Homeless Memorial March carries on in snow as anxiety grows over potential funding cuts

What Wendy Wiegmann will miss the most about Don Zekan is knowing he was housed and safe.

Zekan, 73, a formerly homeless man who spent his last 10 years living in supportive housing, died this year. He had spent 20 years on the street and sometimes told his case manager he wanted to go back.

But the case manager was always able to talk him out of it, said Wiegmann, the associate director of Simpson Housing Services. She kept him engaged with music, and he eventually learned the guitar well enough to play at community events. Wiegmann said he had “a life well lived.”

“That’s part of supportive housing and why supporting housing works,” she said, as she began to worry about that system’s future.

Hundreds attended the 41st annual Homeless Memorial March in downtown Minneapolis just after sunset Thursday. They honored the 115 people across Minnesota who died this year while homeless, along with 86 others who were previously homeless and 18 advocates who supported them.

The event included a 45-minute silent march through Loring Park and parts of downtown, with attendees holding signs bearing the names, ages and cities of residence of the departed.

With temperatures around 15 degrees, snow falling and wind howling, about 170 people completed the march before a remembrance event at Plymouth Congregational Church that drew more more than 200 people to the pews.

“[The memorial] reminds us that every life lost to homelessness belonged to someone who mattered, someone who deserved safety and comfort and possibility,” said Ryan Berg, a program manager for Avenues for Youth, which provides services for homeless youth.

Zekan is the kind of success story that, according to advocates for the homeless, have become more common in recent years. But anxiety is ramping up among service providers that threats of funding cuts from the federal government will destroy the momentum.

In November, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced new rules that could drastically cut funding for homelessness assistance programs, according to the National Low Income Housing Coalition.

Cathy ten Broeke, the executive director of the Minnesota Interagency Council on Homelessness, said there are 4,900 Minnesotans who have housing largely because of funds from HUD.

If the funds disappear, “We’re going to start to see a lot of those people start to be homeless as well,” she said.

“This is a particularly challenging year for the community that works on this issue,” ten Broeke added. “No state in the country is going to be able to backfill the federal government as a partner.”

The difficulties go beyond funds as well. At Avenues for Youth, Berg works with the LGBTQ community, which experiences homelessness at three to five times the rate of their peers.

Speaking to the audience at the church, Berg said the community is under a “political and cultural assault” that intends to restrict access to health care and education. Meanwhile, he said immigrant communities are terrified to leave their homes for fear of being stopped by federal agents.

Berg said those “patterns of rejection and displacement” have shown up in homeless shelters for years.

“Connection — being seen — matters, along with resources, housing and support,” he said. “It’s what we can offer. It’s what we owe each other.”