Star Tribune
A ‘transformational’ increase in affordable housing in the Twin Cities as new projects break ground
A flurry of new affordable housing projects are breaking ground or opening up across Minneapolis and St. Paul this month, aiming to meet a dire need, thanks in part to historic state funding increases last year.
On Tuesday, Trellis and Agate Housing and Services celebrated a groundbreaking in Minneapolis for a new 54-bed shelter and 50 affordable apartments in the Longfellow neighborhood. On Thursday, Project for Pride in Living and Wells Fargo will break ground on 110 affordable apartments off Lake Street and Nicollet Avenue.
Nearby, in the Whittier neighborhood, Simpson Housing Services and Project for Pride in Living started construction this month on a 72-bed shelter and 42 affordable apartments, Simpson’s biggest project in its four decades. And in St. Paul last month, Emma Norton Services and Project for Pride in Living opened new supportive and affordable housing in the Highland Bridge redevelopment.
“It’s quite transformational with all the new developments and buildings that are going up. And at the end of the day, there’s still more need,” said Kyle Hanson, executive director of Agate. “We’re so far behind the amount of units needed.”
Nonprofit leaders credit the DFL-controlled Legislature last year for approving a $1 billion housing bill — much of which was one-time spending from the state’s record-breaking budget surplus — for expediting projects waiting for final funding. Cities and counties also had remaining federal COVID-19 funds that benefited some projects.
“There’s been a backlog of projects that have been just waiting and ready to go,” said Paul Williams, CEO of Project for Pride in Living. “More resources helped accelerate the work.”
The state still faces persistent shortages in homeless shelter beds and affordable housing. Minnesota is short 114,000 affordable rental homes, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition.
“It is an exciting moment to see all these projects so desperately needed … and we are desperately far behind,” said Anne Mavity, executive director of the Minnesota Housing Partnership, which has pushed for a constitutional amendment to create a “legacy fund” for housing projects. “We are trying to bridge this gap … 40 apartments at a time. We need to completely rethink how we create a system that can more easily and cost-effectively create the homes that Minnesotans need.”
While homelessness in Minnesota has declined slightly in the past five years, it still remains at the second-highest level in 30 years of Wilder Research tracking data. Nonprofits on the front lines of helping Minnesotans in need are juggling rising operating costs of current buildings with the higher costs of building new ones, Williams said.
“Every nonprofit and for-profit that is operating affordable housing now is struggling to break even,” Williams said. “It’s a real pressure point.”
Agate
Agate’s new shelter and affordable housing off 27th Avenue S. will likely open by fall 2025. The $25 million project was initially expected to start last year, but it was delayed by financing.
The Legislature approved the final $12 million in bonding bill funding and capital improvement grants last year. Without that state aid, Hanson said the project would have been delayed to drum up donations.
“We haven’t seen funding like this in a couple of decades,” Hanson said.
The building replaced a restaurant, destroyed by arsonists in 2020 after George Floyd’s murder, and adjacent properties. The project will provide more privacy for residents with six- to eight-bed rooms instead of the decades-old model of filling a church basement with bunk beds.
Simpson
At Simpson United Methodist Church in the Whittier neighborhood, residents have stayed in bunk beds in windowless basement rooms for decades. The congregation gave Simpson the church when it disbanded in 2017, and the church was demolished last winter to make way for the new four-story shelter and affordable apartments developed by Project for Pride in Living and Simpson.
The shelter and efficiency apartments should open next year. Most of the $40 million cost came from federal and local government, including $5 million approved by the Legislature in 2023.
With homeless encampments increasing due to full shelters and people not feeling safe in existing shelters, the 8- or 10-person rooms will better help Minnesotans move on to permanent housing than a crowded room of bunk beds, said Steve Horsfield, executive director of Simpson.
“The more dignity we build into the system, the better that we make it, the more folks we’re going to get off the streets,” he said.
PPL
Off Lake Street, Project for Pride in Living’s $58 million six-story project that’s breaking ground Thursday is slated to open next year with one- to four-bedroom apartments, replacing a Wells Fargo that burned down in the 2020 riots near the former Kmart. The building will also have a Wells Fargo and businesses owned by entrepreneurs of color, part of a broader effort to increase equity in development, Williams said.
“That was an important response to George Floyd,” he said. “We doubled down on that strategy in this project.”
Most of the project is paid by local and federal governments, which approved funding faster than usual, Williams said, because it’s a large project in a high-profile corridor of Minneapolis.
Emma Norton
In St. Paul, Emma Norton and Project for Pride in Living opened Restoring Waters last month, 60 units of affordable supportive housing, mostly for single women with a history of homelessness, mental illness or chemical dependency.
Emma Norton moved the program from 1960s dorm-style apartments in downtown St. Paul to mostly one-bedroom apartments, with case managers, a wellness clinic and meditation room as well as the organization’s offices. The $25 million project was mostly publicly funded.
Next door, Project for Pride in Living opened Nellie Francis Court last month, providing 75 low-income apartments for adults and families.
“Homelessness is something we can solve in our communities,” Emma Norton Executive Director Tonya Brownlow said. “We continue to need more and to build more because it costs us too much as a society when we think people living on the streets is an acceptable solution.”
Authorities are piecing together details of a suspected murder in or around Pine County.
Jail records show the Pine County Sheriff’s Office arrested a 31-year-old man Friday on suspicion of second-degree murder. The Star Tribune typically does not name suspects until they are charged.
It was unclear when the incident occurred or whether it occurred in Pine County. Authorities said they planned to release more details after investigators gather information.
Pine County is about 60 miles north of the Twin Cities.
This is a developing story. Check back with startribune.com for more information.
While the headlines about the lawsuit discussed the crux of Haynes’ claim, it’s also important to understand the totality of his request from the actual lawsuit, which calls his wrongful conviction “an egregious miscarriage of justice. “
“Claimant Marvin Haynes spent nearly two decades wrongfully incarcerated for a murder and assault he did not commit. He was wrongfully arrested as a teenager of only sixteen years old, later thrust into life-threatening conditions in adult prison, and robbed of the formative years of his youth and young adulthood,” the lawsuit states. “Mr. Haynes was finally exonerated and released at the age of thirty-six. During his wrongful incarceration, Mr. Haynes lost the opportunity to graduate high school alongside his peers, to see his maternal grandparents — with whom he had a close relationship — before they passed away, and to spend valuable years with his mother before a stroke rendered her unable to speak or care for herself. During the years when most teenagers find their independence and define their sense of self, Mr. Haynes was forced to spend his days worrying about his safety and fighting to prove his innocence. And while Mr. Haynes worked hard to achieve his high school diploma during his wrongful incarceration, any thought of further education had to be pushed aside in favor of tireless efforts to gain his freedom.”
There are “wounds,” mentioned in the lawsuit, in Haynes’ family that changed him and those around him. Only Haynes and those close to him will ever understand that dynamic. But the $2 million he’s earned won’t remove those scars.
It is also, unfortunately, no guarantee that he will get what he’s requested.
For those in Haynes’ position, the battle for compensation is often fruitless. In a study of 1,800 exonerees, only 42% were compensated, according to Most Policy Initiative, a Missouri-based think tank.
Haynes has every right to live his life with an embittered demeanor. He could be angry. And I think, if I were in his shoes, I would be. But I also don’t know what it’s like to be Marvin Haynes. I do, however, wonder how he acquired the grace that’s allowed him to begin the journey to reclaim his life.
There, Jojean Ziegler, the financial assistance supervisor, and other staff members review the person’s income and assets, including life insurance and money in bank accounts. In the case of married couples or a minor, the county also looks at family members’ assets. Funeral businesses can also ask families to contribute a sum of money, capped at $830 for funerals and cremations, and $1,300 for cemeteries.
Ziegler said the rate increase comes as she’s heard from businesses that their costs are rising. The county last increased its rates in 2016.
In recent years, the number of Ramsey County burial assistance cases has gone up and down. Last year, there were 522 approved, at a cost of $616,000. So far this year, there have been more than 420, costing more than $508,000.
“I provide county-assisted burials to families that are in my community, in the Maplewood area, and families that I’ve served,” said JR Jaskulske, shown at Oakwod Funeral Home in Maplewood. “Sometimes there’s just hardships in families and you just have to take care of them.” (Jeff Wheeler/The Minnesota Star Tribune)
Other counties are bracing for an increase in county assistance cases.
Years ago, Hennepin County raised its burial assistance to $3,000, with up to $2,000 in additional family contributions permitted for enhanced services, spokesperson Carolyn Marinan said. “Suffice it to say we are definitely seeing an increase [in requests for burial assistance],” she wrote in an email, citing the opioid epidemic and COVID as factors driving an increase in demand in recent years.
However, the number of people dying of opioid overdoses has declined recently, partly attributed to more widespread availability of overdose-reversal drug naloxone.
