Star Tribune
Bimosedaa, an affordable housing development, opens for Native Americans tenants in downtown Minneapolis
Joseph Maxwell lived in his car and various shelters for the last six years, staying alert for danger even as he slept. Noise made by others kept him awake at night, as did staffers at one shelter checking on him every three hours.
Now that has all changed. Maxwell is one of the first to move into Bimosedaa, an affordable housing complex in downtown Minneapolis that offers supportive services with a special focus on the needs of Native American tenants. Eighteen residents currently live at Bimosedaa, one of a handful of developments in Minnesota that caters to Native residents facing homelessness and struggling with substance abuse.
“Here, I fall right in a deep sleep,” said Maxwell, who moved into the building in December. “For the first week I was here, I didn’t hear anything. I caught up on all my sleep just from not being alerted.”
Two nonprofits — Beacon Interfaith Housing Collaborative and Avivo — partnered with the Red Lake Nation to develop Bimosedaa in May 2019. It was a direct response to the eviction by Minneapolis city officials of the Wall of Forgotten Natives homeless encampment in 2018.
The city evicted a second iteration of the camp last August and the Camp Nenookaasi encampment early last month, both of them with large numbers of Native occupants. Two encampments that then sprang up in the Phillips and Ventura Village neighborhoods were evicted last week, with city officials citing health and safety problems. A new camp was reported to have been established Friday near Abbott Northwestern Hospital.
Bimosedaa ― “Let’s walk together” in Ojibwe — is in Minneapolis’ Warehouse District and includes 48 units on seven floors. Each unit is rented out at $1,010 a month, which is 30% of the area median income.
Maxwell shares his unit with his partner, Elizabeth Howard. They each have their own bedroom and bathroom but share a communal kitchen.
“It was just not a good environment at those kinds of houses where we were staying at,” Maxwell said of the shelters. “I mean, it was good that we were still around Native people, but it was just not like this. We have our own apartment. This is my first apartment ever.”
Both Maxwell and Howard are from the Red Lake Nation. Maxwell has received Social Security benefits for over 20 years, of which three-quarters — about $750 per month — goes toward rent. A Hennepin County housing program contributes another portion, he said.
Thirty-six units at Bimosedaa are studios and a dozen units are two-bedroom apartments. The lobby and other common areas are in the final stages of renovation, and work to preserve the building’s facade will be finished in a few months.
Each unit comes with a small table, mattress and bed frame, and an armoire. There’s no free parking, said Dan Gregory, Beacon’s communications manager, but there’s a light-rail station about a block away, and the building offers a bike room in the basement.
Beacon develops affordable housing across the state, serving a rental clientele that is about 90% people of color. It purchased the building for Bimosedaa in 2019 for $1.9 million and renovated it over the last five years.
“This pacing is actually impressively fast for deeply affordable housing developments and was only possible thanks to concerted efforts by Beacon, our partners, the city, county, and state to bring all the resources to bear,” according to a Beacon news release.
Beacon has invested $30 million in Bimosedaa, including nearly $7 million from state historic tax credits. The building’s previous owner, the L.A. Rockler Fur Co., operated as furriers going back to the 1920s. When Rockler closed its doors, Beacon took the remaining furs and donated them to the Red Lake Nation to be repurposed. Beacon hosted a Native ceremony to bless the furs and the building before Bimosedaa opened.
Avivo will provide social services to Bimosedaa residents, helping them with things like rides to doctors’ appointments, government aid and job applications. The building houses Avivo offices, including counseling rooms and a medical exam room. Nurses from community clinics will provide free health services.
Other services include mental health and substance abuse treatment. Bimosedaa tenants don’t have to be sober to receive the treatments, said Avivo program director David Jeffries. “That’s something that we’re looking to do … is be non-judgmental, open-minded, inviting, supportive,” he said.
Adrian King, a spiritual care coordinator at Avivo, will provide culturally relevant services to Native tenants at Bimosedaa. At Avivo Village, a transitional “tiny homes” community in Minneapolis, he leads smudging ceremonies, burning sacred herbs to draw out negativity. He also facilitates talking circles with residents to have a safe, private space for processing personal trauma.
Maxwell and Howard said they can see themselves living at Bimosedaa long-term because they feel safe and stable there and have privacy.
“We didn’t have the help like we do down here,” Maxwell said. “They really got a lot of stuff started down here for people who are on drugs. I’d say the biggest barrier was having people shut the door to your face, time and time again.”
About the partnership
This story comes to you from Sahan Journal, a nonprofit newsroom dedicated to covering Minnesota’s immigrants and communities of color. Sign up for a free newsletter to receive Sahan’s stories in your inbox.
Star Tribune
Long Prairie, MN school board dismisses its superintendent, the latest controversy in this small town
LONG PRAIRIE, MINN. — The school district superintendent dressed up as the school mascot, Thor, on football nights. He read the graduation address in both English and Spanish. He even set up office hours in the cafeteria, granting easier approachability to students.
But now, two months into the school year, Daniel Ludvigson is gone. Or, rather, “on special assignment,” according to the terminology of the Long Prairie-Grey Eagle School Board, which voted 4-3 earlier this month to remove him as superintendent. The move came weeks after voting to not renew his contract, which expires at the end of the school year in June.
Four board members — two of whom voted to oust Ludvigson, including Board Chair Kelly Lemke — are up for re-election next week.
The dismissal is the latest blow in this central Minnesota community on the edge of the prairie. Over the last nine months, the town of 3,400 residents and seat of Todd County has lost its mayor, a city manager, two school board members, and now its superintendent.
Students walked out earlier this month in support of Ludvigson. Signs in support of Ludvigson can be seen across town on the lawns of apparent Democrats and Republicans alike. And last week, hundreds packed the American Legion off Hwy. 71 to eat beef sandwiches and sign support letters for Ludvigson, who only swung by to pick up his child for hockey practice.
In a time of great divide in America, this fight has nothing to do with politics.
“You’ve got Harris buttons and Trump hats side-by-side, arm-in-arm,” said Amanda Hinson, a former local newspaper reporter who is concerned the board is not being upfront about why they placed Ludvigson on special assignment. “We want transparency in our government.”
Lawn signs around Long Prairie, Minn., now include people weighing in on the dismissal of Superintendent Daniel Ludvigson by the school board. (Christopher Vondracek)
School board members say Ludvigson has repeatedly shown he is not ready for the prime time of a school district bigger than the one in central North Dakota he arrived from two years ago. They have twice disciplined Ludvigson, but did not state the reason for placing him on “special assignment,” beyond insinuating that staff are fearful to raise official complaints.
Rain and potentially heavy snow are on tap Thursday around the Twin Cities, just before families set out for Halloween trick-or-treating.
Temperatures were expected to drop throughout the day, creating conditions for flurries. A winter weather advisory is in effect from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. covering the Twin Cities metro area and parts of south-central Minnesota. Steady rain drenched the Twin Cities on Thursday, making for a soggy morning commute.
“As colder air begins to move in this morning, the rain will transition to heavy snow from west to east with snowfall rates of an inch per hour at times into early afternoon,” the National Weather Service in Chanhassen said in a weather advisory.
The Twin Cities and surrounding areas could get between 2 and 4 inches of snow, according to the weather service. The winter weather advisory is expected to affect Anoka, Chisago, Hennepin, Ramsey, Scott, Washington and Le Sueur counties.
It’s unclear how much of the snow will actually stick, with warm surface temperatures likely leading to melting on contact in many areas.
“Exact totals will depend on snowfall rate, surface temperatures, and melting — which increases uncertainty with the snow forecast,” the weather service said in an early Thursday briefing.
“Thundersnow possible!” the weather service emphasized.
The good news for Halloween revelers is that the snow and rain are expected to wrap up in time for trick-or-treating, though temperatures will remain in the 30s with a sharp windchill.
An off-duty Washington County sheriff’s deputy caused a head-on crash while under the influence of alcohol and injured a couple in the other vehicle, officials said.
The crash occurred about 10:40 a.m. Sunday in Afton on Hwy. 95 at Scenic Lane, the Minnesota State Patrol said.
Campbell Johnston Blair, 58, of Hastings, was heading north in his Subaru Crosstrek, crossed into the opposite lane and collided with a southbound Ford Expedition, the patrol said.
Blair and the other vehicle’s occupants, 38-year-old Erik Robert Sward and 36-year-old Heather Lynn Sward, both of Lake Elmo, were taken to Regions Hospital with non-critical injuries, according to the patrol.
The patrol noted the alcohol use by Blair was involved in the crash.
Blair, who was driving a private vehicle at the time of the crash while off-duty, has been a deputy with the Sheriff’s Office since 2020 and is currently assigned to our Court Security Unit.
The Sheriff’s Office has been asked for reaction to the crash involving one of its deputies.
