Lisa Ronnquist: Resident of San Marco Apartments, Duluth

Lisa Ronnquist lived on the streets for most of her 54 years, separated from her family and her Ojibwe people. Fellow homeless souls became her guardians and alcohol her refuge.

 

That changed two years ago when Lisa moved into the San Marco Apartments in Duluth, Minnesota. But it wasn’t easy for her to make the transition. “She had a struggle,” said Lori Reilly, San Marco site director. “She was looking for ways to make it fail.”

Laura Kadwell, Minnesota Director for Ending Long- Term Homelessness, said the stereotypes of men sleeping under bridges are being replaced by women like Ronnquist and families who have lost their homes due to job loss, foreclosure or domestic abuse.

“Shelters are full to overflowing everywhere in the state,” said Kadwell. “In the fall, family homelessness usually goes down because families find a place to live so kids can go to school. It didn’t go down last fall. It has not been following the usual up-anddown trends.”

The recession is stressing families, but it is also stressing the state’s ability to fund programs like Heading Home Minnesota. Enacted in 2004, the program represents Minnesota’s 10-year plan to end homelessness. Through 2006, the project was ahead of schedule, having provided almost 1,100 additional housing opportunities. The plan emphasizes preventing and breaking the cycle of homelessness.

When it can’t be prevented, cities turn to places like San Marco Apartments.

San Marco adopted the “housing first” approach to homelessness, which prioritizes immediate housing above all other needs. Housing agencies across the state agree that the solution to chronic homelessness is investing in supportive housing that includes on-site counseling, medical, and self-sufficiency services. Several studies suggest that such housing is less expensive than public assistance and interventions.

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“This is not a sober building. We take people where they’re at. We are not a treatment program—we are a housing program.”
- Rick Klun, Center City Housing Corporation (Duluth)

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The apartments are divided into two separate sections— 40 efficiency units with kitchens for homeless individuals, and 30 private rooms with bathrooms and full meal plans for individuals with chemical dependency issues.

 

Residents are permitted to drink in private, but not in the building’s public areas. They can also choose to access the many services offered by the staff, including medication reminders and case management.

 

	Bill Reinke, Central Minnesota Housing Partnership

Measured outcomes show that alcohol consumption among residents has noticeably dropped, as have encounters with the police and visits to detox centers and emergency rooms.

 

“For the first time in their lives it’s up to them,” Reilly said. “They’re not in a treatment facility, so they can investigate sobriety on their own terms.”

 

Outside metropolitan areas like Duluth, rural homelessness presents a unique challenge, said Bill Reinke, executive director of Central Minnesota Housing Partnership (CMHP) in St. Cloud. While the urban homeless are fairly visible, rural homeless are often living in cars, doubling up in apartments or sleeping in unattended fish houses. His organization, with funding from the Initiative Foundation, coordinates Heading Home Minnesota to address homeless issues in 14 counties.

 

“The foundation has recognized that the lack of affordable housing was a huge threat to community health and the livelihood of local residents,” said Kathy Gaalswyk, Initiative Foundation president. “We got involved in helping to assess the need and helping the housing partnership to address that need effectively.”

 

The foundation has provided some $1 million to housing projects throughout its service area. Since 1995, $580,000 has gone to support CMHP and its programs.

	Laura Kadwell, Ending Long-Term Homelessness

 

Including the city of Duluth, St. Louis County covers more territory than the state of Rhode Island and “has more trees than people,” according to County Commissioner Steve O’Neil, so it struggles to address both rural and urban homelessness.

 

“What we’re trying to do first is to keep people out of shelters, and if they have to go to a shelter, make that shelter stay as short as possible,” O’Neil said. “Our numbers had been going down back in 2007 and early 2008. Now they’re going back up.”

 

In addition to the economic recession, O’Neil cites four reasons for the explosion of homelessness over the past 30 years:

• Closing of mental health centers without offering supportive housing
• Termination of public housing construction and shift to the Section 8 program, which was not adequately funded
• Urban renewal, which demolished inexpensive single-room occupancy motels and offered no alternatives
• Dramatic increases in domestic abuse, causing an increase in homeless families, usually single mothers with young children

 

Add the loss of jobs and you have what Klun terms the “perfect storm” for spiraling homelessness. Deb Holman, Street Outreach Worker for Churches United in Ministry (CHUM) in Duluth, said it has gotten harder to find housing resources for her homeless clients, especially if they have criminal histories.

 

	Turnaround:  Lisa Ronnquist (above) found refuge from chemical dependency and homelessness at San Marco Apartments (below) in Duluth.

“All I can do is offer them shelter here (at CHUM),” she said. “The people I work with have a lot of barriers—lack of income, often generational poverty, criminal history, no rental history, no family support. They aren’t eligible for government programs if they have a record. A lot of these guys out on the street will get drunk just so they can go to detox and have some shelter.”

 

Statistics from the Wilder Research Center show that many homeless people are coping with physical and mental illnesses, which add up to huge social costs.

 

“But homelessness is a lousy treatment plan for chemical addiction,” Klun said. Lisa Ronnquist agrees. “If I didn’t live here, I was still on the streets, I’d just keep on drinking because that way I’d be hanging around with people and I’d be safe.”

 

Today Lisa mentors new residents, many of whom she knows from her days on the streets. She’s been recognized as a valuable volunteer and proudly shows visitors her tidy apartment. She is also a respected Ojibwe elder and frequently visits her children and grandchildren.

 

So, can the grim cycle of homelessness be broken, especially given today’s economic circumstances?

 

“I think we’ve all tried to complicate it over the years,” said Cathy ten Broeke, Coordinator to End Homelessness for Minneapolis and Hennepin County. “People can have complicating factors like mental health, physical health and chemical dependency in their lives, but the reason that people are homeless is that they can’t afford a place to live.”

 

She said that rental subsidies, support programs, and more public and private investments are part of the solution.

 

“I have no doubt we can solve homelessness,” she added. “We can do it, we know how to do it, so it’s not a question of ‘can we’ but ‘will we?’” IQ