Rep. Omar celebrates federal funding for Minnesota Public Housing fire sprinkler systems
(KSTP/file)
On Thursday, Rep. Ilhan Omar will appear along with other elected officials to discuss securing funding to ensure all Minnesota Public Housing Authority (MPHA) apartments have fire sprinkler systems.
Rep. Omar alongside Sen. Amy Klobuchar and Sen. Tina Smith helped to get $2 million in federal funding to accelerate installing this potentially life-saving fire equipment, following a deadly fire in 2019 at a high-rise building in the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood of Minneapolis that didn’t have a sprinkler system.
RELATED: Federal funding will help Minneapolis public housing add sprinklers to high rise buildings
The funding was secured in 2022, and is part of a bigger, $21 million plan to help retrofit MPHA high rises that don’t have fire suppression systems due to being built before housing codes required them.
The Minnesota Fire Marshal said sprinklers would have saved lives at the 2019 fire.
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