MHP Community Development staff recently visited the Yankton Sioux Housing Authority, as part of their on-going work with the Yankton Sioux Tribal Nation. MHP staff and the project team conducted team building sessions and process mapping to support the Housing Authority as they explore opportunities enhance program operations. Together, the project team toured several vacant properties that they plan to rehabilitate utilizing a recent award of $1M from their Tribal Council for this work. Once rehabilitated, these properties will be home to several local families in need of affordable housing!
MHP’s travels recently included Florida, to reconnect with a beneficiary of our technical assistance work, Chipola Area Habitat (CAH). CAH seeks to develop a 9-acre site known as the “Cook Property” for affordable housing, and we worked with them to select an architectural firm to help create a master plan for the site. Fitzgerald Collaborativeout of Tallahassee, a certified Minority Business Enterprise (MBE), was chosen.
While in Marianna, we facilitated a community engagement meeting in the City’s historic Black neighborhood, which has historically faced a lack of investment. More than 20 residents attended alongside representatives from Chipola College, City Commissioner and CAH Board member Travis Ephriam, and State Representative Shane Abbott. During the neighborhood planning presentation, MHP introduced the centuries-old, now-social justice saying “Nothing about us, without us, is for us,” to underscore the need for authentic engagement that is community-driven.
MHP’s community technical assistance model is built around self-determination and locally-identified needs, and our experience informs us that the participation and prioritization of communities impacted by racial and economic disparities is critical to successful community development work.
The lively meeting resulted in the start of a neighborhood revitalization plan for the West End, and identifying community members to participate on a steering committee for the master planning at the Cook Property, as there are many connections between these two parts of the city.
With the steering committee organized and the architectural firm selected, MHP will now assist CAH in the next steps of the master planning process, including completing necessary predevelopment studies for the site. The creation of a new advisory committee made up of Habitat homeowners is also in the works. We look forward to our continued work in Marianna, and to see the fruits of the community’s efforts in new affordable housing!
Does your region or community need help adding affordable housing to your area?
“MHP helped Lower Sioux’s Planning & Grants Department identify a new funder for an upcoming rental construction project. They then sat down with us to teach us how to complete the intensive 15-year feasibility projections and they reviewed our proposal draft. “In the end, we were awarded two grants to build 10 new rental homes at Lower Sioux. We simply couldn’t have done it without MHP’s guidance.”
Nora Murphy, Tribal Planner and Grant Writer for the Lower Sioux Indian Community.
The Lower Sioux Indian Community (LSIC) has a very limited land base (1,743 acres held in federal trust) and a growing population. While housing of all types is needed, planning for the future has been challenging due to limited information on the existing housing stock, housing records that are outdated or incomplete, and the lack of a formal land development plan in place to guide future housing development.
The Tribe has 1,124 enrolled members, 85% of whom live on the reservation and/or within the federally designated 10-mile service area that spans three rural counties in Minnesota (Redwood, Renville, and Brown). While the surrounding rural areas are experiencing significant decreases in population, the Lower Sioux’s Enrollment Department reports that the Tribe has seen its population rise 70% since 2000. Just over one-third are young people under 18 years, and 10% are 60 years or older. According to a community survey, 86% of the community state they would like to see their children and grandchildren continue to live on the reservation or in the service area.
Due to multiple complications beginning in the 1990s, the Lower Sioux Housing Authority identified a persistent challenge to completing the homeownership process for Tribal applicants due to incomplete land and title records. This limits not only the capacity for new homeowners today but also the ability of the Tribe to assign land use for future housing development.
While new procedures have been adopted by the Tribe to better track transactions, there remains an estimated 75% of families and homeowners (116) with incomplete land and title files.
“With our current crew, this was the first housing project we put together. Having MHP’s guidance and knowledge of the process saved us time and potential mistakes. It was nice to have MHP on our side during a process that was unfamiliar and at times intensive.”
Larry Swann, Housing Director, Lower Sioux Indian Community
To address the three challenges of lack of housing, incomplete land use and title records, and the need for additional sustainable Tribal revenue streams, MHP began providing on-site and remote technical assistance to LSIC Housing Authority’s and other department staff in 2019. Accomplishments of the project include:
A needs assessment outlining the priority needs of LISC and surrounding community.
Successfully securing funding for infrastructure, new construction, and rehab (including the creation of an emergency rehab loan program for Tribal members). LSIC’s first-ever application to the Federal Home Loan Bank for construction subsidy for 8 elder units and 2 single-family homes was funded, as was their application to HUD’s competitive IHBG grant application.
Creating site and housing design standards; the final design documents have been completed by architects and engineers for the housing units.
Creating a strategy of utilizing the local production of hemp in a closed-loop system to employ local/regional people in the farming of hemp, production of hemp hurd/hempcrete, and the installation of the products into housing units.
Completing a feasibility report and business plan (aided by funding from MHP’s Rural Capacity Building program). The preliminary feasibility study/report was used to apply and secure $1.5 million in State EDA funds through the State of Minnesota.
Throughout the work, MHP participated as an advisor, supporter, and development team participant, providing the necessary technical assistance to get 10 houses funded!
Mountain T.O.P. (Tennessee Outreach Project) is a faith-based nonprofit that offers several programs to “meet the physical, spiritual, social, and emotional needs of all the people [they] encounter” including a food shelf and home repair. They are based in Grundy County, which has a poverty rate of 19.1%. They were interested in starting a new construction program for single family homes that could offer replacement homes for very low-income families.
Shortly after MHP began working with Mountain T.O.P., their longtime Executive Director retired, leaving their Program Director in the interim position. Despite the challenges of the loss of the position, the team was able to accomplish several goals including conducting a Housing Needs Assessment for which a housing advisory group was established and still meets today! MHP also helped to draft a business plan for a single family development program using value gap funding from the Tennessee Housing Development Agency and Federal Home Loan Bank’s AHP funds. Included in that document was a template for construction budgets and a list of general contractors building in the area. Finally, the team identified development opportunities with regional partners, such as South East Tennessee Development (SETD), Better Fi, a local CDFI. In April 2022, Mountain T.O.P. held a Housing Summit for the first time, with more than 25 organizations present, including Tennessee Housing.
Does your region or community need help adding affordable housing to your area?
MHP’s Community Development team and the Prince William Sound Economic Development District (PWSEDD) have recently began the process of collaborating with McKinley Research Group—an Alaska-based research firm—to conduct a regional housing needs assessment for the Prince William Sound region. The district includes cities of Cordova, Valdez, and Whittier, and Native Villages of Eyak and Tatitlek. There is a severe shortage of housing in all of the communities of the region, given the specific challenges around topography and accessibility, cost of construction and materials, and lack of developers and contractors. MHP is providing financial support to help offset the cost of the initial Housing Needs Assessment.
“Each community within the Sound truly has their own unique topographic and economic challenges that make housing development and affordability so critical and also even more difficult.” says Erika Brown, Community Development Manager at MHP and project lead “I am excited to be working with each community to identify the best way to engage and involve their residents throughout this process and come up with strategies to address their housing needs that are as unique as each of the communities themselves.”
Once completed, MHP staff will assist regional partners in development of a housing action plan (HAP), with specific strategies to address housing development needs in each community. MHP will provide remote and in-person technical assistance for this planning by creating engagement tools and supporting outreach strategies such as community surveys, stakeholder interviews, and public town halls hosted during the summer of 2023.
Keya Wakpala Woiċaġeyapi will be a living community that nourishes the Siċaŋġu spirit and way of life. Affordable and accessible quality-built homes, centered around a community garden and a multi-use gathering space, with places for people to shop and work and for children to play together, Keya Wakpala is a pathway for the Siċaŋġu Lak̇ota Oyate “to reclaim who they are” near Mission, South Dakota.
From its very beginning, Keya Wakpala has been shaped and guided by community voices speaking what they need and want, including dedicated space for food and agriculture, livelihood, and recreation. The homes will be culturally-relevant, adaptable to all family sizes and generations, with room for future growth. This 600-acre site will eventually incorporate athletic facilities, sports fields, a network of walking, biking and hiking trails, small business incubators, retail, restaurants, as well as many other businesses and amenities.
Recently, a new billboard was unveiled to help promote the project! MHP, a technical assistance provider for the project, was thrilled to have the opportunity to use grant funds to commission two talented Siċaŋġu artists Cas and Sonni, as well as a Lakota graphic design professional to bring the project to life!
Olympic Peninsula Extended Needs Housing (OPEN Housing) spent a snowy 1.5 days in Port Angeles, WA with MHP staff members Barbara Dolan, Devon Pohlman, and Courtney Overby on a site visit to complete a needs assessment; exchanging stories, touring properties, and diving into discussions on priorities for the organization. OPEN was formally incorporated in 2019 and currently offers 14 units for rent at two properties in Sequim and Port Angeles. With a mission to “provide sustainable, secure, affordable housing for people with developmental disabilities and low-income others in a shared and integrated community so all can thrive,” OPEN Housing develops low-income housing for adults with disabilities (and other low-income neuro-typical adults) who are willing and able to live and thrive in a shared housing community.
In the US, nearly 75% of adults experiencing intellectual or developmental disabilities live in their family’s home. On the Olympic Peninsula, that number is closer to 99%. Imagine being an adult who wants to live independently, develop social skills, and learn what it means to contribute to their community with nowhere they can afford to go. Out of every four Americans, one experiences an intellectual or developmental disability. housing adults with disabilities shapes the collective future of all of us.
OPEN Housing applied for technical assistance (TA) through MHP’s online application. MHP technical and financial assistance is tailored to help build the capacity of local housing drivers and promote local housing solutions that address gaps in existing services. A needs assessment site visit is the first step for the MHP team and project partners to meet in person, view properties or sites, and build the foundation for a 24-36 month-long working relationship. MHP assesses whether an organization has the capacity and readiness and aligns with its mission in order to be successful when utilizing MHP programs and funding sources. This time together provides MHP staff with the opportunity to connect with individuals, entities, and partners involved in collaboratively crafting a living work plan. Creating affordable housing and building strong communities is complex work!
From left to right: Devon Pohlman (MHP), Barbara Dolan (MHP), Kimberly Ortloff (OPEN Board President), Lindsey Schromen-Wawrin (Port Angeles City Council) Liza Searles (Executive Director), Courtney Overby (MHP)
As part of the OPEN Housing needs assessment, MHP staff worked closely with the team to identify and prioritize organizational challenges. The project team met and heard from local Port Angeles council member Lindsey Schromen-Wawrin about the approach and systemic barriers to housing that the community-at-large faces. MHP staff also heard directly from Dorine Hunter, a former board of directors’ officer, about the significance of the acronym OPEN as a name that supporters would recognize, and about the extensive network of the mothers of those experiencing disabilities, who founded and sustain the organization’s operations and administrative success. Hearing the stories firsthand, in community, forges meaning and structure, and sets the tone for the rest of the technical assistance engagement.
The assessment revealed that OPEN’s communal single-family home model is well-positioned for organizational sustainability and the future development of new housing for IDD adults. MHP’s work plan with OPEN Housing will include board of director recruitment and training and reviewing existing and creating new policies and procedures. OPEN Housing is excited about an update to the website and a rebranding effort in addition to hiring, staff development, and strategic organizational planning.
MHP’s Community Development team delivers the resources and knowledge needed to create and preserve housing and community assets. We collaborate directly with communities, regions, and organizations across the country to achieve their housing and community development goals. From innovative community planning practices to knowledge of complex federal grants and programs, our expertise helps to create effective — and lasting — collaboration among community leaders.
Does your community need knowledge in housing, community, and/or organizational development? Looking for collaborations and partnerships to bring affordable housing to your community? To learn more, contact Devon Pohlman, Director of Community Development at devon.pohlman [at] mhponline.org.
Touching down on the runway of BRW airport in Utqiaġvik, Alaska (the community formerly known as Barrow), we could already tell from the views of ice floes in the Arctic Ocean and mossy tundra that we were in for a new experience. In late June 2021, Warren Kramer, Community Development Director, and Ella Mitchell, Community Development Officer, met with team members of Taġiuġmiullu Nunamiullu Housing Authority (TNHA), a beneficiary through the HUD Rural Capacity Building 2018 grant. After over nine months of working together virtually, the team was excited to meet in person for a week and see with their own eyes what it’s like to work on housing in Alaska’s North Slope Borough. Utqiaġvik is a community of 4,500+ people and is the northernmost city/town in the US, located north of the Arctic Circle.
Griffin Hagle, Executive Director of TNHA, graciously picked up MHP staff at the airport and brought us on a driving tour of Utqiaġvik, pointing out TNHA properties and unique building techniques, as well as local landmarks like the tribal college and hospital. A whole range of unique, cold climate construction materials and techniques are used in housing development when building on permafrost. Construction materials must all be transported by ocean barges to Utqiaġvik from Anchorage. They say the first $150,000 of housing development cost, per unit, is the transportation costs of the construction materials. A primary focus of the visit was to finish the strategic planning process we’d started months earlier, with TNHA staff and board members. TNHA is governed by Board members who represent the six native Alaskan villages TNHA serves. Since there are no roads connecting these six villages, the board members need to fly into Utqiaġvik to participate in board meetings and the strategic planning work. Dr. Pearl Brower, a longtime Utqiaġvik resident and former president of Iḷisaġvik College, facilitated these meetings, leading the group in team building activities and discussions about the future of TNHA. The final product was an approved Strategic Plan that will guide TNHA’s work for the next several years.
In between sessions, the group enjoyed pastries homemade by very talented TNHA staff, participated in a weekly group walk around town hosted by the Mayor’s office and even caught a glimpse of the annual whaling festival, Nalukataq. Utqiaġvik is a centuries old whaling village which is still a significant part of the community’s culture and economy. Some 32 teams of local whalers went out in pursuit of bowhead whales in 2021. 22 of those whaling teams successfully harvested a whale this year.
We were also able to tour a 29-unit apartment built in 1977 that TNHA is in the process of renovating with funding from HUD and other entities. Some other highlights of the trip included a delicious barbecue dinner hosted by Griffin and his wife Kelly, a tour of the NOAA Barrow Atmospheric Baseline Observatory where researchers around the world are tracking weather and climate change data, and a visit to the Iñupiat Heritage Center to learn more about local native history and culture.
While North Slope communities share many housing challenges with other rural and tribal communities in the United States, they also face unique challenges due to their extreme remoteness and unique physical environment. Sustainable housing solutions are a critical innovation need as these communities are directly impacted by the effects of climate change, including tundra subsidence and sea level rise. For example, all housing in the area is built on piers or stilts so that the heat from the building does not thaw the permafrost beneath the home. More recently, sled rails have been added to cap the stilts so that the structure can be moved if the coastline changes and the community must relocate. Energy efficiency measures such as improved insulations, new windows, and electric stoves are also critical improvements because utility costs can be astronomical in the North Slope’s deep winters and indoor air quality during these months can be a major issue. MHP’s successful trip to Utqiaġvik brought these issues to life as staff were able to see in person the real issues and challenges of working in this remote region, as well as the strengths and commitment of our beneficiary up there, TNHA. ~Ella Mitchell
An iconic former school made of sandstone — in the City of Sandstone — will soon become a place to call home. Once complete, The Rock, as it’s known locally, will be a shining example of the adaptive reuse of a historic local landmark.
Sandstone and the surrounding Pine County area lack housing that schoolteachers, trash haulers, and workers at the nearby low-security federal prison can afford. People who want to move to the community for job opportunities often struggle to find a place to live.
One of the primary reasons for this lack of affordable housing is that it costs too much to build new multi-family rental properties. Incomes in Pine County have stagnated as construction costs continue to rise, so developers tend to pass the region by in favor of more profitable areas. Over the past several years, this has led to a critical lack of affordable homes.
Developers have tried and failed to transform The Rock in the past.. The iconic building was constructed in 1910 out of sandstone that was quarried from the Kettle River Sandstone Company Quarry, and it served as the City of Sandstone’s main school until a new facility was built in the early 2000s. Since then it has sat vacant, a shadow of its former self.
Soon that will change, and The Rock will be revamped into affordable community housing. MHP connected the City of Sandstone with Community Housing Development Corporation (CHDC), a nonprofit developer with experience in complex rehabilitation and affordable housing projects. CHDC helped the City of Sandstone realize the community’s vision for the Rock’s renovation into rental housing using Historic and Low-Income Housing Tax Credits.
Once complete, the building will provide 24 units of affordable workforce rental housing to Pine County residents. Ten units will be reserved for people with disabilities and those who have experienced homelessness. Lakes & Pines Community Action Council and Pine County Health and Human Services will provide supportive services including employment training, mental health assistance, and food support. The building will have on-site laundry, common space, and a management office.
“This project is vital in order to provide quality, safe housing options for all residents in Sandstone,” said Kathy George, City Administrator for Sandstone. “This is an opportunity to preserve an iconic and historic building for future generations. It will also create an incentive for future generations to stay in Sandstone by providing housing that young people working in their first jobs can afford.”
Several community and regional stakeholders have come together to help make this project a reality. Community Housing Development Corporation has worked closely with the City of Sandstone to design, finance, and soon begin construction on the rehabilitation of this important local landmark. Lakes & Pines Community Action and Pine County are coordinating supportive services, and Minnesota Housing Partnership is providing additional funding and technical assistance.
An application for funding has been submitted to the Minnesota Housing Finance Agency. Funding awards will be announced this fall. Construction is anticipated in 2022.
Touching down on the runway of BRW airport in Utqiaġvik, Alaska (the community formerly known as Barrow), we could already tell from the views of ice floes in the Arctic Ocean and mossy tundra that we were in for a new experience. In late June 2021, Warren Kramer, Community Development Director, and Ella Mitchell, Community Development Officer, met with team members of Taġiuġmiullu Nunamiullu Housing Authority (TNHA), a beneficiary through the HUD Rural Capacity Building 2018 grant. After over nine months of working together virtually, the team was excited to meet in person for a week and see with their own eyes what it’s like to work on housing in Alaska’s North Slope Borough. Utqiaġvik is a community of 4,500+ people and is the northernmost city/town in the US, located north of the Arctic Circle.
In between sessions, the group enjoyed pastries homemade by very talented TNHA staff, participated in a weekly group walk around town hosted by the Mayor’s office and even caught a glimpse of the annual whaling festival, Nalukataq. Utqiaġvik is a 
centuries old whaling village which is still a significant part of the community’s culture and economy. Some 32 teams of local whalers went out in pursuit of bowhead whales in 2021. 22 of those whaling teams successfully harvested a whale this year.