In 1988 our family bought an inexpensive fixer-upper house. We’ve been working on it ever since. After years of periodic upheaval, there’s still a lot to do. We don’t mind that the house is too small, house plants won’t grow in it because it’s too dark, and there’s not a single right angle in the whole structure; we are simply thankful we lay claim to a warm and dry interior which serves as an archive for the historical artifacts of our lives, a storage container for current useful stuff, a place to rest, to wash up, to fix food, to share stories and to write, play music and draw pictures. I call it our “base of operations.” As access to affordable housing dwindles, we realize more and more how lucky we are: We don’t take our home for granted.

People who don’t have a permanent residence tend not to live as long as the rest of the population. Their health is at risk from lack of health care, from exposure to the elements and from illnesses brought on by acute anxiety.

Poverty, family violence, chronic conditions such as chemical dependency or mental illness, and crises such as job loss, illness, or divorce are constant, ongoing social conditions which explain some of the homelessness that exists today. But they don’t explain the steadily increasing homelessness in the Twin Cities and in Minnesota. Lack of affordable housing explains the vast majority of it.

Ten years ago, the homeless population in the Twin Cities was made up largely of single men. Now, because wages have not kept up with the cost of home ownership and rental, the majority of homeless people are women and children and working families. All homelessness is tragic but homelessness among children is the most heartbreaking. The number of homeless children now equals the number of homeless people ten years ago. There are now in the state of Minnesota 10 to 11 thousand children without permanent housing. The Minneapolis Public Schools say that one out of 10 children are homeless sometime during the school year. Every day in Minneapolis a school bus picks up 1,000 children from shelters, not knowing what their destination will be by evening. Needless to say, the instability plays havoc with their ability to learn.

In 2002, a person has to earn double minimum wage to afford a modest two-bedroom apartment—-if there is even one available. Housing, to buy or to rent at any price, has diminished since 1990. In the Twin Cities right now there are 68,900 renter households with annual incomes below $10,000, but only 31,200 housing units with rents affordable at this income level. Since housing is in short supply, prices have skyrocketed and people working for minimum wage have not been able to compete. There is no legal limit to housing costs, such as rent control, for example. Last year, 185,000 households earning less than $30,000 a year paid more than they could afford for their rent or mortgage costs—a home is usually considered to be affordable if a family pays no more than 30 percent of its income in housing costs. Since 1990, vacancy rates for apartments in the Twin Cities have fallen from more than 6 percent to just 2 percent or less. Only one-third as many rental units were added in Minnesota in the ’90s as in the previous decade. It appears that a law passed in 1976, the Land Use Planning Act, which required local governments in the metro area to plan and implement housing programs “which will provide sufficient existing and new housing to meet the local unit’s share of the metro area need for low and moderate income housing,” has been ignored. Tax incentives for developers were cut in 1986 which has a lot to do with the lack of affordable housing, as well.

In 1989, Nancy Anderson, pastor of Minnehaha United Church of Christ, 4001 38th Ave. S., was finishing her studies at United Theological Seminary in New Brighton. She needed a paid practicum to complete her courses and came upon a newly formed organization called MICAH. It was the Metropolitan Interfaith Council on Affordable Housing whose purpose it was to work to ensure safe, affordable, decent housing for everyone.

Anderson is now the vice president of MICAH. Along with synagogues, mosques, other Christian churches, housing corporations, one architecture firm, community developers, and advocacy groups, her congregation is one of its 125 members, and one of its fifteen members located on the east side of South Minneapolis. There is no set membership fee; members give a donation.

In the beginning MICAH was made up of people from the Christian and Jewish faith communities. Their original focus was to educate their congregations about housing. People in the congregations started their involvement with obvious projects such as building houses for Habitat for Humanity, working in shelters and collecting mittens for homeless people, thereby becoming aware of the suffering of people they might not normally run into. Over the years, the emphasis shifted to public policy. Four years ago MICAH asked, “How can we get involved to impact public policy?” and from there the organization adopted an organizing model.

Anderson, who served as a park commissioner-at-large for 14 years, served on the City Planning Commission, and did a lot of community organizing before getting her master’s of divinity degree, is in her element as an organizer and a trainer of organizers for MICAH.

The way it works is that a core group is created in each congregation to work on housing issues. Then the core groups from all MICAH’s member churches in a particular ward, as well as other interested people in that ward, meet with their councilmembers—in the case of Minnehaha United Church of Christ it’s the 12th Ward and Sandy Colvin Roy—to get information and advocate for changes. After that the core groups attend City Council meetings.

Anderson said “The train started moving and others got on board.” When the organizing gets started “it becomes an impetus for others to organize.”

Another way that MICAH congregations work to affect public policy is to write letters. Minnehaha United Church of Christ designates one Sunday a month for letter writing during the fellowship hour after church.

MICAH is like a mighty ant colony—industrious, purposeful, well-organized and unseen. Through its method of organizing, it has had notable successes; over the past three years MICAH congregations have convinced communities with a “Not in My Back Yard” attitude to approve 836 new affordable housing units. And they have prevented the demolition and gentrification of 1,794 structurally sound apartments, in which more than 50 percent of the tenants were people of color or people with disabilities. The first recommendation Anderson was involved in, which recommended, in part, that 50 percent of city housing resources be designated for households earning 30 percent and less of the Metropolitan Median Income, passed with a unanimous vote.

Now, for the past year and a half, MICAH has been working to create a Housing Trust Fund, a part of the city budget made up of new or existing revenue sources that would be earmarked as housing-only funds. This fund would be administered by an independent commission and its priority would be housing affordable to households earning less than 30 percent and less than 50 percent of the Metropolitan Median Income which is about $76,500.

Other U.S. cities that have housing trust funds include San Francisco, Seattle, St. Paul, St. Louis, Denver, Columbus, Chicago and Boston.

Anderson said, “It would be a tremendous advantage to have a set amount of money for affordable housing each year so we wouldn’t need to go hunting for it year after year.” She said that we had gone from a surplus budget and rebates to a $3 billion deficit, indicating that a trust fund would provide security from these widely varying conditions. Another advantage to a housing trust fund is that every dollar would most likely be matched by funds from other sources.

In Minneapolis, Mayor R.T. Rybak has endorsed the Trust Fund. On Dec. 16 it will go to the Community Development Committee of the City Council. After MICAH’s November meeting with 9th Ward Councilmember Gary Schiff, it looks promising that the committee will vote to recommend the Housing Trust Fund to the full City Council who will then vote on it at their Dec. 30 meeting.

Besides pushing for the Housing Trust Fund, MICAH is also organizing its members to meet with neighborhoods to educate people on the importance of high density housing and mixed use sites. Their campaign is called YIMBY—“Yes In My Back Yard. “ They are teaching people that “researchers found no evidence that affordable housing hurt area home sales,” according to data acquired by the Family Housing Fund Public Education Initiative. Anderson says that high density is how most people in the world live and how they feel comfortable—with lots of people around. She said that when refugees from Kosovo sponsored by Minnehaha UCC first arrived in South Minneapolis and slept in a house separated from other houses—the way we live in South Minneapolis—they were mystified. “Where are all the people?” they wondered.

Our society is debilitated as long as there are people without decent housing. Housing Minnesota, a group of faith-based and secular social service organizations, mortgage companies, educational institutions and others who form the vast network laboring to create housing for everyone, says, “Affordable housing creates opportunities for people to hold steady jobs, pursue education, weather difficult times and contribute to their community.” In other words, affordable housing benefits the whole society.

As Minnesota anticipates 1 million more people by the year 2022, no one knows which way the economy will go. If it strengthens and if wages increase, there may be a reduced need for public and private investments in affordable housing and rent subsidies. It is not known whether private developers will once again receive tax incentives and credits. Anderson would like to the see financial incentives for the private sector reinstated. She would also like to see application fees eliminated. She said it’s too easy to scam people, that is, keep taking application fees even after the unit is already rented out. Landlords should have better ways to make money.

Underlying Anderson’s commitment to affordable housing is the question, “How big is your family?” Should you just care for yourself and your nuclear family, or is your family bigger than that? Anderson gets agitated when she describes how a CEO of a corporation can make 600 percent of what his company’s lowest paid employee does, and on top of that have his food and shelter underwritten by the company.

MICAH counteracts the belief that “If I’m OK and my immediate family’s OK, that’s good enough.” Anderson believes that if housing were available and jobs paid enough for people to afford the housing, it would be cheaper for society as a whole. The programs to assist people wouldn’t have to drain the rest of society. She declared, “The cost effectiveness of affordable housing and living wages has been demonstrated over and over.”

People interested in working on housing solutions with people of faith should contact MICAH at 612-871-8980, ext. 105, Joan Pearson.

joan@micah.org

MICAH Web site: www.micah.org

2002 Memorial Service for those in Minnesota who died while homeless in 2002

Thu., Dec. 19

Vigil and march from 1000 Currie Ave. downtown at 5 p.m.

Memorial service at Simpson United Methodist, 1st Ave. S. and W. 28th St., at 6 p.m.

Free community meal at 7:30 p.m.

Information at 612-874-8683, ext. 209

mnilsson@simpsonhousing.org

If you know someone who has died during the past year while homeless, contact Monica Nilsson at above.

Last year in December, Lydia Howell wrote a cover story for Pulse (our other paper) called “Homeless for the Holidays” which could have read, “Homeless While Other People Celebrate Holidays”: At the Housing Minnesota convention held in mid-November, a photographer named Tweak from St. Stephen’s Community was selling a calendar of original photographs in which, he pointed out, holidays are not marked. As a formerly homeless person, he wanted to demonstrate that, for the homeless, there are no holidays. The calendar is for sale at food co-ops and at St. Stephen’s Shelter.




What Society is Up Against In 1988 our family bought an inexpensive fixer-upper house. We’ve been working on it ever since. After years of periodic upheaval, there’s still a lot to do. We don’t mind that the house is too small, house plants won’t grow in it because it’s too dark, and there’s not a single right angle in the whole structure; we are simply thankful we lay claim to a warm and dry interior which serves as an archive for the historical artifacts of our lives, a storage container for current useful stuff, a place to rest, to wash up, to fix food, to share stories and to write, play music and draw pictures. I call it our “base of operations.” As access to affordable housing dwindles, we realize more and more how lucky we are: We don’t take our home for granted. People who don’t have a permanent residence tend not to live as long as the rest of the population. Their health is at risk from lack of health care, from exposure to the elements and from illnesses brought on by acute anxiety. Poverty, family violence, chronic conditions such as chemical dependency or mental illness, and crises such as job loss, illness, or divorce are constant, ongoing social conditions which explain some of the homelessness that exists today. But they don’t explain the steadily increasing homelessness in the Twin Cities and in Minnesota. Lack of affordable housing explains the vast majority of it. Ten years ago, the homeless population in the Twin Cities was made up largely of single men. Now, because wages have not kept up with the cost of home ownership and rental, the majority of homeless people are women and children and working families. All homelessness is tragic but homelessness among children is the most heartbreaking. The number of homeless children now equals the number of homeless people ten years ago. There are now in the state of Minnesota 10 to 11 thousand children without permanent housing. The Minneapolis Public Schools say that one out of 10 children are homeless sometime during the school year. Every day in Minneapolis a school bus picks up 1,000 children from shelters, not knowing what their destination will be by evening. Needless to say, the instability plays havoc with their ability to learn. In 2002, a person has to earn double minimum wage to afford a modest two-bedroom apartment—-if there is even one available. Housing, to buy or to rent at any price, has diminished since 1990. In the Twin Cities right now there are 68,900 renter households with annual incomes below $10,000, but only 31,200 housing units with rents affordable at this income level. Since housing is in short supply, prices have skyrocketed and people working for minimum wage have not been able to compete. There is no legal limit to housing costs, such as rent control, for example. Last year, 185,000 households earning less than $30,000 a year paid more than they could afford for their rent or mortgage costs—a home is usually considered to be affordable if a family pays no more than 30 percent of its income in housing costs. Since 1990, vacancy rates for apartments in the Twin Cities have fallen from more than 6 percent to just 2 percent or less. Only one-third as many rental units were added in Minnesota in the ’90s as in the previous decade. It appears that a law passed in 1976, the Land Use Planning Act, which required local governments in the metro area to plan and implement housing programs “which will provide sufficient existing and new housing to meet the local unit’s share of the metro area need for low and moderate income housing,” has been ignored. Tax incentives for developers were cut in 1986 which has a lot to do with the lack of affordable housing, as well. Congregations Get Involved In 1989, Nancy Anderson, pastor of Minnehaha United Church of Christ, 4001 38th Ave. S., was finishing her studies at United Theological Seminary in New Brighton. She needed a paid practicum to complete her courses and came upon a newly formed organization called MICAH. It was the Metropolitan Interfaith Council on Affordable Housing whose purpose it was to work to ensure safe, affordable, decent housing for everyone. Anderson is now the vice president of MICAH. Along with synagogues, mosques, other Christian churches, housing corporations, one architecture firm, community developers, and advocacy groups, her congregation is one of its 125 members, and one of its fifteen members located on the east side of South Minneapolis. There is no set membership fee; members give a donation. In the beginning MICAH was made up of people from the Christian and Jewish faith communities. Their original focus was to educate their congregations about housing. People in the congregations started their involvement with obvious projects such as building houses for Habitat for Humanity, working in shelters and collecting mittens for homeless people, thereby becoming aware of the suffering of people they might not normally run into. Over the years, the emphasis shifted to public policy. Four years ago MICAH asked, “How can we get involved to impact public policy?” and from there the organization adopted an organizing model. Anderson, who served as a park commissioner-at-large for 14 years, served on the City Planning Commission, and did a lot of community organizing before getting her master’s of divinity degree, is in her element as an organizer and a trainer of organizers for MICAH. The way it works is that a core group is created in each congregation to work on housing issues. Then the core groups from all MICAH’s member churches in a particular ward, as well as other interested people in that ward, meet with their councilmembers—in the case of Minnehaha United Church of Christ it’s the 12th Ward and Sandy Colvin Roy—to get information and advocate for changes. After that the core groups attend City Council meetings. Anderson said “The train started moving and others got on board.” When the organizing gets started “it becomes an impetus for others to organize.” Another way that MICAH congregations work to affect public policy is to write letters. Minnehaha United Church of Christ designates one Sunday a month for letter writing during the fellowship hour after church. What MICAH is Doing MICAH is like a mighty ant colony—industrious, purposeful, well-organized and unseen. Through its method of organizing, it has had notable successes; over the past three years MICAH congregations have convinced communities with a “Not in My Back Yard” attitude to approve 836 new affordable housing units. And they have prevented the demolition and gentrification of 1,794 structurally sound apartments, in which more than 50 percent of the tenants were people of color or people with disabilities. The first recommendation Anderson was involved in, which recommended, in part, that 50 percent of city housing resources be designated for households earning 30 percent and less of the Metropolitan Median Income, passed with a unanimous vote. Now, for the past year and a half, MICAH has been working to create a Housing Trust Fund, a part of the city budget made up of new or existing revenue sources that would be earmarked as housing-only funds. This fund would be administered by an independent commission and its priority would be housing affordable to households earning less than 30 percent and less than 50 percent of the Metropolitan Median Income which is about $76,500. Other U.S. cities that have housing trust funds include San Francisco, Seattle, St. Paul, St. Louis, Denver, Columbus, Chicago and Boston. Anderson said, “It would be a tremendous advantage to have a set amount of money for affordable housing each year so we wouldn’t need to go hunting for it year after year.” She said that we had gone from a surplus budget and rebates to a $3 billion deficit, indicating that a trust fund would provide security from these widely varying conditions. Another advantage to a housing trust fund is that every dollar would most likely be matched by funds from other sources. In Minneapolis, Mayor R.T. Rybak has endorsed the Trust Fund. On Dec. 16 it will go to the Community Development Committee of the City Council. After MICAH’s November meeting with 9th Ward Councilmember Gary Schiff, it looks promising that the committee will vote to recommend the Housing Trust Fund to the full City Council who will then vote on it at their Dec. 30 meeting. Besides pushing for the Housing Trust Fund, MICAH is also organizing its members to meet with neighborhoods to educate people on the importance of high density housing and mixed use sites. Their campaign is called YIMBY—“Yes In My Back Yard. “ They are teaching people that “researchers found no evidence that affordable housing hurt area home sales,” according to data acquired by the Family Housing Fund Public Education Initiative. Anderson says that high density is how most people in the world live and how they feel comfortable—with lots of people around. She said that when refugees from Kosovo sponsored by Minnehaha UCC first arrived in South Minneapolis and slept in a house separated from other houses—the way we live in South Minneapolis—they were mystified. “Where are all the people?” they wondered. Affordable Housing Is Good For Everyone Our society is debilitated as long as there are people without decent housing. Housing Minnesota, a group of faith-based and secular social service organizations, mortgage companies, educational institutions and others who form the vast network laboring to create housing for everyone, says, “Affordable housing creates opportunities for people to hold steady jobs, pursue education, weather difficult times and contribute to their community.” In other words, affordable housing benefits the whole society. As Minnesota anticipates 1 million more people by the year 2022, no one knows which way the economy will go. If it strengthens and if wages increase, there may be a reduced need for public and private investments in affordable housing and rent subsidies. It is not known whether private developers will once again receive tax incentives and credits. Anderson would like to the see financial incentives for the private sector reinstated. She would also like to see application fees eliminated. She said it’s too easy to scam people, that is, keep taking application fees even after the unit is already rented out. Landlords should have better ways to make money. Underlying Anderson’s commitment to affordable housing is the question, “How big is your family?” Should you just care for yourself and your nuclear family, or is your family bigger than that? Anderson gets agitated when she describes how a CEO of a corporation can make 600 percent of what his company’s lowest paid employee does, and on top of that have his food and shelter underwritten by the company. MICAH counteracts the belief that “If I’m OK and my immediate family’s OK, that’s good enough.” Anderson believes that if housing were available and jobs paid enough for people to afford the housing, it would be cheaper for society as a whole. The programs to assist people wouldn’t have to drain the rest of society. She declared, “The cost effectiveness of affordable housing and living wages has been demonstrated over and over.” People interested in working on housing solutions with people of faith should contact MICAH at 612-871-8980, ext. 105, Joan Pearson. joan@micah.org MICAH Web site: www.micah.org 2002 Memorial Service for those in Minnesota who died while homeless in 2002 Thu., Dec. 19 Vigil and march from 1000 Currie Ave. downtown at 5 p.m. Memorial service at Simpson United Methodist, 1st Ave. S. and W. 28th St., at 6 p.m. Free community meal at 7:30 p.m. Information at 612-874-8683, ext. 209 mnilsson@simpsonhousing.org If you know someone who has died during the past year while homeless, contact Monica Nilsson at above. Last year in December, Lydia Howell wrote a cover story for Pulse (our other paper) called “Homeless for the Holidays” which could have read, “Homeless While Other People Celebrate Holidays”: At the Housing Minnesota convention held in mid-November, a photographer named Tweak from St. Stephen’s Community was selling a calendar of original photographs in which, he pointed out, holidays are not marked. As a formerly homeless person, he wanted to demonstrate that, for the homeless, there are no holidays. The calendar is for sale at food co-ops and at St. Stephen’s Shelter.