We interviewed a dozen people in Fridley and North Minneapolis. Our first stop in Fridley was the seemingly all-purpose community center, where driver’s ed classes, day care, and a Vounteers of American senior lunch program were just a few of the activities underway. At a park across University Avenue we talked to senior volunteers at a safety camp for grade schoolers. At Moore Lake, we had a fascinating conversation with an interracial couple with three children who had moved to North Minneapolis from a town in Georgia, but were spending their spare time in Fridley because it feels safe and they hope to move there when they save enough money to get their own place.

What the seniors and the couple had in common was concern over crime. It’s serious, and it’s affected their lives. Aubrey Ringdal said an acquainance was beaten nearly to death in Northeast Minneapolis and someone stole flowerpots from her stoop in Spring Lake Park.

Aubrey Ringdal

The young couple said the neighborhood where they’re staying is unsafe, with regular gunfire, even during the day.

They want more police on the streets, and some of them want programs to productively engage young would-be troublemakers. Most people said this is government’s responsibility, but Father Don Schwalm said private charities could and should help too.

Father Don Schwalm

Other seniors testified to the hardship of paying soaring health care costs on fixed incomes. For some it really is a choice between food and necessary drugs.

We also spoke with Mardell Hadley, a stay-at-home mother of young children, who wishes they could participate in more educational and recreational programs. They can’t afford them on one income, but she feels staying home with the kids is worth it because her priority is giving them strong Christian values.

Mardell Hadley

In North Minneapolis we stopped at Sumner library and spoke with a middle-aged African-American woman who had been raised in the projects, but raised her own family in Golden Valley. She looked across the street at the mixed-income new development that had replaced the projects, and wondered whether the immigrants who live there have more advantages than young black families ever did.

Last we spoke with one of those immigrant families, Somalia-born parents of four young children. Abdi Ismail is a bus driver in college to become a nurse: his wife stays home with the kids. They live in subsidized housing, but the waiting list for a three-bedroom voucher is years long, and with just two bedrooms, they are way too crowded.