NorthEast Suburban Chapter Bus Tour

On October 8, the NorthEast Suburban Chapter’s annual bus tour toured the south of the Chapter’s area, building the understanding of housing and homelessness issues. Twenty five political figures, church leaders, community members and nonprofit allies began at St. Andrew’s, where Jenny Mason, director of the Community Resource Center there welcomed us. Alyssa Sheldon, who has been getting help from the Center, pulled heartstrings as she told us how she felt. “As a parent, any parent who’s in homelessness or on the edge of it - there’s huge burden they carry – that you have failed to provide a basic need for your children.”

We boarded the bus and went first to the NorthStar Youth Outreach Center at Maplewood Mall, where White Bear Unitarian Universalist church members Victor and Janet Urbanowicz volunteer. The center provides youth with a place to be, to get some food, use bathroom and showers, and connect with other resources in the community. The Harriet Tubman center works with White Bear UU to staff the storefront. It’s very effective because teens are in the mall anyway, and the center provides someplace for them to be.

The next stop, the Twenty-Nine Pines Manufactured Home park, proved difficult to reach – much as finding affordable housing can be difficult! A series of construction and dead ends left our bus nearly stranded! We were able to discuss how trailer homes, tiny homes, Accessory Dwelling Units and other forms of housing can be important.

Barbara Dacy of the Washington County Community Development Agency (CDA) then told the story of Red Oak Preserve, which was formerly a manufactured home park. The CDA took the unusual step of buying the land, and after helping the residents relocate, built a mixed community of affordable apartments, locally subsidized and market rate town homes and Habitat for Humanity homes, housing the same number of people who had been in the original manufactured home park!

Kevin Shoeberg then spoke about St Paul Lutheran in Stillwater, which has a number of initiatives regarding housing. They sponsor and house a youth drop-in space, the Youth Connections center. They also asked – where do the youth go after they leave their drop-in space? Since there are not always good answers to that question, the church is interested in building either on their land, or elsewhere, a new building to provide housing for those kids. They also know they cannot do it alone and are working on a coalition to create a nonprofit to do the building.

We returned to St. Andrew’s as Sue Watlov Phillips educated the tour on our state plan, the ways communities can build, and what’s happening at the federal level.

And if that wasn’t enough, on Tuesday October 15th at the Stillwater Library, a HUGE crowd came to support and learn about homelessness and affordable housing! Full details will be posted soon, but as John Hodler of Trinity Lutheran (the key new MICAH congregation for this event) said “We expected 50, made agendas for 75, had food for 80 and we got 90.” This is a clear step forward for the St. Croix valley and we are looking forward to many more updates.

Our next chapter meeting will be at White Bear Lake City Hall (second floor, Expansion Room) on Tuesday November 12th at 8 AM.