Kare11
Minneapolis’ Stable Homes, Stable Schools program in 5th year
Homelessness and housing instability is something that has been a part of the life of one in five students in Minneapolis. It’s something the district, the city, and the county have come together to try and change so that kids can focus more on school and not where they will sleep.
The program is called Stable Homes, Stable Schools. It started in 2019 after the former director of public housing for the city of Minneapolis watched a documentary about the instability homelessness was causing at Lucy Laney Elementary.
Minneapolis Public Schools director of Homeless Highly Mobile Student Support Services, Charlotte Kinzley, said that he went to the mayor and suggested the idea of creating a partnership. The program launched to help the schools with the highest levels of homelessness in the district.
Kinzley said last year, the district had a little over 3,200 students who experienced homelessness, which is about 9% of the student body. When looking at the entire student body, she said 20% have at some point been homeless.
“The effects of homelessness last much longer than even just getting stable,” she said. “We know it impacts beyond that experience.”
She said she doesn’t love looking at statistics, because so often students are resilient.
“Every day we see the resiliency of our students, and rising above all the odds and those statistics,” she said. “I just wish they didn’t have to.”
Stable Homes, Stable Schools
Improving student outcomes through housing
Stable Homes, Stable Schools manager Sharmika Riddley said the program has two pathways.
The first, The Housing Stability Fund, focuses on preventing homelessness in the first place. With this pathway, families can get emergency help paying down balances on late rent, late utilities, and eviction court settlements. Riddley said in some cases people can get help with car payments and bills as well. It comes down to getting a family what they need to prevent them from losing their home.
Any time they can prevent a family from becoming homeless, Kinzley said, that is something they want to be doing.
The other pathway helps families pay their rent to escape or avoid homelessness. This program offers a voucher for three years along with case management, which gets families into stable and long-term affordable housing. The family pays 30% of their income toward rent, and Minneapolis Public Housing Assistance pays the rest.
Stable Homes, Stable Schools started off working in 15 schools. Today, the homelessness prevention arm is in all elementary schools, Kinzey said. The rental assistance arm is in the 24 schools with the highest rates of homelessness in the district.
1,627 families with 4,580 children in 24 MPS elementary schools have received help from the program between April 2019 and Dec. 2023, according to the City of Minneapolis’s Way Home report.
In 2023, the Stable Homes, Stable Schools grow from a pilot to a permanent program.
The challenge of finding affordable housing
For housing to be considered affordable, a family has to be paying no more than 30% of their annual income towards rent or a mortgage, according to Lutheran Social Services. Finding housing that fits into that cost can be a challenge. The City of Minneapolis website states almost 75% of renters are paying more than 30%, with Black, Indigenous, and People of Color disproportionally impacted.
Kinzey said finding affordable housing for families to live in can be the biggest challenge of the Stable Homes, Stable Schools program.
“It’s a barrier that we face,” she said.
Investing in the wider housing strategy
The Stable Homes, Stable Schools program is a partnership between the school district, the City of Minneapolis, the Minneapolis Public Housing Authority, and Hennepin County. It also sees support from The YMCA of the North and the Pohlad Family Foundation.
Director of Housing Policy & Development for the City of Minneapolis, Elfric Porte, said the city’s investment in the program is financial. He said the city has invested $15 million to run the program, and in the mayor’s most recent budget, another $2.2 million was allocated.
The city has numerous core values as it describes its housing goals. Those include advancing racial equity, preventing displacement, and investing in households facing the most severe housing instability. The strategy to reach these goals is pretty straightforward: increase housing supply, diversity and affordability in all neighborhoods, as well as produce more affordable rental housing.
The investment from the city into the Stable Home, Stable Schools program is important, Porte said, because it’s part of the city’s housing strategy as it looks to a future where all Minneapolis residents can afford and access quality housing.
Helping students now and in their future
When thinking about Stable Homes, Stable Schools at its best, Riddley thinks of a family that benefitted from the program last school year. She said the family was a mother and son who were living in a car that did not lock.
“Not only was it not inhabitable, it wasn’t safe,” she said.
The child was experiencing behavioral issues at school, she said. The mom was able to get support from school social workers to get rental assistance and eventually, a place to live. Riddley said behavior issues didn’t disappear but lessened, and the child began to be more open to talking about his emotions with social workers and has been focused on school.
According to the American Psychological Association, the impact of poverty on young children is significant and long-lasting.
“Children experiencing homelessness frequently need to worry about where they will live, their pets, their belongings, and other family members. In addition, homeless children are less likely to have adequate access to medical and dental care, and may be affected by a variety of health challenges due to inadequate nutrition and access to food, education interruptions, trauma, and disruption in family dynamics,” the APA says.
According to Kinzey, the program hopes to help achieve higher attendance among the student body, a decrease in behavior issues, an increase in parent engagement, and eventually higher graduation rates.
“We think of removing barriers obviously as making sure kids have school supplies and transportation and all those things but if we really want to get to the heart of removing a barrier, families need housing,” she said.
Porte echoed that sentiment, telling KARE 11 he hopes the program can be expanded to the entire school district.
“The hope is that at the end of the day, all children will be in a place where they experience housing stability,” he said.
Economists say the rate cut will have positive and negative affects on American consumers.
SAINT PAUL, Minn. — The financial world is buzzing after the Fed announced plans to cut the federal interest rate by 0.5%.
The stock market reacted immediately after the announcement was made Wednesday afternoon, with many indexes jumping initially and then ending the day negative.
Economists say the rate cut will send shockwaves throughout the entire economy, but how will the rate cut affect the average American consumer?
Let’s start with credit cards.
University of Saint Thomas Economics Professor Tyler Schipper says the rate cut will have a significant impact on credit card interest rates.
“There are a couple of places where you’ll see the impact relatively early and one of those places will be with credit cards,” Schipper explains.
“Borrowers will see a lower rate on their bill very quickly, maybe a billing cycle or two, that you’ll actually start to see those credit card interest rates come down.”
It’s unclear how significant the interest rate cuts on credit cards will be, but Schipper says it’s very possible they will be close to matching the 0.5% cut on the federal rate.
“A half-percent drop may not seem like a big deal for some people, but if you have a lot of credit card debt, that can have a big impact on your ability to get on top of it,” Schipper says.
The Fed’s rate cut will also have an impact on auto loans.
Professor Schipper says there is a weaker correlation between the federal rate and the interest rates on car loans, but he suspects car buyers should see some relief in the coming months.
“Car loans are tricky,” Schipper says.
“My best guess would be they are responsive, but not as responsive as those credit card rates.”
The rate cut will also affect the housing market.
Schipper says mortgage rates were already going down heading into the Fed’s meeting this week, and we could see another drop slowly over the next few months.
But the immediate impact could be a rush of homebuyers coming back into the market.
“Because people have been sitting on the sideline for so long that they feel like it’s now time to start searching. So there very well might be a psychological effect to this,” Schipper says.
It’s not all good news for consumers.
Schipper says savers will see lower returns on their savings accounts, bonds and CDs, which could affect seniors who are depending on those higher returns to maintain their retirement.
“A lot of those interest rates that were rewarding savers are going to start to come down,” Schipper says.
“Where people might want to store their extra dollars is going to change again as these interest rates come down.”
The Fed will meet two more times before the end of the year, and many economists believe we could see another rate cut, maybe even two rate cuts, by the end of the year.
So, some good news for borrowers, but for savers, those high returns are going to come back down to a normal level.
The results are based on customer satisfaction ranking on each of seven dimensions from ease of travel and terminal facilities to food and retail offerings.
MINNEAPOLIS — Some may consider Minnesota flyover country, but when it comes to airports, Minneapolis-St. Paul International is apparently the place to be.
The annual North America Airport Satisfaction Study by consumer barometer JD Power said MSP is tops in customer satisfaction among mega airports, which includes those that serve 33 million or more passengers per year. Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport ranked second, followed by Phoenix Sky Harbor International.
The rankings are based on surveys of 26,000 customers who traveled through at least one U.S. or Canadian airport in the previous 30 days, and covers both arrival and departure experiences.
Researchers tallied passenger responses across seven core dimensions (in order of importance): ease of travel through the airport; level of trust with the airport; terminal facilities; airport staff; departure experience; food, beverage and retail offerings; and arrival experience.
2024 marks the second time MSP has topped JD Power’s airport survey in the past three years.
“Our purpose is to provide exceptional airport experiences so Minnesota thrives, and this prestigious recognition demonstrates that we are delivering for our travelers,” said Brian Ryks, CEO and executive director of the Metropolitan Airports Commission (MAC), which owns and operates MSP.
“This award also acknowledges the work and focus of all airport employees and our partners who ensure our airport facilities, services and hospitality are maintained at the highest levels and exceed travelers’ expectations,” Ryks added.
MSP is currently the 18th-busiest airport in the U.S. It served 34.7 million passengers in 2023, and traffic is trending 8% higher this year.
The Metropolitan Airports Commission (MAC), which operates MSP International, said the airport is not resting on its laurels. The largest renovation project in MSP history – updating concourses and gate areas in Terminal 1 – will be completed by late 2025, and ground was broken this summer for an expansion of Terminal 2 that will wind up in 2027.
In the large airport category, JD Power named John Wayne Airport in Orange County, Calif. the customer satisfaction champ, followed by Tampa International Airport and Kansas City International. Among medium airports, Indianapolis International came out on top, followed by Jacksonville International and Southwest Florida International.
A West St. Paul man was found guilty of murder by a jury. The same stems from a stabbing at a group home in 2020.
DAKOTA COUNTY, Minn. — A West St. Paul man has been found guilty for the murder of David Eugene Rahn more than four years ago.
The guilty verdict was reached after the four-day trial against John C. Adams II, who was found guilty of intentional second-degree murder. Dakota County Attorney Kathy Keena announced the jury’s verdict, saying she hopes the verdict gives “some measure of justice to the Rahn family.”
The case stems from an incident at a state-run group home on Feb. 17, 2020. Court documents state a nurse heard Rahn yelling for help in a bedroom, but someone blocked the door and told her it was okay. When officers arrived, Rahn with found with stab wounds.
According to Keena, Adams argued he was defending himself against Rahn, who came into his room and attacked him. The Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s Office ruled the death a homicide, and officers found the knife along with bloody gloves in a garbage can.
Adams will be sentenced in December.
