FUTURE FORWARD: What does it mean to be in it for the long haul?

To uproot and replace unjust systems, we must recognize that the arc of change is long — marked with both uncertainty and at times, disappointment. As Zora Neale Hurston wrote in Their Eyes Were Watching God: “There are years that ask questions and years that answer.” 

My experience has shown that successful systems change work requires three key components: long-term, intentional strategy, deep community trust, and the resilience necessary to weather difficult seasons to ensure change takes root.

We all understand how essential safe, dignified housing is — and how difficult it can be to find in a metro area with high and rising rents. Many families face impossible choices between paying rent and meeting other basic needs. And when the threat of eviction arises, accessing emergency housing can feel just as daunting.

In 2018, I led the Illusion of Choice: Evictions and Profit in North Minneapolis project. We interviewed tenants in the 55411 and 55412 zip codes about their experiences seeking emergency rental assistance. One tenant described a painful interaction with a county staff member:

“She said, ‘Is there anything wrong with you?’ I said no — I’m just a normal person who lost their job. She asked if I was a victim of domestic violence, if I had mental health issues, if I was using drugs. Which — all of the above — but I was too embarrassed to share that with her.”

For those who do not qualify for assistance, the experience often becomes a frantic search — moving from agency to agency, trying to secure resources before time runs out and their family faces homelessness. Even shelters have posed barriers. At the time, Hennepin County required individuals to pay out of pocket for a bed. Many tenants I interviewed chose to sleep in their cars rather than spend their limited funds on shelter fees. As one tenant put it, “If they had just let us save that money for one month, we would have been out of there in the first month.”

The stories pointed clearly to the ways in which the current system was failing to serve those it was intended to support. Among participants, 72 percent described the emergency assistance process as slow, invasive, confusing, and culturally insensitive.

Applications often took more than 30 days to process, while eviction decisions could happen in as little as two weeks. We called this the “social service runaround” — a system where bureaucratic requirements force people to chase resources that may no longer be available by the time they qualify.

Many tenants cried during interviews as they recounted their experiences. What moved them to tears was not interactions with landlords or even the threat of eviction itself — it was the dehumanizing language of shame and blame from the very systems meant to help. This is what some scholars describe as “institutional betrayal:” harm experienced not only by those seeking support, but also by the people within systems who want to help yet feel constrained from doing so.

We could not ignore this pattern, and we couldn’t imagine publishing a report that did not explicitly provoke action. Now that we knew the solutions, we couldn’t simply move on to the next project and expect someone else to step in. As we sought to share our findings, we requested meetings with Hennepin County commissioners. We were initially refused. In response, I reached out to then-Congressman Keith Ellison, who convened an evictions forum in North Minneapolis, ensuring that the data reached county leadership.

(l-r) Brittany Lewis and Jewelean Jackson

In partnership with Street Voices for Change, we helped build a coalition to explore alternatives to the shelter self-pay model. Because of that collective push, the Pohlad Family Foundation invested $500,000 to redesign Hennepin County’s emergency assistance programs. Research in Action supported this effort by convening a resident review panel to evaluate progress and ensure accountability — and, in 2021, Hennepin County eliminated the self-pay policy.

This progress took trust, not only from institutional leaders, but from impacted community members. For instance, I first met Jewelean Jackson during the evictions research and she trusted me and the process enough to share her journey from being a homeowner for more than 20 years to being a renter evicted from her housing and faced with homelessness. Her expertise about every step in the supposed safety net to prevent housing instability was essential knowledge and her participation was key to the success of the project. But the process itself didn’t diminish or cast Ms. Jackson as a victim; her participation gave her more tools and connections to claim her inherent leadership. 

After the evictions research, Ms. Jackson — and RIA — didn’t stop. Soon after, the State of Minnesota’s Workgroup on Expediting Rental Assistance hired RIA to review existing community-centered, data-driven solutions across the state and to collaborate with community members in shaping the workgroup’s final legislative recommendations. Once again, Ms. Jackson came to the table because she trusted the process would lead to change and, in 2024, RIA published the report Creating an Expedited Emergency Rental Assistance System with Community Input.

We could have stopped at any point along the way — because the road is long and the horizon of justice feels so distant. If we had not approached this work with a commitment to learning from those most affected by housing insecurity, we would not have uncovered specific systemic failures and ways to solve them. And if we had accepted that initial refusal as a stopping point, the outcomes we see today likely would not have been possible.

So what does it truly mean to commit to this work for the long haul? How do we respond when doors close in front of us? And how do we ensure that community voices remain our compass, especially when the path forward is uncertain?

Events

• Dr. Brittany Lewis is celebrating the launch of her new book Building a New Table: A Community-Centered Handbook for Transformative Social Change (University of Minnesota Press; May 5, 2026), at The Loft Literary Center, May 5, 6pm. Admission is free but registration is requested: https://z.umn.edu/LewisLaunch
• Dr. Lewis will also do a second event for Building a New Table at Next Chapter Books on May 19th at 6:00 PM where she will be in conversation with Michelle Sheire from The Grove Initiative.