Joe Vital and The East Phillips Neighborhood

On a Sunday afternoon we received a bustling phone call from Joe Vital. “At the stop sign turn right”; Siri gave him directions in the background as he spoke. We were glad to catch him in between capitol visits and activist protests. The interview turned out to be brief, fascinating, and inspiring.

Joe is an increasingly well-known activist fighting for equal land rights and community authority in the East Phillips neighborhood of Minneapolis. An East Phillips resident himself, he is heavily engaged in the environmental justice work surrounding the East Phillips Roof Depot. The neighborhood is part of the South Side Green Zone. Within it sits the Roof Depot – an abandoned building that has sparked conflict over who has the right to develop it. Organizers in the East Phillips community want to redevelop the site into a community-owned mixed-use development project that includes a solar array for green power housing, a cultural market, educational spaces, urban farms, and local accessible food.

Yet, through privatization, the city of Minneapolis is making the community’s vision less possible. Instead, the city wishes to buy the Roof Depot building in order to tear it down and put a public works facility in its place. This would include a fuel station and parking garage that would increase traffic, pollute the land and its inhabitants, and displace East Phillips residents. The main polluters already in the area are specifically tar production and railway systems, and the current Public Works facility (Hiawatha Campus). “The Minneapolis city council is thus rendering those who live in the East Phillips neighborhood dispensable and prioritizing money and business over citizens.” The Minneapolis city council is thus rendering those who live in the East Phillips neighborhood dispensable and prioritizing money and business over citizens. Joe, who a lead organizer of the East Phillips Neighborhood Institute (EPNI), plays a large role in fighting against this demolition of the Roof Depot building. Joe started out as a chair of the Native Peoples Caucus, where he helped organize for DFL conventions. He was then asked by Cassandra Holmes and Jolene Jones, members of Little Earth of United Tribes, to become more involved in 2020. He says he also realized the pressing nature of environmental injustices in his community, which led him to become more involved in activism. He soon after stepped back from his position with the DFL and began at EPNI.

As the volunteer community relations coordinator for three years, Joe’s main role includes keeping residents and constituents informed on progress and delegations occurring surrounding the neighborhood. He also strives for “building a coalition…[Not] in a superficial way of like ‘this coalition that’s helping me vote for something,’ [but a] broad based coalition for states.” He says his role is “like the Swiss Army knife,” always doing what is required of him. He likes to think of his work as uniting a front between individual community members, larger groups such as Climate Justice Committee, and immediate stakeholders like Little Earth. A major part of that is making sure that the coalition moves in the same general direction as well. He sees his role as a translator, sometimes literally–he speaks Spanish– but usually more metaphorically at a larger scale between powerful institutions and the people they have the most impact on. He wants to inform them on processes of government, especially surrounding these questions:

He brings these questions into his work as a lens in which to improve environmental justice. Recently, he has taken on a larger legislative role, fighting for residents’ land ownership of the Roof Depot. He focuses on the system of oppression deeply embedded into society–city governments buying out citizens, specifically low-income and folks of color, without listening to their concerns. Minneapolis city officials claim that the demolition of the Roof Depot is not an environmental hazard, yet the community experiences some of the highest rates of asthma, lead poisoning, and cancer in the entire state. The area is a food desert as well, severely lacking in healthy and nutritious foods.

Joe defines environmental justice as community – specifically community zones that have access to and ownership of clean and healthy environments. He emphasizes that environmental justice encompasses many other forms of justice as well, so the inequalities in East Phillips is an injustice, and environmental racism is at its core. Joe defines environmental justice as community – specifically community zones that have access to and ownership of clean and healthy environments. He emphasizes that environmental justice encompasses many other forms of justice as well, so the inequalities in East Phillips is an injustice, and environmental racism is at its core. Because of decades of divestment and enabling of polluting industries, the neighborhood is disproportionately suffering the consequences from toxic waste and unequal land access. Joe explains how the only other neighborhood comparable to this injustice is North Minneapolis.

The city of Minneapolis recognizes these areas are in need of “more investment in green technology, reduction in air pollution, and just more community autonomy over what is happening in their spaces,” according to Joe, as both are labeled Green Zones. However, the city perpetuates environmental racism by implementing policies that do little to no good in helping the community. The actual residents are getting little say over decisions, and private developers’ investment in campaign fronts holds more power than the constituents themselves.

Therefore, communicating these issues to residents, from those of Little Earth to broader taxpayers, is crucial to Joe’s work. He discusses how taxpayers pay for most of the medical bills, especially related to asthma. “The median household income is $33,000 for a family, so it’s a relatively poor area,” says Joe. “Most folks are on [their own] paying for this… the average asthma hospitalization is about $100,000 annually.” Thus, informing citizens of these problems helps increase awareness and funding. He also highlights that this injustice is not localized: “whether you live there or not you do pay for this, for these aspects, for this injustice.” The demolition affects all demographics, regardless of the zipcode they live in.

The communities of East Phillips plan to improve these conditions, disrupting this all too familiar narrative, with Joe at the forefront of implementing change. Recently, EPNI won an enormous victory: The city agreed that they can buy the Roof Depot site. This was an extremely important win, and Joe described it as “a huge surprise.” He discussed what it was like:

“I was at the meeting with…city representatives…None of this is working for anybody– fighting each other, occupation, arrests… The city is uneasy because, well rightfully so, they’re being faced with persistence because nobody wants this project in their backyard. So in this meeting, the city did openly state that it’d be willing to sell if… we could acquire the dollars to pay them back… which was a surprise to me…I wasn’t expecting them to say that. I was expecting to write out the process of like ‘well, you know, if the money is real we’ll see. We’ll entertain it.  We’ll think about it.’ But for them to say, if you give us the money, we will sell. It’s a surprise. And then I was even more surprised when the media caught wind of it.”

Joe emphasized the importance of the media catching on. Because of the media attention, the city was forced to release an official statement, thus bringing the issue to a larger stage. The recognition was helpful in working towards EPNI’s $20 million goal* for development, 16.7 of which will go to pay back the city, while the rest will go toward construction. One of the first projects they are building is an urban farm. Access to healthy foods, leafy greens, “can help clean the toxins in one’s blood,” says Joe, so increasing access in this sense will not only benefit the community economically, but physically as well.

He encourages young people to get involved with the environmental justice movement wherever they live. “Please get involved,” he says. “Show up. If you have a passion, something that resonates, show up. Ask questions. And give your ideas, because the next generation is what pushes this forward.” He told me how when he was young, renewable energy was the popular  environmental push, and now, communities and industries are actively working toward it. Yet, he wants younger generations to go in different directions that have received less focus. However, he laughed and added, “Also, listen to the old heads… They can be frustrating. I get it…Old heads can be off putting with, you know, are they PC or not. But the old heads…they’ve been there, they can really show you the ropes.”

When asked what keeps him going in this not-so-easy role, his passion overflows. He gives all the credit to his community. He says in moments of doubt and burnout, the community always shows him another way. He is willing to go as far as they dictate, because their time is long overdue in a system where they have not been heard in the past:

What keeps me going is grounding myself in community… because that directs me. You know, it’s like a moral compass, but more importantly, it’s a reminder that I’m in relation, not just with this issue but with my relatives in this land. And it’s why I’m doing everything in the first place. Yes, it is hard. But I’ve never done anything in my life that has made me feel more alive… those moments of alignment when folks are on the same wavelength…that’s what it’s all about.

*If able, please consider donating here to EPNIs $20 million goal for the urban farm!