MICAH's News from April 2020
|
|
How are people experiencing homelessness, people impacted by the housing crisis and now with COVID-19 shut down of their jobs involved in decisions being made about their lives? MICAH believes and works to ensure that the people impacted are at every decision making table.
In St. Paul and Minneapolis, MICAH along with Freedom from the Streets, are meeting weekly in person. We hold weekly conference calls with the Ramsey
County Commissioner
Trista MatasCastillo, David Hewitt,Director of Hennepin County Plan to End Homeless, and Margaret King representing
MN Interagency Council on Homelessness. This effort is formed so that those impacted have a voice in the decisions being made about their lives.
This advocacy, with others, has significantly impacted public officials’ understanding of the needs of people who cannot stay home because they have no home. It beneficially informs their implementation of the Governor's Executive Stay at Home Order exemption of people experiencing homelessness; and the implementation of CDC guidance on sheltered and unsheltered, food, day shelters, sanitation stations, health services, and other help in homeless encampments. It also encourages community priority of placing vulnerable people into hotels and 24-hour housing sites, with over 500 placed to date in the metro counties and an additional 500 people to be placed in next couple of weeks.
Both Hennepin and Ramsey County are developing posters with key information based on our recommendations. These posters are integral in reaching out to a community whose main source for much of this information is library internet access, from which they are currently cut off.
The posters will address and inform on a range of issues; COVID-19 testing opportunities, 24-hour quarantine sites and isolation sites for folks experiencing homelessness, locations of sanitary stations, how to get into 24 facilities and/or shelters, emergency financial assistance, and food. Also included will be service contact information for mental health, chemical health, and victims of abuse, the court system, housing placement, computer access, and internet services.
It is critical to disburse this information in a way that people with little or no technology can access. Old fashioned posters are a great answer and they will be posted and handed out in places frequented by people experiencing homelessness.
|
|
Please see Action Alerts for latest policy work on State and Federal level.
|
|
Meet the People Who Make MICAH Happen
|
|
Ed Goldsmith
MICAH Board Member
Ed Goldsmith has over 40 years of public and non-profit experience in affordable housing and community development. In addition to MICAH’s Board, he serves on the Leadership Team of the Suburban Hennepin Housing Coalition and the Board of the Outreach Development Corporation, which is affiliated with Interfaith Outreach and Community Partners.
His career began at the City of Minneapolis managing Public Housing and non-profit subsidized housing for families, seniors, persons with special needs, and other single individuals. He expanded into redevelopment, working on the City’s East Bank and Nicollet Island Development District. He was the Project Coordinator leading redevelopment activities in the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood, 1985-91.
|
|
|
|
MICAH's Board Members discuss the importance of making sure that the people impacted by homelessness and housing crisis are the key decision makers in finding and creating solutions to ensure that everyone has a safe, decent, accessible, and affordable home.
|
|
|
The MICAH newsletter is moving this summer.
Look for our same news and information but delivered quarterly.
|
|
South Chapter News
- From
Rebecca Bowers, Dakota County Social Services
Resource Development - Program Coordinator
Dakota County’s COVID-19 information
has a wealth of info and links. Check out the Community Resources tab for all sorts of useful info. This is a central place for county and community resources that a team of staff are regularly updating.
Housing Crisis Line phone is (651) 554-5751 for persons experiencing a housing crisis
|
|
St. Paul Chapter
- CALL TO ACTION at CITY HALL!
This is it! After a year of working on fair housing policies and building renter’s power, St. Paul has the chance to do some good! We need you to call or email your councilmember, and to add a comment to the city’s policy website NOW! The public hearing is scheduled for May 20th!
Read more details and action here.
MICAH had our first Zoom meeting with the NorthEast Suburban chapter on the 12th and it went very well.
Click this link
to join from a browser, or look for a separate invitation in the St. Paul Chapter email.
|
|
Housing For All -
Keeping the Faith through COVID-19
“Many Voices One Message”
from Governor Dean Phillips. Included in this video, Nelima Sitati Munene, Executive Director, ACER, Inc., and Brooklyn Park Mayor Jeff Lunde, who are involved with Housing for All.
|
|
Emergency Rental Assistance Available
Are you a renter in Suburban Hennepin County that has been financially harmed by the COVID-19 pandemic? You may be eligible for emergency rental assistance.
Click on this link
, or on the image to the left, to find contact information for your area.
|
|
Freedom From the Streets
- Happy Birthday!!
Freedom From the Streets (FFS) celebrated its first birthday last weekend at our St Paul meeting, Elim/Strong Tower Shelter dinner (where FFS members have cooked, served, and cleaned up after an evening meal for 4 months) and at the Minneapolis meeting on Monday.
Founded by MICAH Board Member, Junail Freeman Anderson. MICAH is a key supporter as fiscal agency and providing over $10,000 in kind services and FFS funded through initial start up grant of $2,000 from St Joseph the Worker Catholic Church in Maple Grove in June 2019, $25,000 grant from Pohlad Foundation.
Read more about what we're doing with FFS
.
|
|
Minneapolis Chapter
- Upper Harbor Terminal Project Planning Continues
The Upper Harbor project is a massive, years-long undertaking. As the planning grows, so does the community activity and interest. People who will be directly impacted must be involved, to have a strong say in what happens in their neighborhood.
Devastating developments like the Interstate 94 cut through North Minneapolis in the 70s must become, and remain, a thing of the past.
|
|
NorthEast Chapter
- Until We Meet Again
Jenny Mason leaving Community Resource Center
We would like to recognize the work of Jenny Mason, who is leaving the Community Resource Center (the CRC) at St. Andrew’s Lutheran Church, where she was the executive director since September of 2017. She has been a stalwart member of the NorthEast chapter and we will miss her.
Janet Urbanowicz of the NorthEast chapter spoke for many of us when she said “We know the time always comes for talented people to move on, but it is difficult to see them go.”
Jenny says her new directions may involve greater focus on income inequality and working on a broader level than a single center.
photo credit kstp
|
|
Elim Church Shelter made the news on April 17 as one of the shelters in the Twin Cities that had been visited by someone who tested positive for COVID-19.
"Within 24 hours, the shelter’s few staff had to recruit volunteer health care professionals to screen all residents; secure dozens of donated masks, thermometers and other gear; and figure out how to communicate the risks of the outbreak without creating panic."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
