom I spoke indicated that the course of action to have a challenge made would be the court system, as I believed when writing another post on this.
If anyone is interested in challenging Mr. Osman’s claims, or other candidates’ claims, they must do it through a judicial process.
The word “Dismantle” was a red herring from the beginning. It has too many negative connotations for what the issue at hand was/is, and it distracted the public from the essence of the problem.
I am wondering if it was not first offered/promoted by far-right conspiracy operatives so as to distract and thwart the efforts of those who were sincere in bringing needed reform to law enforcement.
Mr. Liftin,
It was likely not a right-wing conspiracy. All members of the Minneapolis City Council are very left of center in their philosophies and do not apparently have a personal and private relationship with officers. That they posted an opinion about what should happen to the law enforcement arm of our city, without posting a dramatically telling scheme of how our law enforcement and related services would look, is telling of people who were reactive, instead of responsive, to what became a very dramatic concern which inflamed people of all races throughout the nation and world. In my opinion, on that concern, they did not act in a responsible and professional manner. Their amendment was not very well written, and it was not something which the Charter Commission thought appropriate to use as a basis for a vote during the special election.
However, this was clearly not a right-wing conspiracy.
The issue (or non-issue) with Osman’s residency came up before the election, and voters chose him anyway.
Candidates move into districts to run all the time, and Minneapolis has a very soft requirement for residency, so if he has actually rented an apartment in the ward, he should be good from a legal standpoint. People move. People have complex living arrangements. A certain member of congress once shared the same address with both her legal husband and her religious husband.
The seat is up in 14 months. With the courts so far behind with Covid, it would probably take longer than that to get the case heard. If you don’t like the guy, quit whining and start working to defeat him.