Support Emergency Rental Assistance TODAY!

With an eviction rate at the highest point in a decade, Minnesotans are hurting. Please join MHP and our friends at the Homes for All coalition in advocating for the passage of Emergency Rental Assistance and the Pathway Home Act legislation now. We need YOU to contact your legislator, Speaker of the House Hortman, and Senate Majority Leader Dziedzic!

Use the below action alert software to send an email to leadership and your own legislators.

Join the Campaign for Housing on the Ballot!

Our Future Starts at Home is a statewide housing campaign for a constitutional amendment for housing. Our housing system is broken, and the goal of the campaign is to ensure the state starts making the investments Minnesotans need in housing, and secure sustainable, predictable, and ongoing funding. Our campaign principles include race equity, sustainability and climate resilience, uplifting rural voices, and accessibility. 

The Constitutional Amendment will create three flexible funds:

Household & Community Stability Fund

Rental Opportunity Fund 

Home Ownership Opportunity Fund

• Help Minnesotans improve the condition of home and community.

• Prevent homelessness and displacement from homes.

• Provide rent support to keep rents affordable for cost-burdened families.
• Create more homes that Minnesotans can afford and maintain safe and resilient homes
• Ensure renters have supportive services for quality of life and wellbeing

• Help more first-time homebuyers afford and access ownership, and build more affordable housing.

• Support Minnesotans and the communities in which they live, eliminate homeownership racial disparities, build wealth, and improve the quality of life.

QUESTIONS? Here are answers to frequently asked ones: bit.ly/CA4Housing_FAQ

Read more about the policy proposal at bit.ly/CA4Housing, follow us at @Ourhomesmn, and endorse the constitutional amendment!

President Biden Signs Executive Order to Strengthen Racial Equity

On February 16th, President Biden has signed a new Executive Order, Further Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government. This Executive Order will require federal agencies to issue annual public Equity Action Plans. Additionally, the order "directs agencies to spur economic growth in rural areas and advance more equitable urban development by ensuring that federal resources contribute to building wealth and opportunity in these communities through locally led development". 

Part Two: David's Story

David Williams

The story of MHP’s technical assistance work with North Olympic Regional Veterans Housing Network(NORVHN), continues. MHP's work included instilling sound practices and procedures and facilitating strategic planning for the fast-growing organization. Critically, MHP helped NORVHN restructure its board of directors to a highly functioning body with the capacity to make important connections in the community. Executive Director Cheri Tinker shared how this has impacted the veterans that they serve, highlighting David Williams.

David was referred to them by a new board member (from the TA process) who works in direct service. Without that new connection, and the board member knowing NORVHN’s unique set of services, David wouldn’t have come, as on the surface his medical issues seemed beyond their care.

David, whom Cheri calls, “A quiet, delightful man,” was homeless with a mountain of health problems. Although clean and sober for 8 years when he came to Sarge’s Place (a NORVHN’s shelters), he had previously been a chronic drug user, which wreaked havoc on his memory and body. He was accepted into the shelter and the staff stabilized his medical condition. There he lived for 8 months – concurrent to MHP's technical assistance.

When NORVHN built Hobucket House, a 7-bedroom group home, David was able to move right in. One night he passed away peacefully, wearing the clothes had received as a Christmas present from the staff. While David only lived at Hobucket House for 3 weeks, he died with “family,” as the Chief of Police, himself a combat vet, noted.

David had no connection to family or friends – the staff and residents of the organization were it. 

The organization serves as the familial unit for many of the once-homeless vets, and are often listed as their next of kin. Several urns sit at Cheri's desk; she honors the vets' memory as part of their program.

Cheri says of David, “It was a beautiful thing that we could support him at the end of his life. He had a comfortable place, he was eating and drinking, he was warm, and he was dry. A man who had lived on the streets for years died with dignity in a safe environment with a sense of family. We are able to give our residents the compassion of being present with them at the end of their life."

"Without that connectivity – the board being expanded and more vibrant, maybe David might not have been in our care.... That’s due to MHP’s technical assistance, which helped bring truth out from our essence. I had the scaffolding, MHP helped to create the foundation.” - Cheri Tinker

HUD's Thriving Communities Technical Assistance Program Now Available

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is now accepting requests for technical assistance for the Thriving Communities Technical Assistance (TCTA) program. This funding will help local governments ensure housing needs are considered as part of their larger infrastructure investment plans, with a focus on disadvantaged communities.    

Join Homeless Day on the Hill 2023!

Our friends at the Minnesota Coalition for the Homeless are hosting their annual Homeless Day on the Hill (DOTH) on March 8th. Help ensure lawmakers know that homelessness needs to be one of their top priorities. This is an opportunity to show up in mass numbers and share in advocacy. 

Minnesota Housing: Input on Next Strategic Plan Requested

Minnesota Housing is soliciting stakeholder input as the develop their 2024-2027 Strategic Plan. The plan will help guide Minnesota Housing's work for the next four years. On March 13th, 2-3pm, Stakeholders are invited to participate in a webinar that will include a brief overview of how the strategic planning process works and breakout sessions for smaller group discussion.  

Minnesota Housing Also Seeking Consultants forStrategic Plan

Minnesota Housing is currently looking for 12 consultants to join efforts to develop their strategic plan. Consultants can expect to work 6-14 hours a month March to September 2023 with compensation of $50.00 per hour. Seeking a diversified team of consultants with low-to-moderate incomes and specified lived experiences. Deadline for applications: March 5th, 2023. Read a PDF with more information.

Urban Homeworks to Host Housing Justice Forum

In support of Bring It Home, Minnesota Urban Homeworks is hosting their 3rd annual Housing Justice Forum on Tuesday, March 14th from 6:00-7:30pm on Zoom! 

MDH releases the Minnesota Homeless Mortality Report

In January the Minnesota Department of Health released the Minnesota Homeless Mortality Report, 2017-2021. The report summarizes data from the first systematic examination of mortality among people experiencing homelessness (PEH) who die in Minnesota. The report was also the subject of a recent Star Tribune story which can be read here. 

with MHP's Madeleine Hammerlund and Micah Coatie

Madeleine Hammerlund

Q1. Who are you? Madeleine Hammerlund; Housing Campaign Organizer. I am joining MHP as special staff to the campaign Our Future Starts at Home, advocating for a constitutional amendment

Q2. What attracted you to working with MHP? MHP is driven by research-supported work and creating a more equitable system through housing policy which aligns with my values. The organization provides an opportunity to improve the lives of all Minnesotans through strategic organizing, building relationships and partnerships while growing as a community worker, and conducting ethnographic research.

Q3. What’s a challenge in the field of housing right now?

Right now, I feel challenged by the individuals who don’t YET recognize housing to be a human right. It is also clear that our housing system needs more sustainable and continuous funding, and I am enthusiastic about ensuring more affordable and accessible housing through the passing of Our Future Starts at Home amendment.

Q4. Is there a book by your bed, and what is it?

There are three books by my bedside: Hero of a Thousand Faces by James Campbell; Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer; and The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

Q5. Who is your superhero?

My superhero is the person who actively aligns their words with their actions, someone who can remain kind in challenging times, and those that gently welcome the full spectrum of emotion. Those who have helped shape my perspective include John Fire Lame Deer, Clarissa Pinkola Estés, and my Moms.

Micah Coatie

Micah joins MHP as our 2023 Capitol Pathways intern, he has already been busy assisting our policy team during the legislative session. The Capitol Pathways program places college students who identify as Black, Indigenous, or people of color in paid internships with government offices, nonprofits, corporations, and law firms where they gain policymaking experience and built relationships in and around the Capitol.

Q1. Who is Micah?

When I think about who is Micah? Multiple ideas come to mind immediately, but one idea that keeps coming to mind is teachable. I am a person who needs and wants to experience and learn new things. Even though sometimes the lessons are hard, and I don’t understand at times the deeper meaning of the lesson. I am still grateful for the opportunity, because sometimes a simple or even complex lesson can open up a whole new way of thinking.

Q2. What attracted you to working with MHP?

Over the last two years I have worked at the non-profit Avivo Village. While working there, I support residents directly with day-to-day issues and struggles. Over the last two years I have questioned multiple times why residents who have everything in place to move and live in their own space have been held back from moving. I was attracted to MHP because it gave me the opportunity to see the behind the scenes of how the advocacy work we do today affects the residents I work with tomorrow!

Q3. What’s a challenge in the field of housing right now?

I would have to say not having enough social workers in the field to help with are homeless population today is a major challenge in the field of housing right now. Even if we house this population without the proper long-term support eventually the cycle will continue, and this population will be back on the streets in the matter of months.

Q4. Is there a book by your bed, and what is it?

I currently am going through a phase of reading autobiographies and currently the book by my bed side is Viola Davis’s autobiography Finding Me.

Q5. Who is your superhero?

William Lund

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