Private sector puts weight into fight against homelessness

With the need increasing markedly, a coalition of business, nonprofit and religious leaders is joining forces with Gov. Tim Pawlenty to seek $60 million in private donations to battle homelessness in Minnesota.

More than one-fourth of that total has been pledged so far, according to Heading Home Minnesota, the partnership that is leading the task.

That private-sector contribution is in addition to the $217 million that is being sought from local, state and federal governments by 2010.

"It is a lot of money, especially with the level of commitment coming in from private-sector sources," said Paul Fate, president and CEO of CommonBond Communities, Minnesota's largest nonprofit provider of affordable housing. "It will have a very tangible and dramatic impact on eliminating chronic homelessness.

"The quality of this partnership and the scale of this initiative is extraordinary."

So is the scale of the problem.

Catholic Charities of St. Paul and Minneapolis said there has been a substantial rise in the need for its services. There was a 19 percent increase in requests for housing through its emergency shelters in the fiscal year that ended in June.

Earlier this month, the Dorothy Day Center in St. Paul opened a long-term women's shelter and all of its 42 beds were filled within a week. Nearly 500 families have come to Dorothy Day for help in 2007, up from 264 last year.

In addition, Catholic Charities' food shelves have recorded a 14.1 percent increase in users over the last year.

The $60 million goal "obviously ... is a good amount of money," said the Rev. John Estrem, CEO of Catholic Charities. "But it's going to take more than that.

"Building facilities is very, very complicated and difficult, but it's not as hard as continuing to provide services day after day, which is what we do."

Estrem said the number of homeless people locally has increased over the past three to four years, but it is "a very tricky population to count."

Other measures say the number of homeless in Minnesota has been essentially steady for several years.

According to an October 2006 study by the Wilder Foundation, there are about 9,200 homeless Minnesotans. That study found that more than half are women accompanied by at least one child; nearly half had been homeless for more than a year; 28 percent of homeless people are employed, and a third of adults consider themselves to be chemically dependent.

A march and memorial service at the Simpson United Methodist Church tonight will commemorate the more than 100 people church leaders say died while homeless in Minnesota this year.

Prevention, housing, outreach

Heading Home Minnesota said its efforts will emphasize long-term answers:

• Preventing homelessness with emergency assistance for a family's main wage earner who has lost a job, the military veteran struggling to readjust to society or others hit with a major setback.

• Create supportive housing, which provides a stable home and services to address the underlying causes of homelessness and get people out of hospitals, detox facilities and temporary shelters.

• Outreach to those on the street, such as what Catholic Charities and others provide.

Heading Home Minnesota is a partnership that ties together various anti-homelessness strategies, including the "business plan" to end long-term homelessness -- a statewide private-public partnership -- and regional Heading Home programs in Hennepin, Ramsey and St. Louis counties and southeast Minnesota.

The plan was created in 2003 by the Legislature and set a seven-year goal of creating 4,000 housing units, about 1,600 of which have been built.

Minnesota has been out in front of the rest of the nation in such public-private collaborations, said Tim Marx, commissioner of the Minnesota Housing Finance Agency.

The National Affordable Housing Trust Fund was approved by the House of Representatives last month and awaits Senate action. It would provide or preserve 1.5 million units of affordable housing over the next decade.

"The financial commitment of Heading Home Minnesota will go a long way toward ending chronic homelessness in our state," Pawlenty said in a statement prepared for a Wednesday press conference at the Camden Apartments in Minneapolis, a Project for Pride in Living housing unit.

Marx said there is a need for so much funding because "many of the homeless, particularly the long-term, are very ill -- chemically dependent, mentally ill and physically ill."

Paul Walsh • 612-673-4482