Ryan Bell

March 11, 2026 Minneapolis City Council 350 South 5th Street Room 370 Minneapolis, MN 55415 Dear Council President Payne, Council Vice President Osman and Council Members: This letter is to inform you that I have vetoed Ordinance No. 2026-002 to extend the pre-eviction notice for renters to 60 days. I understand the authors’ intent, but the experience from COVID-19 and guidance from shelter and affordable housing providers shows that this strategy has not worked. We have heard over and over again from shelter and affordable housing providers that longer timelines produce worse outcomes for residents. In their words, when rental assistance isn’t available, time is a debt trap that becomes a barrier to securing future housing. I heard a call for more financial assistance, and I believe that is the best path forward. Rental assistance is working and getting to renters quickly – rent collections are better in 2026 than 2025. That’s why I’m proposing to spend $1 million from the Affordable Housing Trust Fund for emergency rental assistance administered through Hennepin County. While a 60-day pre-eviction notice period sounds good, there is no data to show that it does good. Pandemic era eviction moratorium allowed many renters to accumulate huge amounts of debt that they are still paying off today. When property owners carry the losses, the housing system experiences upward pressure on rents to replenish reserves, catch up on missed mortgage, insurance, utility, payroll, and property tax payments, and cover increased costs associated with deferred maintenance. I believe most landlords are working with tenants to develop payment plans and access rental assistance. But for bad actors, I worry that the proposal gives them reasons to report tenants to ICE or use minor lease violationswhich don’t require as much notice and are harder to expunge – to evict tenants. We will continue to monitor the data. If something substantially changes, I am committed to working with the City…

mayor jacob frey has vetoed the pause evictions, save lives bill the minneapolis city coucil approved that would've extended the eviction timeline from 30 days to 60 days temporarily to held families impacted by the ICE invasion catch up paying rent

Opinion | This Is the Only Card Trump Can Play

This Is the Only Card Trump Can Play www.nytimes.com/2026/01/17/o...

Check out this op-ed by TT’s @ryanjbell.bsky.social! Pasadena passed a law against rent gouging and harassment. When tenants organize, we win accountability and affordability!

www.coloradoboulevard.net/a-hard-fough...

“I’m not an enabler”

Or the Minnesota legislator and her husband.

Why tho

Cracked, Costly Fantasies | Los Angeles Review of Books Dan O’Sullivan traces the legacy of right-wing ideologies in California.

"Ever since Mexico ceded half its territory to the United States in 1848, California has posed a challenge for America’s nascent fascists." Dan O’Sullivan traces the legacy of right-wing ideologies in California. https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/cracked-costly-fantasies/

Opinion | Data from Calif. and D.C. shows how minimum wage hikes can hurt Recent experience underscores the perils of raising minimum wage above what the market can bear.

Probably unreasonable to expect the Post editorial board to stay on top of economic research but there are three studies of California's fast food minimum wage (not just the one they preferred to highlight)

The average estimate across studies suggests the policy had essentially no employment effect

When I was in the Philippines, long before internet and cell phones, I used to imagine I could communicate with my loved ones by simultaneously looking at the moon.

One of the great joys of reading is coming across insights and feelings that are familiar but you’ve never put in words.

This, from Overstory, arrested me.

“The moon is a blazing telephone that anyone on earth might call him on, simply by looking up and seeing what he sees.”

The book title appears above an image of single family homes in Palmdale, California.

Racist policing and unaffordable housing are central crises of our time. Indefensible Spaces: Policing and the Struggle For Housing shows how they intersect in the Antelope Valley, Los Angeles County’s northern outpost and a key destination for those pushed out of LA. June 2025 @ucpress.bsky.social

Losing your home, losing your school: how evictions affect kids' educational trajectories Kids whose parents face eviction cases are more likely to leave their district, end up in schools with fewer resources, and experience an increase in absences and suspensions.

"Nearly three million children risk losing their homes every year through the eviction process....Even the threat of eviction can increase the odds of school moves and disenrollment, moves to worse-off schools, and increased school absences and suspensions."

evictionlab.org/eviction-and...

www.thenation.com/article/cult...

I really appreciate @olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social review of Agnes Callard’s “Open Socrates.” I haven’t read the book but the review captures what I find so annoying about so much of modern political discourse. Does anyone know of a book that accomplishes what Callard sets out to do, but better?

Landlord group pays ‘activists’ to oppose Bay Area rent control measure “It was purely astroturf,” one worker said.

😮🤔🧐

www.mercurynews.com/2025/04/04/l...

Ah yes, blame the homeless. Classic move!

IF YOU SEE ICE VERIFY THEIR IDENTITY AND PURPOSE • CONFIRMING WITH OTHERS OR BY LOOKING AT THEIR UNIFORM THAT WHAT YOU SEE IS ICE • CALL YOUR LOCAL RAPID RESPONSE NETWORK HOTLINE AND REPORT WHAT YOU SEE DOCUMENT • RECORD OR TAKE PHOTOS OF WHAT YOU ARE SEEING • MAKE NOTE OF THE TIME, DATE, AND THE EXACT LOCATION OF THE ENCOUNTER SPREAD AWARENESS ONCE YOU VERIFY THAT ICE IS THERE AND WHAT THEY ARE THERE FOR, YOU CAN SHARE THE INFORMATION ALONG WITH EVERYTHING YOU'VE DOCUMENTED. PLEASE MAKE SURE TO ONLY SHARE VERIFIED INFORMATION. THIS ENSURES THAT WE DON'T CREATE ANY UNECESSARY STRESS, FEAR, OR ANXIETY.

Spread Information not panic When reporting or signal boosting potential threats: provide as much information as possible! S.A.L.U.T.E. Size/Strength "5 to 6 Armed Agitators" 中r Actions/Activity "Harassing random people on the move" Location & Direction "Manhattan, East of Central Park, E 97th St" Uniform/Clothes "Dark Jackets, ballcaps" Time & Date of Observation "8:32 PM June01" Equipment & Weapons "They have Body Armor and Pepper spray" Not a useful tweet: "proudboys spotted" "Where? When? What are they doing? How Many? What are they carrying?" Use your Judgement!

What to do when you see ICE - resources in thread:

When informing your community, remember "S.A.L.U.T.E."

Report ICE/CBP sightings to a local rapid response network (more info below 👇)

A computer screen with a display showing output from an xray diffraction spectrometer.

Close up view showing fraction of metals. Fun stuff.

Just had a sample of the Eaton Fire ash that is in my driveway run on the department XRF. Is there titanium (new house paint)? Yup. Lead (old house paint)? You betcha. Heavy metals? Check. Treat that ash like it's toxic folks (because it is)

Too kind!!

Photo of Ryan Bell and other tenants demanding an eviction moratorium and rent freeze at the Board of Supervisors today.

Really proud and appreciative of my comrade and friend @ryanjbell.bsky.social / bro I stole this off your IG but it's too big up youuuu

Just an idea: How about we pause the Feb. 1 rent increases, ban no-fault evictions for tenants displaced by these fires, and enact a temporary eviction moratorium? #KeepLAHoused

An already tight Los Angeles rental housing market, pushed to its limits by a natural disaster, shouldn’t be an opportunity to gouge victims of that natural disaster, no matter how much Richard Green and Stuart Gabriel would like you to think that this is simply the housing market at work.

I'm working from a hotel room in the Long Beach today because the Air Quality Index at my apartment is still around 400. State and Local groups are frantically working on getting resources organized for folks who have been displaced.

Surviving on $1,800 a month in Social Security, she died looking for a place to live Joanne Erickson’s story shows the looming challenges for millions of seniors struggling with health issues, an unforgiving housing market and little or no retirement savings.

I’m sitting here just crushed by this story. Today I spent the morning in eviction court with a friend. Then this remarkably reported story. I feel like the challenge of reclaiming our basic dignity from landlords and the state is too much to handle.

#endofdemocracy

New from me on what the rage and glee on public display after the killing of a healthcare CEO portends.

I suspect the corporate world will respond with more security and retreating even more into their gated lives.

They would be advised to read up on history.

🎁🔗
www.nytimes.com/2024/12/06/o...

2/2 - "The state, for example, offered $5,000 a month for a one-bedroom home and $7,000-$9,000 for a two or three-bedroom unit – more than double the rate landlords were renting to locals before the fire.he state and private aid organizations."

1/2 - This is what the "brightest minds" in America devised!

"Tenants said they were evicted on short notice so landlords could lease their property to Fema, the state and private aid organizations."

Poverty in Lahaina has doubled after 2023 wildfire: ‘We’re cutting down on what we eat’ Maui, struck by one of the deadliest blazes in modern US history, has seen tourism drop, a shortage of houses and persistent inflation

A wild story about the recovery efforts in Lahaina.

"At the same time, greed has also hampered recovery.... Emergency housing programs, which offered property owners a premium to house wildfire survivors, have enabled landlords to engage in predatory behavior,
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024...

Throwback to when one of the wealthiest landlord couples in Pasadena was featured in a hit piece against our rent control measure claiming to be renters. Good times!