Star Tribune
New St. Cloud housing promises to be right size for immigrant families
ST. CLOUD — Five years ago, a new nonprofit started here with goals to support residents in four areas: equitable education, workforce development, community health and housing.
Then the pandemic happened.
And as much of the nonprofit CAIRO’s focus shifted to helping families suddenly overwhelmed with navigating school at home, its mission became clearer: Success in all other areas begins with proper housing.
“Everything we were trying to address previously was at the periphery of housing,” said Abdikadir Bashir, executive director of CAIRO (Center for African Immigrants and Refugees Organization). “Without truly addressing the housing needs of families, we were not able to talk about inequities in education or community health or other aspects like workforce.”
That realization spurred the nonprofit’s biggest project to date: creating a first-of-its-kind workforce housing development in a bustling area on the city’s north side.
The nonprofit recently purchased for $1.2 million a 3.6-acre site at 33rd Avenue N. and N. Third Street that houses a vacant Wells Fargo branch. Nearby are several malls and businesses that cater to residents of East African descent. The plan is to raze the bank building and start construction on a new structure — with community space on the first floor and housing above — in the next year or two.
“This is still in its infancy stage. We just got our keys,” said Sabrin Ali, CAIRO’s workforce development and partnership coordinator.
Project partners include state housing agencies, local banks, and nonprofits including the Initiative Foundation in Little Falls, which recently approved a $500,000 loan for the development.
“What’s really cool for us is it’s a mission-driven project,” said Bob McClintick, communications director at the foundation. “This is part of our philosophy and mission — to reach into underserved communities as we work to create equity and prosperity.”
The lack of affordable housing in the state — especially in greater Minnesota — is well-documented. In a recent report, the Minnesota Housing Finance Agency found that about 70% of new rental units built in the last five years are not affordable to low-income renters.
But housing prospects are even more dire for many refugee or immigrant families, who often have larger-than-average and multigenerational households. Bashir said the families CAIRO works with have on average six to eight members, compared to the national average of about three.
“There’s an inadequacy of right-sized units for the large-sized families we work with. There isn’t enough stock,” Bashir said, noting a majority of houses and apartments have only two bedrooms and many of the units with additional bedrooms are small and designed for college students. “Our project will be different. It’s going to be housing designed and dedicated for families — bigger rooms, more spacious, with new construction.”
Don Hickman, vice president for community and workforce development at the Initiative Foundation, said developers have not had to be creative or flexible in designing different spaces because the demand for housing is so acute.
“Whatever they’ve got, somebody is willing to rent it,” he said. “And the costs of building new housing that is within reach of an entry-level or working family is not a moneymaker for developers.”
Bashir said he hopes the project, which will be tailored to working-class families, will serve as a model in the region: “This project will set the tone for other developers because development should always cater to the needs of the renters.”
Anti-police brutality activists interrupted a Minneapolis City Council meeting Thursday to call for Police Chief Brian O’Hara’s firing, saying his department failed a Black man who begged police for help for months, to no avail, before he was finally shot in the neck by his white neighbor.
John Sawchak, 54, is charged with shooting Davis Moturi, 34, even though three warrants had been issued for his arrest in connection with threats to Moturi and other neighbors.
Activists showed up at the council meeting and asked for time to talk about the case. Instead, the council recessed and activists took the podium and castigated the city for failing Black people, even as state and federal officials are forcing the police department into court-sanctioned monitoring because of past civil rights violations.
Nekima Levy Armstrong, founder of the Racial Justice Network, said O’Hara needs to be held accountable.
“This is not the first time instance where the community has raised concerns about his poor judgment, poor leadership, blaming the community and excuses. It’s completely unacceptable for him to get away with it,” she said. “How many Black people’s doors have they kicked in for less?”
On Thursday the council voted to request the city auditor review the city’s involvement in and response to the matters between Moturi and Sawchak.
Mayor Jacob Frey released a statement in response saying he supports the council’s call for an independent review of the case, but O’Hara “will continue to be the Minneapolis police chief.”
Protesters also questioned why the public hadn’t heard from Community Safety Commissioner Toddrick Barnette, who called a news conference within hours to say he’s not going to fire O’Hara and the city leadership supports him.
A Girl Scout from Troop 58068 told the Woodbury City Council recently that they should allow backyard chickens in the city: They cheer people up, she said.
It turned out that chickens were on an upcoming agenda and, perhaps pushed a bit by the scout’s lobbying, the Woodbury City Council at their next meeting passed a new ordinance allowing for backyard hens.
The new ordinance went into effect on Oct. 23, the night of the council meeting, and will allow people who live on property zoned R-2, a “rural estate” district, to have backyard chickens. A typical city lot is zoned R-4 and those areas still cannot have chickens, the council said.
The city has received requests “here and there” for the last several years about backyard chickens, City Council Member Andrea Date said.
Backyard chickens come have home to roost — and never leave — in a host of other Minnesota cities that allow them, from Hopkins to Thief River Falls. It’s long been allowed in both St. Paul and Minneapolis, and new cities started approving backyard coops during the pandemic, when interest spiked.
In Woodbury, it wasn’t until the question was included on the city’s biannual survey that city staff knew how people felt. The survey found less support for chickens on a typical city lot — just 13% of respondents said they strongly approve of the idea while 43% percent strongly disapproved — but a majority approved of backyard chickens on lots of 1 acre or more.
The city’s rules until recently only allowed chickens on “rural estate” properties of five or more acres.
The new ordinance allows up to six hens, but no roosters, on property less than four acres that meets the zoning requirements. Larger properties can have an additional two chickens per acre above four acres. The ordinance also sets a height limit for chicken coops of 7 feet. No license or permit is required in Woodbury for backyard chickens.
Star Tribune
Anonymous donor pays overdue bill for Fergus Falls home where town’s first Black resident lived
A $10,000 overdue special assessment bill threatening tax forfeiture of a historic Fergus Falls home was paid off this week thanks to an anonymous donor.
Prince Albert Honeycutt lived at 612 Summit Avenue East, renamed Honeycutt Memorial Drive in 2021. Not only was Honeycutt the town’s first Black resident — settling there in 1872 from Tennessee — he was the state’s first Black professional baseball player, first Black firefighter and first Black mayoral candidate.
He was an early pioneer and prominent businessman who owned a barbershop in town. Missy Hermes, with the Otter Tail County Historical Society, said Honeycutt and his wife were likely the first Black people in Minnesota to testify in a capital murder trial of a man who was convicted and hanged in Fergus Falls.
“In other places, you would never have a Black person testifying against a white person, especially a woman, too, before women could vote even,” Hermes said. “Obviously he was respected enough.”
Nancy Ann and Prince Albert Honeycutt with their children inside the now-historic Honeycutt house in 1914. Photo from the collections of the Otter Tail County Historical Society.
When dozens of people from Kentucky moved to Fergus Falls in April 1898, known as “the first 85,” Honeycutt helped integrate them into the community.
He died in 1924 at age 71 and is buried in Oak Grove Cemetery in Fergus Falls.
Up until 2016, several owners lived in the Honeycutt home. But the city bought and sold the house to nonprofit Flowingbrook Ministry for $1 to take over the tax-exempt property and operate the ministry.
Ministry founder Lynette Higgins-Orr, who previously lived in Fergus Falls, moved to Florida several years ago and little activity has been going on in the historic home since. But she said there are plans to make it into a museum.
