Housing Affordability Grants

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In 2019, we invested a total of $7 million in our Housing Affordability Program. These two-year grants supported the work of 23 organizations.

Organization: Ain Dah Yung Center
Grant amount: $185,000
Program/project summary: Provide intensive case management and culturally responsive wraparound support services for American Indian youth ages 18-24 who are residents of ADYC’s new Permanent Supportive Housing program, Mino Oski Ain Dah Yung (“Good New Home” in Ojibwe).

Organization: American Indian Family Center
Grant amount: $150,000
Program/project summary: The American Indian Family Center’s housing program, Thinica Owichakiyapi Thipi (Helping the Homeless Build) provides strength-based, family-centered and culturally informed solutions to prevent and end homelessness for the American Indian community, including families and young parents.

Organization: Beacon Interfaith Housing Collaborative
Grant amount: $500,000
Program/project summary: Support Beacon’s work to maintain and advance supportive housing for youth and families, assist families in emergency shelter regain stable homes, and build partnerships that increase housing affordability supports for families.

Organization: CommonBond Communities
Grant amount: $500,000
Program/project summary: CommonBond Communities is requesting capital support for Gateway Northeast, a redevelopment project in a highly-desirable riverfront location in Northeast Minneapolis. Funding will provide capital support for the nine three-bedroom Supportive Housing units for families coming out of homelessness.

Organization: Community Stabilization Project
Grant amount: $50,000
Program/project summary: Stabilizing Families One-At-A-Time moves families and youth from homelessness to safe, stable housing by working with owners to increase the supply of available rentals; by directly assuming the role of leaseholder to change systemic power dynamics; and by stabilizing renters’ capacity through education, advocacy, and community resource connections.

Organization: Cornerstone
Grant amount: $300,000
Program/project summary: Expand Cornerstone’s current housing model to include a Permanent Housing-Rapid Re-Housing component (PH-RRH) with the overall aim of enhancing access to immediate housing assistance and adjunct supports to low-income domestic violence victims who are homeless.

Organization: Face to Face Health & Counseling Service
Grant amount: $150,000
Program/project summary: Provide youth with rapid rehousing support and intensive wrap-around engagement. The case manager will provide intensive support that work to reduce or eliminate the various barriers to obtaining and maintaining stable housing, including living skills training, education, and medical and mental health services.

Organization: Family Promise of Anoka County
Grant amount: $75,000
Program/project summary: Provide youth with rapid rehousing support and intensive wrap-around engagement. The case manager will provide intensive support that work to reduce or eliminate the various barriers to obtaining and maintaining stable housing, including living skills training, education, and medical and mental health services.

Organization: HousingLink
Grant amount: $250,000
Program/project summary: HousingLink’s Beyond Backgrounds landlord engagement program uses a housing-first approach to help homeless families in Hennepin County find stable housing. Beyond Backgrounds reinvents the landlord-renter relationship, breaks down myths around renting to homeless families, and makes it easier for landlords to offer vacancies to vulnerable renters.

Organization: Lutheran Social Service of Minnesota
Grant amount: $325,000
Program/project summary: This project allows StreetWorks Collaborative to increase our capacity to support marginalized youth as they transition from homelessness into safe, stable housing, by adding 1) Outreach Workers with culturally-specific backgrounds and expertise who provide holistic case management, and 2) a Peer Outreach Worker Intern with lived experience of homelessness.

Organization: Minnesota Coalition for Battered Women (Violence Free Minnesota)
Grant amount: $400,000
Program/project summary: The project provides financial empowerment training and support to domestic violence advocacy programs coupled with a low-barrier Survivor Fund which advocates can access on behalf of domestic & sexual violence survivors with one-time needs to build credit and increase housing stability.

Organization: Minnesota Indian Women’s Resource Center
Grant amount: $150,000
Program/project summary: The proposed Family Housing Navigator will assist families on MIWRC’s Supportive Housing Unit wait list to access safe, affordable housing options throughout the Twin Cities metro area, filling the service gap between MIWRC’s onsite Section 8 Supportive Housing program and our American Indian Rapid Rehousing & Homelessness Prevention pilot program.

Organization: Model Cities of St. Paul
Grant amount: $150,000
Program/project summary: Model Cities requests funding over two years for our Supportive Housing Initiative, which transitions families and parenting youth and young adults from homelessness into stable housing and self-reliance. We layer safe, affordable housing with intensive, individualized case management and support services to better cultivate self-determination.

Organization: Oasis for Youth
Grant amount: $50,000
Program/project summary: Oasis requests a two-year grant to expand stable and affordable housing solutions for suburban youth experiencing homelessness. Our services are provided in the southern suburbs of Hennepin County, with a focus on unaccompanied youth and young parents in Bloomington, Richfield and Edina.

Organization: People Serving People Charities
Grant amount: $900,000
Program/project summary: People Serving People, in collaboration with the Center for Urban and Regional Affairs (CURA) and Hennepin County, is pursuing a pilot program to grow family stability by demonstrating sustainable alternatives to self-pay for families experiencing homelessness; further pursuing the goal to make homelessness rare, brief, and non-recurring.

Organization: Project for Pride in Living
Grant amount: $300,000
Program/project summary: Help 80 families experiencing homelessness access new affordable housing opportunities, and 320 families coming from homelessness will continue to receive onsite support services to ensure long-term housing stability. Our approach is based on Housing First, and services are person-centered and asset-based to create equitable outcomes.

Organization: Ramsey County
Grant amount: $200,000
Program/project summary: Ramsey County will provide flexible financial assistance to families (including pregnant and parenting youth) who are on the waitlist for emergency shelter and/or staying in places not meant for human habitation. Direct assistance funds will be used as gap financial assistance to households to obtain stable housing.

Organization: Simpson Housing Services
Grant amount: $500,000
Program/project summary: Annually provide 300 families (including young parents) safe, stable housing by increasing housing options to drive down days participants experience homelessness. Support will allow us to hire a new Landlord Engagement Specialist focused on landlord recruitment to expand housing availability; targeted financial assistance; and improve supportive services delivery.

Organization: St. Stephen’s Human Services
Grant amount: $385,000
Program/project summary: St. Stephen’s Human Services is proposing a new Rapid ReHousing program specifically designed to meet the needs of LGBTQ families who are underserved based on the County’s definition of “family.”

Organization: Standpoint
Grant amount: $150,000
Program/project summary: The Housing Rights Project will partially fund two positions (one attorney and one advocate) whose focus would be to increase the capacity for families and youth experiencing homelessness to secure safe and stable housing by providing expungement clinics, legal advocacy, and direct representation for victims in housing court matters.

Organization: The Bridge for Youth
Grant amount: $230,000
Program/project summary: The Bridge for Youth will move pregnant and parenting youth experiencing homelessness into safe and stable housing through Marlene’s Place, the first and only site-based program specifically for minor-age homeless teen parents and their children (ages 0-3) in Hennepin County.

Organization: The Link
Grant amount: $500,000
Program/project summary: The Link requests support for our Supportive Housing Programs, to sustain and expand existing programs in suburban and urban communities, enable increased staffing capacity in our Housing First Program for youth with high physical, mental, and chemical health barriers, and to sustain our career specialist partnership with Goodwill Easter Seals.

Organization: YWCA St. Paul
Grant amount: $600,000
Program/project summary: Using a full family, intensive engagement & culturally-specific model that affirms participants’ core identities & lived experience, YWCA helps African American families receiving public assistance (MFIP) & experiencing homelessness to achieve housing stability—the critical foundation from which they can stabilize their lives, make changes & build skills.