Star Tribune
Dakota County resumes planning for homeless shelter, with focus on community input
Six months after public outcry prompted Dakota County to pause plans for its first permanent adult homeless shelter, county leaders are ready to try again with a different approach.
Last fall, the county was moving forward with plans to apply for a state grant to help fund the purchase of an Eagan hotel and convert it into a homeless shelter. But after hundreds of residents packed a County Board meeting in protest, voicing concerns about public safety and nearby businesses, the county shelved the idea.
This time, county officials say they’re moving slowly, concentrating on engagement and outreach to help allay residents’ concerns as they work to identify a new site by mid-2025. But they’re also aware that the number of people in need of shelter in south metro cities is growing, so a solution must be found soon.
“There’s a tension in all of this planning because we have an urgent need now, which is that people experiencing homelessness are in need of support,” said Dakota County Social Services Director Evan Henspeter. “What we’re doing now is not ideal.”
Dakota County funds several efforts to help homeless people, in collaboration with other organizations, at an annual cost of $12 million, officials said.
That includes sheltering single adults in local hotels, providing housing at Dakota Woodlands family shelter in Eagan and investing $600,000 yearly in operating Cahill Place, an apartment building that also provides services to 41 recently homeless families.
Henspeter said he’s concerned because the county is reliant on hotels’ willingness to rent out rooms. He’s hopeful that as the county increases its public outreach about shelter planning, more people will understand why officials are looking for other solutions.
“I do think that going through a process of inviting people in … does make a difference in shifting the balance away from fear and stigma winning the day,” he said.
Dakota County Commissioner Joe Atkins said the county has been busy doing its homework.
“We learned a valuable lesson from when we tried to do it too quickly,” he said.
The shelter won’t be what some people were picturing, with long lines of people outside, said Dakota County Commissioner Liz Workman. Clients will be vetted and the facility will have staff and security, she said.
The county’s goal
A county-organized housing work group identified the need for a permanent shelter for single adults in the fall of 2021 and recommended the county invest in more affordable housing and homelessness prevention.
“The one that is hard to move forward and that we’ve been working on for two-plus years is the shelter conversation,” Henspeter said.
All seven county commissioners have said publicly that they agree on the need for the shelter, he said.
The county is open to building new, or converting an office or hotel into a shelter. The Norwood Inn, the Eagan site proposed in September, is still on the table. It rose to the top of the list because of its convenient location and lower appraised value than other hotels. It would have been renovated to include 55 separate rooms and social services on site.
Residents said they opposed the grant application because the location is near a park, several restaurants and a Montessori school. They also pointed to the lack of time for public comment and the $24 million cost to buy and remodel it.
Officials are now looking for a site that’s accessible to transit and walkable. It should be close to community amenities like a grocery store and pharmacy and ideally near green space and retail.
‘Hidden’ homelessness
Trying to estimate how many people in Dakota County are unsheltered is tricky, with multiple data sets and varying definitions of homelessness.
A recent report by Wilder Research found that the number of homeless Minnesotans dropped 7% in the past five years, though several sources said the opposite seems to be true.
“[Decline] has not been our local experience,” Henspeter said, adding that the county’s 2023 Point-In-Time (PIT) count found 104 unsheltered people, the highest number yet.
Amber Hanson, director of housing and homeless services for Ally Supportive Services, a organization that collaborates with Dakota County, offers three different programs to help homeless people: Street Outreach, the Housing Support Team and Emergency Shelter.
Hanson said she usually doubles or triples the PIT count figure for an accurate estimate. Ally has contact with 400 to 500 homeless people monthly, though that number could include people from other counties. “Absolutely [homelessness] numbers are going up,” she said. “Our numbers show it and we feel it.”
She said she’s excited about the coming Dakota County adult shelter and supports the county’s slower pace and emphasis on community education.
“I’m ok with it if that’s what it takes,” she said.
She hopes the shelter will be “low barrier and easy access,” she said. “We need to simplify it too, we’ll shelter you if you need it,” she said.
Dakota County homelessness is different than in Ramsey or Hennepin counties, she said.
“It’s more hidden. We have more people in cars and hiding in these well-known and wooded areas … and you would never think it,” she said.
Amy Piotrowski, student support services director for Burnsville-Eagan-Savage schools, said there were 326 homeless students in the district in early March — and that’s just the ones they know about. She’s seen a “slight increase” in numbers over the last few years.
Lisa Lusk,director of programs and operations for the nonprofit 360 Communities, which runs five food shelves and other services to prevent homelessness, said there’s a huge need for the adult shelter. Her organization stops doing new intakes after the first two days of each month. By then, they’ve already had 100 to 150 calls from people who need rent assistance.
“Everybody is as overwhelmed as we are,” she said.
“We’ve never once invoked that,” Lingo said. “There have been conversations [about] in order to compel ID you need to have identification, or you could be arrested for that, or if you’re not behaving, or you need to be trespassed. But that’s a different conversation than immigration, and deportation has never been brought to the conversation.”
Hundreds of U.S. cities, including Minneapolis, have declared themselves sanctuary cities, where police are discouraged from reporting people’s immigration status unless they are investigating a serious crime.
Marta has sold empanadas and Ecuadorian desserts on Lake Street, usually making $60 to $70 a day to pay her rent and support her children. The 38-year-old woman also sold food on the streets of Ecuador, where migrants have come in record numbers to Minnesota, fleeing poverty and violence. The Fort Snelling immigration court has a backlog of over 13,341 Ecuadorian cases pending, a huge increase since 2018, when there were 344 cases.
Cindy Weckwerth, environmental health director for the Minneapolis Health Department, said in recent months, the city has seen an increase in unlicensed vendors and complaints about them.
Lingo said so far this year, there have been 38 violations and citations for operating a sidewalk food cart without a license; repeat offenders can get cited, which brings a $200 fine.
Inspectors are sometimes accompanied by police officers, Lingo said, because often vendors resist giving their identity and sometimes are uncooperative or are amid a large group.
Star Tribune
Minnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan is slowly opening up about her childhood past amid domestic violence
She realized that violence in the home wasn’t normal when she finally left for college and sensed that other kids didn’t grow up that way. “Most people don’t call home to see if I should come home after school, or if I should go to my best friend Lauren’s house,” she said.
Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan observed artwork hanging at Cornerstone, an advocacy center for victims of domestic violence, human trafficking and sexual violence. The tour of the Minneapolis facility was led by Colleen Schmitt, director of emergency services. (Renée Jones Schneider)
Flanagan has often connected with Minnesotans by sharing tales about her personal life, such as when she recounts what it was like to grow up with a single mom in St. Louis Park who relied on public assistance. And yet for many years, she said, she didn’t feel comfortable talking openly about her family’s history with domestic abuse.
That changed when she got a nudge from an unlikely source. Flanagan, as she tells it, was in Washington, D.C., in 2009 as part of her work with the progressive training group Wellstone Action. Then-Vice President Joe Biden was receiving an award from the Sheila Wellstone Institute for his advocacy of domestic violence victims. Before the official ceremony, Flanagan felt compelled to share with Biden about the abuse she observed as a child.
“I just start weeping, and the vice president stood up and gave me a hug. I literally cried into his chest,” she recalled. “And he said, ‘If you can tell the vice president that story, I bet you can tell other people that story.’ ”
And so she has, gradually.
The advocates at Cornerstone, including executive director Artika Roller, who has spent more than two decades helping abuse victims, heard Flanagan speak about it at a rally for action among advocates and survivors.
Another closure of I-494 in the south metro will put thousands of motorists on detour this weekend.
The eastbound lanes of the freeway will be shut down between Hwy. 100 and Cedar Avenue/Hwy. 77 and westbound lanes between Cedar Avenue/Hwy. 77 and Interstate 35W from 10 p.m. Friday to 5 a.m. Monday, the Minnesota Department of Transportation said.
Some ramps leading to I-494 will start closing at 8 p.m. Friday. Motorists will be directed to use Crosstown Hwy. 62 to get around the closure, the agency said.
American Boulevard, which runs parallel to I-494, will be closed starting Monday through Nov. 11 between Hwy. 100 and France Avenue in Bloomington.
American Blvd. is closed to through traffic in both directions between Hwy 100 and France Ave
The closures are related to construction in which MnDOT is adding an EZ Pass lane on I-494 between I-35W and Hwy. 100, rebuilding the I-35W/I-494 interchange and replacing bridges over I-494 at Portland, Nicollet and 12th avenues.
In the west metro, westbound Hwy. 55 remains closed through Nov. 1 between Hwy. 169 and Interstate 494. Motorists can use I-394 as a detour MnDOT said.
