Plans for Collaborative Village under way

by Tom Donaldson
Saying it was their obligation to help mitigate an affordable housing and homelessness crisis, the City Council Planning and Zoning committee voted unanimously to deny an appeal to halt construction of a controversial housing development at Elliot and East Franklin avenues.
The “Collaborative Village” proposal—a partnership between Project for Pride in Living (PPL), Sabathani Community Center, and Turning Point—calls for a 20-unit, 128-person long-term, supportive housing facility for chronically homeless African-American families. Services offered at the facility would include chemical dependency and mental health counseling, job training, and mentoring programs, among others.
At a public hearing before the committee, the appellants (Janet Graham for the Ventura Village neighborhood association) raised four general concerns: whether siting was appropriate for potential residents given its proximity to heavy drug activity; why the project is being built in a struggling neighborhood with the heaviest concentration of supportive housing facilities in the city; whether developers acted fairly in pushing the proposal through official channels; and why the city is ignoring its own one-quarter mile spacing ordinance for such facilities.
The arguments of advocates centered around the moral and legal justification for the development, saying the need for and benefits of such a facility far outweigh concerns about the city’s regulatory scheme or residents perceptions of how the project will affect the neighborhood.
Like Lydia House in Whittier/Stevens Square, the proposal pits an organized group of concerned neighbors and property owners against a respected social service and public officials reluctant to appear as anything but emphatic about the need for affordable housing. Adding significance to the matter is the neighborhood's already high concentration of supportive housing facilities; though the number varies according to whom is asked, officials say there are thirteen such facilities within a quarter of the proposed one-block development. Additionally, every household in Ventura Village is within one-quarter mile (three blocks) of a group home, shelter or detox center.
Some residents believe the city has designated the area a “containment zone” for the city's greatest social challenges, where drug and street-level crime is corralled, but never eradicated. And whose root causes are never adequately addressed.
The planning committee granted the developers a total of nine variances. By city ordinance, 32 is the maximum number of people allowed to reside in any single supportive housing facility. Developers were granted a variance to quadruple that amount to 128.
“That would be like building 4 supportive housing projects on just this site,” said Janet Graham, chairperson of the Ventura Village neighborhood association.
Graham told the committee she believed the quarter-mile ordinance was enacted for a specific purpose. “It stops the concentration of these projects and the concentration of poverty these projects bring to a neighborhood” she told the committee. “If you pass this today, you’re basically saying ‘it’s okay to build these projects in Phillips but nowhere else.’”
City planning staff said that 14 sites were originally under consideration for the facility. Ventura Village resident Ray Peterson reiterated other residents’ doubts about the final choice.
“I don’t see how this one came to the top of the list given all the problems this site presents and all the variances it requires” said Peterson.
Others were more direct. “It’s insane. It just boggles the mind. It’s stupid,” said Robert Leedman, who owns property near the proposed site.
James Jenks, a city planning consultant, cautioned the committee on the legal risks of granting multiple variances to such a project. When such cases end up in court, said Jenks, judges will often look at how narrow a focus was given variance and how many times in the past variance or leeway was given to the quarter-mile rule.
“If you break this rule all the time, someone going to court to appeal it is very often going to get their wish,” said Jenks.
At the January meeting of the Ventura Village association, a motion was passed to seek legal counsel to file suit against the city. Also discussed was the possibility of joining the Lydia House lawsuit.
Developers and advocates say that rather than further degrading the neighborhood, the project will be of benefit to a stretch of East Franklin rampant with drug and prostitution activity. Mary Hartman, director of New Foundations, a supportive housing organization, said homeless families given a leg up take pride in their home and community.
“If you can hope, if you can dream, you can change your lifestyle. I’d like to think that supportive housing of any kind gives a person a foundation to build from.”
“This is not a group home. This is housing with amenities,” she added.
According to recent figures, nearly 5,000 people seek shelter in the Twin Cities on any given night. Each night approximately 600 are turned away. Many are families on the lowest rung of the economic ladder who are excluded from rental opportunities because of unlawful detainers. With one or more parent often chemically addicted or struggling with mental health issues, these families drift in and out of shelters and motels. The children attend six or seven schools in a year, if they go to school at all.
Jim Scheibel, Executive Director of PPL and former mayor of St. Paul, told the committee that the most effective way to combat homelessness is to offer affordable housing, economic support, supportive services and “respect for dignity.”
“Collaborative Village brings all those together,” said Scheibel.
Developers say legal justification for overriding city law lies in the Federal Fair Housing Act (FFHA), which states that “reasonable accommodation” must be made for the handicapped in terms of housing, employment and public access. Sixteen of the 32 adults expected to live at the facility will be classified as handicapped due to mental or chemical health issues.
“Most of the residents would be children and young people,” said Scheibel. “Their only handicap is being poor and having been homeless.”
But opponents question the wisdom of placing handicapped and at-risk people in a tempting and sometimes dangerous situation.
“It’s reasonable, in accommodations for the handicapped, for them to be safe, for this to be a safe place to live,” said Jim Graham, 30-year Ventura Village resident. “This particular corner has the highest concentration of crime and drug activity in the city of Minneapolis.”
Graham told the committee to uphold due process and equal treatment not only for himself and his community, but also for the “misfortunate families who the committee might be condemning to a life of drugs and crime.”
He then cited Peace House, a street-level counseling ministry at Portland and Franklin avenues. “The people they deal with on a daily basis are educated to not be allowed on East Franklin Avenue, because the temptation to re-offend is so great that it’s irresistible,” he said. “They cannot get their lives back together in that situation.”
Opponents also questioned the tactics of developers in gaining approval for the project. Former U.S Attorney David Lillehaug, representing Ventura Village, told the committee that attempts to negotiate with the developers were met with silence or refusal. He also said that on the day before the public hearing, developers stated that they would file a lawsuit under the FFHA if the proposal were not approved. Accusations were also made that developers attempted to take over the Ventura Village neighborhood association, and that opponents were essentially out-lobbied by a powerful organization. In addition to Ventura Village, two other Phillips neighborhood organizations opposed the development.
Sixth Ward Council Member Dean Zimmerman said he understood the concerns of residents but believes the proposal is appropriate and needed in the neighborhood.
“I’m not particularly interested in taking the people in Phillips with dysfunctional lives and shipping them out for somebody else to deal with. I want us as a community to come together and transform ourselves,” said Zimmerman.
Other committee members echoed Zimmerman’s views.
“This is not a question of affordable housing. It’s a question of providing housing within a continuum,” said Council Member Lisa Goodman. “I realize this is a difficult decision for the neighborhood, but it’s clear to me that there are not options for these people on this continuum. And this is something we are obligated to support.”
Council Member Paul Ostrow said the city needed to “ grapple with the regulatory scheme.”
“It’s understandable why these [residents] are frustrated. Our regulatory scheme is not clear. It makes absolutely no sense to have a definition of supportive housing and a spacing requirement as broad as it is when we want to encourage these types of support services,” said Ostrow.
Advocates’ reasoning for the development was best summarized by North Phillips resident Pastor Rose Holiday. Saying she had been homeless, helpless and hopeless, a drug addict “bombed to the max by crack-cocaine,” Holiday evangelized to the committee, imploring them to “do the right thing.”
“All I needed was somebody to give me a chance,” said Holiday. “Today, I have a daycare business in Phillips. I’ve been off of drugs for ten years. Somebody say amen…”