BEMIDJI, Minn. - Nestled between three Native American reservations in the poorest region of Minnesota, Ours to Serve House of Hospitality in Bemidji started as a single-adult shelter in the 1980s. By 2007, they had seen such a dramatic increase in homeless families, that the shelter decided to refocus and serve families exclusively.

Most of the families seen at the shelter are headed by very young single mothers, says Rebecca Hoffman, the shelter's executive director. For them, homelessness is not about a downturn in the economy or lost wages, she says.

"Homelessness is about layers and layers of trauma. About eighty-five percent of our mothers have experienced a severe physical or sexual assault during their lifetime, and most of them experienced that as a child."

Hoffman says many end up at the shelter because they flee abusive relationships. Because they often have no rental history, no work history, no high school diploma, or any sort of education beyond high school, their earning potential is extremely limited. She says this population largely falls through the cracks because housing policy isn't geared toward helping them.

The shift in state funding towards ending long-term homelessness has come at a cost to the families she serves, Hoffman adds. Last year, she says, the state's emergency shelters saw a 30-percent cut in funding for operations.

"That is a significant blow to shelters that already operate on just a bare bones budget."

She says rural Minnesota has been hit particularly hard by the policy shift because the homeless in those areas struggle to overcome additional barriers to stable housing, such as education and reliable transportation that gives them access to jobs.

Thanks to bonding dollars made available through the efforts of a former state representative, they are building a new shelter, Hoffman notes. While they are thankful for the new facility, she says her operation is still too small to meet the local demand, turning away as many as 1,000 people each year.

"We're turning away families with children. In the summertime, you see a lot of families coming in where the children are just full of mosquito bites and welts all over their bodies because they have been living outside with their families in really substandard conditions."

Hoffman is hoping that policymakers understand the importance of all programs that provide solutions to ending homelessness.

"We need to have programs like our short-term shelters working in conjunction with programs that have a more lasting and long-term impact on people's lives. There's not just one single solution to how we remedy homelessness."





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New York's 2025 budget takes proactive steps to address rural housing.

In the budget, $10 million was allocated for improvements to rural housing built by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Section 515 program. Rural housing organizations asked for $25 million but are grateful the state is taking action.

Mike Borges, executive director of the Rural Housing Coalition of New York, said another bill the Legislature should pass makes the Mobile and Manufactured Home Replacement Program permanent.

"Basically what that does is provide grants to low- to moderate-income people to replace their mobile homes that are dilapidated and unsafe," Borges explained.

He would also like to see administration fees increase for nonprofits taking part in the Access to Home Program, which provides accessibility modification for low- to moderate-income residents. Reports showed it got requests totaling $12 million but only got enough funding for $1 million in improvements. The Senate is poised to pass both bills, leaving the Assembly as the final hurdle.

However, the budget was not perfect for rural housing. Borges said one shortcoming of the 2025 budget were cuts to the RESTORE program, which provides emergency repairs for low-to-moderate-income seniors. He said New York should take action now to continue improving rural housing preservation and development.

"We need a comprehensive housing initiative that looks at the obstacles to building and renovating, repairing housing in rural communities," Borges contended. "The three main obstacles to that are local capacity, infrastructure and targeted programs for rural housing."

He added rural areas do not often have the same resources and capacity as urban communities. Because rural housing is in short supply because of the aging housing stock, there have been stark population declines from rural New York communities.

Orange County's Supreme Court reversed a decision letting the city of Newburgh implement state tenant protections.

The city declared a housing emergency in 2023 when a study showed a vacancy rate less than 4%. The lawsuit overturning the protections found that the study was flawed, leading the court to invalidate it.

Daniel Atonna, political coordinator for the group For the Many, said this leaves tenants in a precarious position.

"This rips away protections for tenants in over 730 apartments in the city of Newburgh," he said, "at a time when tenants all across the Hudson Valley, all across New York, are facing difficult conditions as landlords are trying to evict them and raise their rent."

The petitioner's attorney said if unchecked, the city's actions would have made drastic changes to the rental market without legal basis.

This ruling also keeps Newburgh from setting up a rent guidelines board to decide whether rent-stabilized tenants' rents should stay the same, increase or decrease. Atonna said he hopes the city redoes the survey and implements these protections.

Atonna thinks Newburgh should opt into the newly passed Good Cause Eviction protections. This could better protect tenants, although some housing advocates feel these protections are ineffective. He said many residents support having tenant protections.

"Because it's meant stabilization for the community, right? It means a strong community where their neighbors aren't getting uprooted and evicted every couple of years," he said. "So, this was something that was going to be good for everyone."

A 2021 survey found 77% of Newburgh residents would leave the city because of high rents. It also found that people spend more than 30% of their income on rent.


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The Supreme Court case Grants Pass v. Gloria Johnson could upend homeless populations in Connecticut and nationwide.

The case centers around whether municipalities can fine or ticket people for sleeping outside when there is no shelter available. Connecticut had an eight-year decline in homelessness, but the last two Point-in-Time snapshots indicated it is rising again.

Sarah Fox, CEO of the Connecticut Coalition to End Homelessness, said ticketing and fining homeless people only harms them.

"It in fact prolongs their experience of homelessness," Fox asserted. "Once someone is engaged with the criminal legal system, it impacts and affects every other part of their life and their world."

She argued the state needs to work proactively to reduce homelessness, such as tackling the affordable-housing crisis. Connecticut has a shortage of more than 98,000 affordable rental homes. Fox suggested an interagency council on homelessness can ensure homeless people have better access to services and emphasized more funding will create a more effective system for sheltering homeless people.

Homelessness has risen 6% nationally since 2017.

Ann Oliva, CEO of the National Alliance to End Homelessness, said affordable housing and services are key to ending homelessness. She stressed along with state- and local-level work, federal investments can help squelch rising homelessness.

"Investments by Congress in housing affordability, that means rental assistance for everybody who is eligible for rental assistance," Oliva stressed. "Right now, only one out of every four households that's eligible for federal rental assistance can get it because of funding challenges."

Based on the Supreme Court's ruling, she feels ordinances criminalizing homelessness could increase. Even so, Oliva added all three levels of government should be aware of actual solutions to curb homelessness.


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