Minneapolis: Help the Minnehaha Free Space Move And Thrive

From Minnehaha Free Space

Many of you know that recently a new landlord bought the building that houses the Minnehaha Free Space. He indicated to us in our first meeting with him that he might raise the rent. Just this last week we found out how much he is raising it: from our current $1200 to $2200. There is no way we could raise enough money each month to afford this 83% rent hike. We will have to move. We put in notice that we will be staying through the end of 2016, and then we will be moving to a new space. We are asking our amazing supporters to help us with this transition. We are raising money for rent through December, moving costs, a deposit on a new space, and to cover the loss of income from our regularly scheduled events as we get the next space ready to host events.

We are dismayed about this rent hike and the gentrification of the Longfellow neighborhood that has already pushed out so many residents of color and continues with evictions and foreclosures of primarily people of color. We are committed to using our resources and energy to resist these patterns, to build stronger ties where we can co-depend on one another on the basis of solidarity and mutual aid to resist the dominant capitalist modes of obligation, money, competition and fear. We value the people and projects that have converged in this space and we want to provide a new anarchist space where even more exciting things can happen.

The survival of the Minnehaha Free Space since it first opened in 2011 is a strong testament to how many people support us. Many spaces have come and gone before us, and we would never have survived this long without our broad base of support. We will be using the rest of this year to talk to people and groups that have affinity with us and whose work intersects with ours in some way, to think carefully about what we want this next space to be. Our next steps will be shaped by these conversations. If you want to talk to us, please reach out.

We plan on communicating about our process with all who support us. We will update as regularly as we can.

Meanwhile, we will be staying at this location for the rest of 2016, and we need all kinds of support more than ever. We will do our utmost to keep up activity while we are here and will have a few big final events at our current space, including two craft fairs. Please stop by, come to events, book us for your event, donate to help us with our current rent and moving costs as we explore new spaces, and please do whatever you can to boost this so we can reach out to all the folks who care about making another space possible.

We are asking for 10K to help us cover our final months’ rent, moving costs, a deposit on a new space, and to help us cope with the loss of income from our regularly scheduled events as we deal with this unanticipated transition. Thank you for every dollar, every like, and every share.

To our supporters: you made our existence possible as the longest running collectively organized non-commercial autonomous radical space in Minneapolis. Your support means the world to us and we are ready to meet this challenge with all we have. We want this new space to be amazing. Thank you so much for anything and everything you can do to help.

Love,
The Minneapolis Autonomous Radical Space (MARS) Collective