A little over a week ago, local elections swept the country. In Minnesota, Abdi Warsame won a seat on the Minneapolis City Council representing Ward 6. He took nearly 64% of the votes in his run against the 11-year incumbent, Robert Lilligren, to become the first Somali-American city council member in Minneapolis and the highest-elected official of Somali descent in the United States.
The city has experienced a recent influx of Somali-Americans, and voters and political activists alike have a lot of hope that Warsame will help bridge mainstream Minneapolis and the burgeoning Somali community residing in the south eastern Ward.
Warsame has been working towards this goal since moving to Minneapolis just a few years ago and he's already accomplished a great deal.
Since arriving in Minneapolis in 2006, Warsame quickly began organizing around Somali-American issues such as subsidized housing and local business concerns. In 2012, in an effort to bring typically marginalized populations to the political table, he founded the Citizen’s Committee for Fair Redistricting. They worked with the city council to ensure the local redistricting process resulted in a more representative map that allows minority communities to have a stronger voice.
He helped organize subsidized housing tenants in the Riverside Plaza Tenants Association, an organization that represents 4,000 residents living in the six towers of The Riverside Plaza high-rises, and quickly became the executive director. The towers are situated in the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood, where nearly 80% of the residents are immigrants or refugees from East Africa and the Plaza owns the nickname "Little Somalia." As part of the 2012 redistricting, the buildings became part of Ward 6.
The apartments were built in 1973 as a way of dramatically integrating housing, jobs, arts, and recreation, but quickly the brutalist housing development became a residence of violence and poverty, with the number of residents exceeding well over 13,000 in the late 1970s. Today, the towers are a microcosm of the ward. The area's age demographic is relatively young, broken up into 9 neighborhoods, which are mostly transient apartment complexes with renters moving out regularly.
Because of Abdi's previous work in the community, the Warsame campaign had a good grasp on the undulating flow of the renter community and the challenges that it would pose in organizing support for their candidate. With the help of online campaign manager, Mohamed Mohamed, they built a NationBuilder site to act as a "virtual campaign office," allowing visitors to sign up for volunteer shifts and create their own user profiles on the website.
Using social media to connect with transient residents and broadcast his message, Warsame adeptly organized around his supporter base to garner votes, which helped him win the support of the Minnesota Democratic Farmer Labor Party (DFL). He also ran a robust online fundraising campaign, using personal fundraising profiles and leverage from the local service worker community to raise more money than any other city council candidate.
Warsame will start his time in office by tackling two issues he feels would have a big impact on the socio-economic health and stability of the city - education and housing. He plans to create a strong mentorship program in public schools and focus policies on increasing affordable housing options for low-income families to create longevity in the rental market. These issues form the linchpin of Warsame's plan to unite the diverse citizens of Minneapolis in creating a more equitable and inclusive city.