Star Tribune
Sanneh Foundation is buying houses to offer affordable housing for its employees
Tony Sanneh’s foundation helps low-income kids through free sports camps, educational programs and food distributions. But some of his own employees struggle too.
After learning that six employees were grappling with homelessness, the Sanneh Foundation started buying up houses to rent at affordable rates to entry-level employees. On Friday, the foundation closed on the purchase of its sixth house on St. Paul’s East Side.
“We look at it like a 401(k) — a benefit people may need,” Sanneh said.
“They’re invested not just in the work I’m doing, but me as a person,” said DeAnthoney “Kojak” Acon, 23, an AmeriCorps VISTA member who works on social media and marketing for the St. Paul-based nonprofit. “This is a pretty big moment for us.”
Acon has faced homelessness and housing insecurity for most of his life, he said, but on Saturday he moved into one of the Sanneh Foundation’s houses — his first stable home as an adult.
“I’m building up my life, I’m rebuilding up my foundation,” he said. “It means a lot to me because it’s literally life-changing.”
It’s the first foray into housing programs for the foundation led by Sanneh, a retired Major League Soccer star. And now he wants to provide affordable housing not just for his employees but other nonprofit workers as well.
The foundation is proposing a $35 million Innovation Center off University Avenue in St. Paul with 100 units for nonprofit, education and healthcare workers. The facility also would offer training programs and house the Sanneh Foundation’s offices.
U.S. Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith have requested for $4 million in federal funding for the project, while bills at the Legislature are seeking $6 million in state funding.
“We’re trying to do this to scale,” said Sanneh, who was on the 2002 U.S. World Cup team and retired from pro soccer in 2010. “We could help more than just our nonprofit.”
Since starting the foundation in 2003, he’s pushed it beyond soccer and sports camps, adding education programs and food services to families in need during the COVID-19 pandemic.
When he first heard about some of his own employees having to couch-hop, without a stable place to lay their heads at night, Sanneh offered them spare bedrooms at his Bloomington house. In 2019, the foundation began buying houses with rooms that employees could rent.
The sixth purchase on Friday, a $350,000 recently remodeled house, was accomplished with the help of a $50,000 grant from the St. Paul Area Association of Realtors Charitable Foundation.
The 14 Sanneh Foundation employees who live at the six houses pay modest rent and expenses. All are entry-level workers or AmeriCorps members, who receive an educational award and are paid a living allowance amounting to about $17,000 a year.
“It gives workers a lot of stability,” said Faydane Ouro-Akondo, 23, who works as the foundation’s program coordinator and moved into the new house Friday. “If you don’t have to worry about a place to sleep, it frees up time for other things.”
The foundation has also hired a social worker who helps employees in a workforce development program.
Sanneh estimates the foundation has spent about $1 million on the six houses and townhouses. But he said it’s a worthy investment, especially for an organization that recruits a diverse workforce to reflect the youth they work with in the community. People of color make up 70% of the nonprofit’s employees.
“To change something generationally, we have to start at both ends,” Sanneh said, referring to both the foundation’s employees and the children they serve. “It’s only making what we do better.”
After months of maintenance problems and safety concerns in downtown St. Paul’s Lowry Apartments, city officials condemned the building, forcing dozens of tenants to abruptly relocate to hotels this week.
On Monday afternoon, city staff responded to a plumbing leak in the 11-story building at 345 Wabasha St. N. Officials reported significant damage and signs of vandalism, including copper wire theft that left electrical systems exposed. The leak also raised concerns about mold.
To make repairs, the building’s water must be shut off — a move that would leave tenants without boiler heat and fire sprinklers, Deputy Mayor Jaime Tincher said in a Tuesday email to state Rep. Maria Isa Pérez-Vega and City Council Member Rebecca Noecker, who represent the area.
After determining heat and water could not be restored quickly, Tincher wrote: “There was no other option than to conclude the building was not safe for residents to stay.”
Property manager Halverson and Blaiser Group (HBG) agreed to provide alternative housing for tenants for up to 30 days, Tincher said. City staff worked with Ramsey County’s Housing Stability team and Metro Transit to help 71 residents pack and move.
Before then, the building belonged to downtown St. Paul’s largest property owner, Madison Equities. After the January death of the company’s founder and longtime principal, Jim Crockarell, the dire state of the group’s real estate portfolio became apparent.
The Lowry Apartments, the sole property with a high concentration of low-income housing, quickly became the most troubled. Residents reported frequent break-ins, pest infestations, inoperable elevators and more, to no avail.
Star Tribune
Metro Transit allocated $12 million to boost security, cleanliness on Twin Cities light rail and buses
They will be soon. With more money to spend, Metro Transit plans to bring on 40 more this year. With their ranks growing, TRIP agents, clad in blue, have recently started covering the Metro C and D rapid transit lines between Brooklyn Center and downtown Minneapolis.
The big investment in public safety initiatives comes as Metro Transit is seeing an uptick in ridership that plunged dramatically during the COVID-19 pandemic and has been slow to recover. This year ridership has been a bright spot, the agency said.
Through October, the agency has provided 40.1 million rides, up 7% compared with the first 10 months of 2023. In September, the agency saw its highest monthly ridership in four years, averaging nearly 157,000 rides on weekdays, agency data shows.
At the same time, crime is down 8.4% during the first three quarters of 2024 compared to the same time period last year, according to Metro Transit Interim Police Chief Joe Dotseth. However, problems still persist.
On Nov. 29, Sharif Darryl Walker-El, Jr., 33, was fatally shot on a Green Line train in St. Paul. Just a week earlier, a woman was shot in the leg while on the train and taken to the hospital with non-life threatening injuries. Earlier this year, a robbery attempt on the Green Line in St. Paul left a passenger shot and wounded.
“Our officers are spending time on the system and sending a clear message to everyone: Crime will not be tolerated on transit,” Dotseth said. “And we will work to ensure those commit those crimes are held accountable.”
The ACLU of Minnesota has sued Otter Tail County, its sheriff and correctional officers at its jail, alleging unlawful punishment of a man known to them who has serious mental health issues.
Ramsey Kettle, 33, a member of White Earth Nation and lifelong Otter Tail County resident, was jailed in February on charges that were dropped two months later. The ACLU says that the sheriff’s office attempted to cover up the mistreatment, but a whistleblower working at the jail reported the abuse to the state. A 46-page lawsuit was filed this week in U.S. District Court of Minnesota.
“Mr. Kettle was subjected to extreme, punitive treatment in violation of his constitutional rights and standards for basic human dignity,” the ACLU said in a statement. “Otter Tail County officers, with approval of the acting jail administrator, kept Mr. Kettle locked up in solitary confinement for days without food, water, or appropriate medical and mental health care.”
Otter Tail County spokesperson Shannon Terry said in an email to the Minnesota Star Tribune that “Due to the impending litigation, Otter Tail County has no comment or statement at this time.” Terry did confirm that Kettle was released from custody April 24, when the charges were dropped.
Kettle was immediately placed in solitary confinement after he arrived at the jail Feb. 9, the lawsuit says. Jail staff didn’t assess Kettle’s poor mental health, which the ACLU says was well-documented and known to officers. The ACLU says Kettle “exhibited increasing signs of physical and mental distress” and officers allegedly “laughed at him, mocked him, and left him to suffer.”
Kettle had been booked at the jail multiple times before. In March 2022, he was convicted of making terroristic threats and sentenced to two years. On the day he was scheduled to be released from Rush City Correctional Facility after serving his full sentence, he was charged in Otter Tail with four counts of aggravated witness tampering stemming from the conviction.
“Rather than going home on February 9, 2024, as he had anticipated for nearly two years, he was transferred to Otter Tail County Jail to await trial on these new charges. The new charges were unfounded and intended solely to keep Mr. Kettle incarcerated,” the lawsuit states.
District Judge Johnathan Judd dismissed the charges as lacking foundation.
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