Century-old hotel converted into veteran housing in Robbinsdale

NINA MOINI: 14 homeless veterans in Minnesota will soon have a roof over their heads in the city of Robbinsdale, a suburb just outside the Twin Cities. The Minnesota Assistance Council for Veterans, or MACV, converted the nearly 125-year-old Robin Hotel into 14 units for low-income and homeless veterans. A ribbon cutting was held last week. And in about two weeks, people will start moving in. Joining me now to talk about the project is Sara Riegle, the Chief Housing Officer for MACV. Congratulations, Sara, and thanks for joining us.

SARA RIEGLE: Thank you. And thank you so much for having me on today.

NINA MOINI: Absolutely. Would you start, for folks who don't, just telling us a little bit about MACV's mission?

SARA RIEGLE: Absolutely. So MACV, we're a local nonprofit. We're based out of St. Paul, Minnesota, but we do serve the entire state. And our mission is pretty simple. We're seeking to end veteran homelessness within the state of Minnesota.

NINA MOINI: And how is the state doing in that department? Because it seems like, just from past folks we've had on the show, that some areas have really been able to get a handle on it. Some areas are still working. When you zoom out on the state, what do you see?

SARA RIEGLE: Absolutely. So we've been working on this goal for about 10 years now. We use a tool called the HVR, the Homeless Veteran Registry, which allows us to identify veterans that are experiencing homelessness, where they're living, and what their barriers are to housing. So we have a lot of data to help us answer that question. Over the course of the last decade, we've brought this number down by several hundred. We know, because we have live data, that we have about 200 veterans who are still experiencing homelessness within the state of Minnesota.

Minnesota is broken down into what we call continuums of care. And so the 10 continuums of care within the state of Minnesota, nine have declared a functional end to veteran homelessness. However, we're always identifying new vets that are coming onto the registry. So it is a constant work in progress.

NINA MOINI: And those areas are-- when you say continuums of care, is that by location, like chunks of the state?

SARA RIEGLE: Yes, correct. So, for example, Hennepin County and Ramsey County are their own continuums of care. In Greater Minnesota, several counties might be grouped together.

NINA MOINI: Sure. OK. So zooming in here on the Robin Hotel project, I understand you all have been working on this for three years. I'm sure it takes a really long time. I mean, any type of housing seems to take a really long time. How did you get involved in redeveloping this building in particular? What stood out?

SARA RIEGLE: It has definitely been a long road and a labor of love. This particular building was brought to us-- brought to our attention from staff members at Hennepin County. This historic building, as you mentioned, 125 years old, had been serving those with poor rental histories and poor credit histories on week-to-week leases for quite a period of time.

The owner of that building was looking to get out and to sell the building. Hennepin County is obviously very much wanting to maintain affordable housing and not lose buildings that provide affordable housing to things like luxury buildings or parking lots or things like that. So they have the building under contract. They brought it to us, and they said, we want to maintain this as affordable housing. But the county itself does not want to own or operate buildings. They're not landlords. And so they brought that to us in order to be able to continue our mission of ending veteran homelessness. And three years later, it's been quite a journey, but we are looking forward to welcoming our residents next month.

NINA MOINI: Very exciting. And so 14, correct, units. I mean, it doesn't sound like a ton, but that's a significant number if you're talking about those 200-or-so folks that you're still hoping to serve. But how do you pick who gets to be there?

SARA RIEGLE: So we go through a process called coordinated entry. Coordinated entry is a system that's available to anyone within the state of Minnesota experiencing homelessness. It's not veteran exclusive. And what they do is they look at the parameters of what a household who's experiencing homelessness, what they kind of have going on, and what might be a good solution to help serve them.

And so 100% of our referrals do come through that one-door access, that one door of entry. And so that helps us make sure that we're really focusing on the folks who need this the most, not just the person who got the paperwork done the fastest or had the case manager who was paying the closest attention that day. It's a really streamlined process that helps us identify who really needs this opportunity.

NINA MOINI: OK. And then so when they're there, I understand, they're going to be what's often called wraparound services as well. Is that going to be on location? And would you tell us a little bit more about what that looks like?

SARA RIEGLE: Absolutely. We will have services right there on location. We have a staff member called a residential services coordinator who is available to all of our vets. And really, what that person's primary role is, is just keeping our vets stable in their housing and help support them in whatever the veterans' self-identified goals may be.

So maybe a vet is looking to bring their income up. Maybe they're looking to access some mental health resources. Maybe they're looking to reunify with family members that they've lost track of when they were experiencing homelessness. So whatever those goals are around staying really stable in their housing-- sometimes there's conflict. If you're living on the streets and then all of a sudden you're sharing a wall with someone who plays their music really loudly, how do I address that conflict with my neighbor? So it could be coaching through community building and engagement. So all of these things are the kind of work that our RSCs can help our vets do to stay in their housing.

NINA MOINI: And I know that you mentioned, Sara, that it took a while for perhaps the city of Robbinsdale to get on board. Can you talk a little bit about some of the challenges within different communities and cities? Is it hard to pitch something like this to a city? I would imagine that most people would want to help veterans.

SARA RIEGLE: It can be pretty challenging to come into a new geography or a new city, new landscape where they haven't worked with us in the past. Many cities have zoning. They have code. They have city plans that line up with their vision of what a housing project should look like. And that can be really challenging when you're coming in trying to provide housing or coming in as a housing developer.

We've had multiple projects over the course of the last several years where unfortunately, we've had to step away because the city says, we don't want a small project. We want a 200-unit project, or we want a 3 to 1 parking ratio for your residents, even though we know that our vets only about 15% of the time do they own a vehicle. So having a 3 to 1 parking ratio isn't something that is going to necessarily work for us. We don't want to drop units to be able to add three parking spots that won't be used.

So it's just really important to work with the city that you're coming into. In this case, Robbinsdale had a lot of concerns about the age of the building. They had concerns about the backgrounds of the tenants, and they had concerns about parking. They also wanted us to have a lot of parking.

And so it really can be a process to help everyone feel comfortable and feel like this is something that we can move forward with. Everybody can have some compromise. Everybody kind of gets some part of what they want and maybe some part of that wasn't exactly what they wanted. And that was a three-year process for us with the city of Robbinsdale. And I was actually at a conference in Washington, DC, when we got the phone call that our conditional use permit was approved, and I actually started crying at breakfast at the conference that morning, just because it was just a really, really big win. And we were so excited to be able to start the rehab.

NINA MOINI: I understand you have another win over in Eagan. You got another development. Is that one set to open? Would you tell me a little bit about that one?

SARA RIEGLE: Absolutely. So the Veterans Village down in Eagan, that is being done with a local community of faith who was able to help us purchase the land at a very, very affordable price. And so that will be 22 units of housing. We will have some one-bedrooms as well as some three-bedrooms, services on site, just like we do at the Robin. And so we will start leasing that project up probably by October.

NINA MOINI: Wow, great. And so you mentioned there houses of worship. I just wonder about all the different stakeholders and people and groups and organizations that can help to end veteran homelessness in Minnesota. What do you think? Who needs to help? Or who else can step up? Or what can an average person do?

SARA RIEGLE: Everybody can step up. And I think that there can be a pretty rough stigma around homelessness, sort of a belief that someone made a choice, a poor choice, that led them down the path into homelessness. And I think it's really important to understand, specifically as veterans go, that sometimes the path that led these individuals into homelessness was a direct payment for what they experienced in combat.

They went to combat. And sometimes the price they paid was excruciating pain, which maybe did lead to some addiction issues or not being able to sleep or a divorce. I mean, sometimes that is the price that our veterans pay. And we as a society really have the responsibility to not judge that path but to know that that was the path for our freedoms and to step up and be supportive of their community now.

So you can certainly go to macv.org. Some people feel more comfortable making financial donations. There are also certain in-kind donations. We've had people actually come to us and say, we have this land, or we have this building that we're not using, like the church did for us. They approached us with the land on their property.

We had a young man. His name is Declan. He came. He's 15 years old. And he came to our ribbon cutting the other day and said, what can I do? Can I do a drive? Do you need pots and pans? And he's 15 years old. And he's out there knocking on doors for us. So whatever it is within your community, your household, your budget that you think that you might be able to do-- if you want to bring a pizza over to one of our properties one night and have dinner with our veterans. We've had people do that too. You don't have to be a million-dollar donor to be able to support the veterans in your community.

NINA MOINI: That's a good point. And if you don't know how to help, just ask. Sara, thank you so very much for coming by Minnesota Now. Appreciate your time.

SARA RIEGLE: Thank you so much for letting us share our story.

NINA MOINI: Sara Riegle is the chief housing officer at the Minnesota Assistance Council for Veterans, or MACV.