Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey on Thursday vetoed the city council’s second attempt to extend the city’s eviction notice timeline.

He also vetoed a council ordinance decriminalizing drug paraphernalia.

Both ordinances passed with the support of the progressive wing of the city council. The council can attempt to override the vetoes — but unless some council members change their votes, they likely don’t have the support to do so.

Eviction timeline extension

The ordinance would have required landlords to give tenants 45 days’ notice before officially filing to evict them — an extension from the 30 days currently required under city rules.

Council members supporting the extension said it would help people who are still struggling to pay rent after the federal immigration enforcement surge.

In his letter to the city council on the veto, Frey wrote that rental assistance money is the best way to support tenants — not extensions.

“The City of Minneapolis has a longer pre-eviction notice period than most cities in the country,” Frey said. “I am not convinced that more time will result in improved outcomes.”

He pointed to the eviction moratorium imposed during the pandemic in 2020, and the wave of evictions that followed when the moratorium was lifted. He said the same in March, when he vetoed a similar council ordinance that would have extended the notice timeline to 60 days.

Some shelter leaders and housing experts agreed with Frey, saying that more time without more financial assistance available to renters would put them further in debt.

But some noted that, this time, there is city funding available — the council and the mayor have approved $3.8 million in rental assistance, which residents can now apply for. Council members and housing experts supporting the eviction notice extension said it could help give renters time to access those funds.

The council would need nine votes to override the veto. Last week, the council passed it on a 8-5 vote.

Drug paraphernalia decriminalization

Frey also vetoed an ordinance that would have decriminalized drug paraphernalia in Minneapolis.

The ordinance was recommended by outreach workers, who said the city’s current policies discourage drug users from seeking help or getting clean needles and other materials, out of fear of getting in trouble. Under the city’s current rules, possession of drug paraphernalia is a misdemeanor.

In his letter to the council, Frey said the current rule makes it easier for police to investigate drug-related crimes, as they can stop people for having drug paraphernalia and investigate further.

He said the ordinance also is frequently used by Metro Transit police to keep people from using drugs on light rail trains.

“I remain a firm believer in harm reduction, but we need every tool available to combat addiction and related quality-of-life issues,” Frey said.

Advocates for the ordinance said the current law complicates their work.

Jay Orne is a researcher and manager of HIV prevention programs at the Aliveness Project. He oversees the organization’s outreach to people on the streets — which involves providing clean needles, plus Narcan and HIV testing. Orne said people who use that program have been stopped by police after picking up clean needles.

“That makes the folks that we work with hesitant to take the supplies that they need,” Orne said.

He worries that people will instead use old needles and less-safe practices — which can further the spread of HIV.

Orne said it creates a dilemma for outreach workers, too. Their work handing out safer supplies is funded by state and county dollars, but it’s technically illegal for drug users to carry the supplies they’re given.

“That’s — I think — the hypocrisy, or just the weirdness of the situation,” Orne said. “One hand is saying, ‘this is such an important public health strategy that we’re going to fund your program to be out there on the street’… and then another hand is saying, ‘that’s actually illegal.’”

Several council members said they worried that decriminalizing paraphernalia would lead to more drug use in public places and paraphernalia left on the streets.

Council member Elizabeth Shaffer said constituents report issues with litter left on the streets, including drug paraphernalia.

“Public health is not just about the health of the people engaged in the behavior being regulated. It encompasses the well-being of the entire community, including people who are not using drugs,” Shaffer said.

Several residents echoed those complaints in public comments.

Council member Jason Chavez said continuing to criminalize paraphernalia isn’t helping drug users or other residents in the city.

“This ordinance was brought forward to address public health and safety issues harming our communities,” Chavez said. “Not a single Minneapolis resident will see their health or safety improve because of the mayor’s action.”

The council voted 7-6 in favor of the ordinance last week. That leaves them two votes short of the required majority to overturn the mayor’s veto.

The city of Lakeville’s population is booming. It grew 12 percent from 2020 to 2024, according to U.S. Census data. That’s compared to statewide growth of two percent. Despite Lakeville’s growth, the city is putting a pause on building new housing. The city council passed a one-year moratorium last week.

Lakeville Mayor Luke Hellier joined MPR News host Nina Moini to explain why they’re hitting pause on housing and his vision for the future of Lakeville housing.

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Group homes give Minnesotans with disabilities or mental health diagnoses a place to live — with staff on site to keep them safe. But a new investigation from MPR News and APM Reports found a surprising number of people have been dying in Minnesota group homes.

The investigation discovered at least 50 deaths since late 2022. But state law allows only minor financial penalties against the group homes when they neglect their residents.

Reporter Ellie Roth joined Minnesota Now host Nina Moini to talk about the group home industry, how the state investigates neglect and an inside look on the reporting.

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Ryan Riggs died alone by a chain link fence in the backyard of the group home that was paid to take care of him.

Disabled by a traumatic brain injury after crashing his motorcycle in 2024, the 44-year-old needed more help than his family could handle. His wife, Julie, moved him to a site run by Fortunate Homes in Brooklyn Center, believing it was the best place for him.

About six months later, Ryan Riggs went missing from Fortunate Homes. As the temperature dropped to 45 degrees on a September night last year, the group home’s staff and police couldn’t find him. Twenty-nine hours after he disappeared, his body was discovered behind the facility’s detached garage. Rigor mortis had set in.

A state investigator concluded Fortunate Homes neglected Ryan Riggs’ needs. The Department of Health determined the vulnerable man should never have been allowed to leave the house unsupervised and that staffers did not review their own surveillance video until the day after he disappeared.

Ryan Riggs’ death and the facility’s neglect devastated his family. For the state’s fast-growing group home industry, it was part of a troubling pattern.

MPR News and its investigative unit APM Reports found at least 50 residents in Minnesota group homes have died since late 2022 under circumstances serious enough to trigger state maltreatment investigations. In 19 of those cases, state investigators concluded the homes had neglected those vulnerable people.

Yet the group homes faced only minimal consequences. State law caps fines on the homes at $5,000 for each case of substantiated maltreatment. In Ryan Riggs’ case, Fortunate Homes was initially fined $1,000 — less than two days’ worth of the more than $20,000 the business received monthly to take care of him, according to his medical records.

In other instances, MPR News and APM Reports found the state issued a $5,000 fine for neglect when staff at group homes let a resident drink himself to death, didn’t administer a resident’s life-saving medication for 15 days, and didn’t stop a resident from overdosing twice in a single day.

“That’s a lot of deaths. I’m frankly in shock that this isn’t known,” said Sue Abderholden, a longtime advocate for Minnesotans with mental health struggles. “There needs to be more happening, including shutting down a facility if they really can’t make adjustments in order to keep people safe. Slapping on a fine is not going to make sure people are safe in the future.”

In March, MPR News and APM Reports asked the Minnesota Department of Health about Ryan Riggs' case and the $1,000 fine. Days later, the Health Department sent a letter to Fortunate Homes, calling the original fine an “error” and raising it to $5,000. The letter did not elaborate on the reason for the change, and the department did not answer questions from reporters about the sudden increase.

Health Department officials declined an interview. In a statement, a spokesperson said the department issues fines and other enforcement actions in accordance with state law and that “MDH’s goal is always that Minnesota have zero deaths from maltreatment or neglect, especially in trusted spaces like health care settings.”

Since 2021, the department has ordered the revocation of two group homes’ licenses following maltreatment investigations into the deaths of residents. In one of those cases, it later backed down after the group home appealed.

An attorney for Fortunate Homes said owner Susan Obwaya would not comment for this story. The company is appealing the state’s maltreatment determination in the Ryan Riggs case.

The medical examiner determined Ryan Riggs likely died of a fentanyl overdose, but state investigators said they couldn’t rule out hypothermia as a contributing factor. Julie Riggs, 48, said she’d never known her husband to use opioids and didn’t understand how he could have had access to fentanyl if he were receiving around-the-clock supervision.

“He was going to be well taken care of,” she said, describing her expectations for the group home. “They would help him with his memory. They would get him to all his appointments. It's the worst feeling knowing that I agreed to put him there, because I was told that was the best place for him.”

Julie Riggs said she couldn’t believe Fortunate Homes was still operating. She didn’t know of the $1,000 initial fine against the group home until a reporter told her.

“Ryan was only worth a thousand dollars?” she asked. “It’s like a slap on the wrist. That’s nothing.”

‘Lack of accountability’

Minnesota’s group homes are funded largely with taxpayer money. They typically operate out of former single-family houses with staff members on site to supervise the residents. Licenses are issued by the state Health Department as assisted living facilities or the state Human Services Department as community residential settings.

While advocates say the homes allow people with disabilities to live as independently as possible, the industry’s rapid growth in the northwestern suburbs of Minneapolis has led to problems that have put vulnerable people in danger.

State records reveal troubling cases where group home residents died following neglect by the facilities.

• At Miles Vents Inc. in Brooklyn Center, a resident who had been missing for 20 days was found dead of a suspected overdose in her bedroom. Police said she had been dead “for a significant amount of time.” The staff told state investigators they had not been trained on how to identify suspected drug use. The Health Department tried to revoke the group home’s license in 2025. But the facility appealed, and the state eventually backed down after concluding Miles Vents Inc. had come into compliance with all regulations.

• At Unique Homes in Robbinsdale, an employee told state investigators the night staff was asleep on the couch when a resident was found unresponsive after an overdose. The deceased resident had provided first aid to another overdosing resident hours before their own death.

• At Arms Home Health Care in Minneapolis, staff caring for a resident who required one-on-one supervision told state investigators they were unable to prevent the resident from acquiring and using drugs on and off the premises. The resident died after their fourth overdose at the group home.

None of those three group homes responded to a request for comment.

MPR News and APM Reports downloaded thousands of publicly available maltreatment investigation documents and then used an artificial intelligence application to identify cases of alleged neglect in which a group home resident died. Reporters then reviewed each report for accuracy and created a database to analyze them.

In three substantiated cases of neglect, residents choked to death after staff members failed to cut their food into smaller pieces or left food out unattended.

In at least six instances, the state fined group homes only $1,000 for neglect after a death. That includes when a resident’s health slowly declined until she died of sepsis. The public documents detailing each case do not explain the variation in the fines.

In a statement, a Human Services Department spokesperson said the agency takes every reported death “seriously,” recognizing it’s “especially painful” when it’s caused by maltreatment. But he added that a finding of neglect didn’t necessarily mean the group home caused the death or needed to be shut down.

“Each incident is complex, so there is not a straight line between when a death occurs and a licensing action being issued,” the statement read.

When the licensing agencies become aware of alleged maltreatment, they triage the cases based on credibility and decide which ones to review. Investigators review the history of the facility and people involved and make phone calls to determine if further investigation is warranted.

Very few cases make it past that initial assessment. In the past year, only 7 percent of allegations reported across all programs licensed by the Human Services Department received a full investigation. The Health Department does not publish data on how many of its maltreatment reports receive a full investigation.

And even when a case is flagged for an on-site investigation, investigators don’t always interview key witnesses, including the alleged victims. In one maltreatment case that did not involve a death, an assisted living facility called 24 Seven Home Care refused to allow a Health Department investigator to interview other residents without guardian approval and took them all on a field trip during the investigator's three-hour on-site visit.

The company challenged the results of the investigation and accused the investigator of bias. In response, the state amended its findings to find fault only with the staff member and not the company.

In at least 16 group home deaths, state investigators couldn’t determine whether neglect had occurred.

“This set of resources that we have in the state, the lack of accountability, the under-investment in our mental health continuum, is really not serving Minnesotans well,” said Marcus Schmit, executive director of NAMI Minnesota, the local chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness.

“The complexity of these programs and how the fragmentation of funding works is creating a lot of opportunity for bad actors who are much more focused on profits than people,” he added.

‘Ryan deserved better’

Susan Obwaya, 46, a nurse who previously worked at a state-run psychiatric hospital, founded Fortunate Homes a decade ago. Her company now operates four state-licensed group homes in the northwestern suburbs of the Twin Cities, as well as two apartments for short-term, recuperative care in Minneapolis.

In total, the state has paid Obwaya’s company more than $13 million, according to Minnesota Open Checkbook, a state website that provides transparency in government spending.

When Brooklyn Center police interviewed her and asked if it was normal for Ryan Riggs to be lying in the backyard, she said, “Not that I know of, but he goes out for walks. So I don't know if he likes to lay down on the grass. That I wouldn't know.”

Down the block from where Ryan Riggs died, Fortunate Homes operates another group home licensed for five residents. In 2023, a mentally ill resident went missing within 18 hours of being dropped off from the hospital.

A week later, police called to see if he’d turned up. Obwaya said no one had seen him and that a second resident had gone missing, too. The first resident was located a year later when he was arrested by Metro Transit police.

In 2024, a staffer at the same group home took over a resident’s finances and, after she quit working for the company, stole $15,000 from his account. A subsequent state investigation blamed the employee alone for the financial exploitation, not Fortunate Homes.

Health Department investigators forwarded that maltreatment report to law enforcement. But since it was the public version of the report, all identifying details on the victim and perpetrator were removed, and it was of little use to build a case.

A Brooklyn Park police detective called to ask for the full report, and a state employee said they would email it over. Three weeks later, it still hadn’t arrived. The detective called again and was told someone else would follow up. Three months later, still without the full report, the detective closed the case.

There was a short-lived effort at the Minnesota Capitol this year to give the Health Department the power to impose larger fines for “egregious” incidents in which residents of group homes and other assisted living facilities die or are seriously injured as a result of neglect.

Rep. Ginny Klevorn, DFL-Plymouth, said she quickly learned her bill wouldn’t have enough support to pass if she increased fines for providers. So she removed that language in hopes that other provisions of the bill could survive.

“Is it the right thing to do? I don’t think so,” Klevorn said of removing the proposal for harsher fines. “But if I can get training, if I can get procedures, if I can get an emergency medical responder on site, that’s a huge win. And then I’ll come back for the fine.”

Pass or not, Julie Riggs knows the bill won’t bring her husband back. The couple had big dreams, and Ryan had become a role model to Julie’s two adult children. They planned to build a house near her family’s pheasant hunting preserve, west of St. Cloud.

The motorcycle crash three years after their wedding changed everything. The damage to his brain was so extensive he couldn’t recognize his wife.

“All I ever wanted in my life was a happy ending,” she said. “I’m not gonna get it. There’s no replacing him.”

Julie Riggs is still paying off Ryan’s medical bills and funeral expenses. To pay the debts, she had to sell Ryan’s beloved palomino quarter horse he’d taught her daughter, Mikayla Mills, to ride.

More than a year later, she still struggled to understand how Fortunate Homes was unable to locate her husband on its small suburban lot.

“Ryan deserved better than what he got,” she said.

APM Reports journalist Kate Martin contributed to the reporting of this story.

Twin Cities residents struggling to pay rent can now apply for help from emergency funds in St. Paul and Minneapolis.

Both cities approved millions of dollars in funding as the federal immigration enforcement surge pushed some residents to stay home from work out of fear and forced closures at some businesses. Some families saw primary breadwinners deported, leaving them scrambling for funds.

Mutual aid networks have distributed millions of dollars in rental assistance since the start of the surge. Those networks are still up and running, but organizers say they need help from cities.

Here’s how it works in both cities.

Minneapolis

Minneapolis has $2 million available in its emergency rental assistance fund so far. Applications for the fund opened this week.

To qualify, applicants need to live within city limits and make less than 30 percent of the area median income.

For a four-person household, that’s less than $39,720 annually. For one person, it’s $27,810.

Residents also must have received a pre-eviction notice from their landlord. In Minneapolis, landlords are required to issue these notices 30 days before filing for eviction.

Erik Hansen, Minneapolis community planning and economic development director, said renters should apply as early as possible.

“The best thing for Minneapolis residents to do is — as soon as you know that you think you're going to be evicted — to contact the organizations that we have as intake organizations,” Hansen said at a city council meeting Thursday.

Hansen said that’s a different requirement than the county’s rent assistance fund, which requires tenants to have an eviction filing.

Residents can apply for funds through several partner organizations: Comunidades Latinas Unidas en Servicio, Isuroon, the Minnesota Indian Women’s Resource Center and Tenant Resource Connections.

The council and the mayor have allocated $3.8 million total and the Wilson Foundation has agreed to match $3 million of that. City officials said the rest of the approved funding will be available soon.

St. Paul

St. Paul added $1.4 million to its emergency rental assistance program this year, bringing the total program budget to $3.8 million.

Applications for funding are available on the city website. They’re open on the first two days of each month, with the next round starting May 1. The city enters applications into a lottery due to high demand.

To qualify, residents must make less than 80 percent of the area median income. That’s $104,200 per year for a family of four, or $72,950 for one person.

Tenants also need to have received a pre-eviction notice or a summons to housing court.

Applicants who are eligible for help can get a one-time payment of up to $3,500, which the city pays directly to the landlord. Residents can get help from this fund once per year.

A new report shows many parts of greater Minnesota are diversifying and growing. However, sustained population growth looks unlikely with an aging Baby Boomer generation and declining birth rates. That's the topline from the 2026 State of Rural report by the Center for Rural Policy and Development.

Ben Winchester says there's even more to the story around these trends — and it has a lot to do with housing. As a rural sociologist with the University of Minnesota Extension, he studies housing dynamics across the state. MPR News host Kelly Gordon talked with him on Minnesota Now.

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Minneapolis city officials say low-income renters have a harder time finding affordable housing that allows cats and dogs compared to people with higher incomes.

A report presented to a city council committee on Tuesday showed that landlords sometimes charge prohibitive pet fees and deposits.

The report included data on 100 rental listings that allowed pets:

• 22 percent included mention of dog breed restrictions; 20 percent included mention of dog weight restrictions

• 52 percent indicated specific pet rent; another 30 percent indicated negotiable pet rent

• 41 percent listed a non-refundable, one-time pet fee; another 30 percent indicated a negotiable pet fee

In some cases, those fees and deposits were negotiable. And city officials said landlords must allow service animals.

But council member Aurin Chowdhury said her ward office gets a lot of calls from renters who say they’re having a hard time finding affordable places to live with their pets.

Chowdhury said some homeowners have also told her they want to downsize, “but they have, particularly a bully breed, a larger dog. … They want to move into renting because they don’t need that large family home anymore, and it’s been really difficult for them to make that change in life, because they feel like they are locked in to the place that they have.”

City officials said breed or size restrictions have contributed to a recent increase in the number of dogs surrendered to shelters. They said the number of pets surrendered to Minneapolis Animal Care and Control doubled between 2021 and 2025. And they said of the 2,077 animals surrendered to MACC in 2024 and 2025, 13 percent of owners who gave a reason said they did so due to a housing concern.

Tuesday’s presentation included examples from ordinances passed in other cities that cap how much landlords can charge renters for their pets.

The council has been looking at the issue since December. Council members expressed interest in making it easier for low-income renters to find pet-friendly housing.

“I’m a dog mom,” said council member Pearll Warren. ”I love my dog.”

Warren urged pet owners to treat their animals well and encouraged people to train their dogs to minimize the chance for damage to rental properties.

“I know that it’s frustrating for property owners, (and) for individuals who have animals,” she said. “They’ve come into a home and they’ve done damage to the home — but wonderful places like the Humane Society offer things like puppy kindergarten. My dog went, it was wonderful.”

More than 10,000 veterans lost their homes to foreclosure since May of last year, when the Trump administration shut down a key safety net in the VA home loan program, according to the latest industry data. That is the highest pace of foreclosures for VA loans in a decade.

Another 90,000 vets are heading toward foreclosure. This comes after a years-long debacle inside the Department of Veterans Affairs has whiplashed thousands of vets between various enacted and canceled programs and left many of them on the brink of losing their homes — often through no fault of their own.

A loan backed by the VA is considered one of the most valuable benefits for military service members and has helped millions achieve homeownership. But for nearly a year now, vets have had worse protections and options than most other homeowners if they fall behind.

" We should have something in place to try to stem people from losing their homes," said Steve Sharpe, an attorney with the nonprofit National Consumer Law Center.

The Trump administration was warned this would happen.

The roots of the crisis go back to a mistake made during the Biden administration, when the VA abruptly shut down a pandemic assistance program while thousands of vets were still in the middle of it. Struggling homeowners who used the program to skip some mortgage payments suddenly had to pay those payments back all at once — an unaffordable burden for many of them. After an NPR investigation exposed the problem, the VA halted foreclosures for a year while it rolled out a fix.

Republicans in Congress, citing costs, wanted to kill that fix and replace it with something else. But last spring, the mortgage industry warned that shutting down the program without first replacing it would be a disaster.

"Foreclosure. Period. That's really where it's gonna come to," warned Elizabeth Balce, representing the Mortgage Bankers Association, at a hearing in March of 2025 before the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs.

Less than two months later, the Trump administration shut down the rescue program anyway.

Since then, more than 10,000 veterans have lost their homes through foreclosure sales, according to ICE Mortgage Technology, which tracks such data.

It's unclear how many of those veterans could have avoided foreclosure through the rescue plan, called VASP, or the VA Servicing Purchase program. But mortgage industry insiders told NPR it's clear that some of those vets had enough disability pay or other income and would have been able to keep their homes had VA not shut down VASP with virtually no warning.

VA officials did not respond to NPR's questions about why the agency shut down VASP without first replacing it with anything else.

Meanwhile, 90,000 more veterans are currently behind on their mortgages or in the foreclosure process. The VA now says it's coming out with a new program that could help many of those vets, but it still won't be up and running for months.

Housing and industry groups warn that the new program, when it is finally operational, could still leave those vets with worse options than other homeowners, and push their monthly payments up by hundreds of dollars a month.

Buying a house brought stability

For Leann Ledford, one of the hardest things right now is that she's been here before and fought her way out. "When you lose your home, your house, nothing else matters," she said.

Ledford's husband is a Marine who was hurt in Afghanistan. He has PTSD and a brain injury. It took a long time to get through the VA's red tape to approve his disability pay, and in the meantime, his condition got so bad he couldn't work.

"At first, we didn't know whether it was a stroke or a seizure or what was going on," Ledford remembers.

She had to stop working to care for her husband, and then they couldn't afford rent. The couple ended up living out of a trailer hitched to their truck, with their young son, for six months while they waited for his disability paperwork to go through.

But then they got back on their feet. They even bought a house in January 2021 with a loan backed by the VA.

That's just what the VA loan is supposed to be — a life-changing benefit to give veterans a leg up into the middle class and homeownership.

The house is right across the street from the neighborhood's public school. "So our son started at the elementary school," which, Ledford said, has been a "huge relief."

"Since my husband hasn't been able to drive, you know, I have to manage everything," she said.

As both she and her husband's stress levels fell, his symptoms improved. And their son has had a stable home. " He's been able to live over half his life in our house now, and he doesn't remember all the bad years 'cause he was too little," Ledford said.

But just a year after they bought their house, a cascade of actions by the Department of Veterans Affairs entangled them, and thousands of others, in a years-long ordeal where they weren't permitted to pay their mortgage. That's now pushed them into foreclosure and the brink of eviction.

" We didn't know that the foreclosure sale went through until somebody knocked on the front door," Ledford said.

Bait and switched by the VA

For the Ledfords, this all started back in 2022 after they had to replace their furnace and were hit with other costly home repairs. Their lender, Freedom Mortgage, told them they could get help from what was called a mortgage forbearance. The COVID-era program would let them pause making payments.

" They told us it was for a year, and they would check in after six months," Ledford said. "And then we would just pick up our payments at the end of the year … It felt like such a relief for us."

She says Freedom told her the skipped payments would then be moved to the back of her loan term, to be paid later when they refinanced or sold the house.

In the wake of the pandemic, millions of Americans with other types of federally backed mortgages took advantage of such forbearance programs.

But then, in October of 2022, the Biden administration shut down a key part of the VA's forbearance program that had enabled the skipped payments to be deferred.

As a result, tens of thousands of veterans like the Ledfords were told they suddenly needed to pay that year's worth of payments in a lump sum.

" And we're like, wait a minute, what?" Leann Ledford recalled.

That would have been tens of thousands of dollars, which they, and most veterans in the program, couldn't afford. Or, they would have to accept a refinanced loan at the current, much higher interest rates. Rates had sharply risen from around 3% to 7%, and that new loan would have raised the Ledfords' payment by about $1,000 a month. They couldn't afford either option.

After NPR reported in late 2023 that 40,000 vets like the Ledfords had been trapped this way, with no affordable way to get current on their loans, the VA halted foreclosures across the country for a year while it rolled out a rescue program.

Trump's VA kills Biden-era fix

Once it was finally up and running by early 2025, the VA's rescue program, VASP, was starting to save large numbers of vets and their families from foreclosure. It gave more than 33,000 veterans who were behind on their payments new, low-cost mortgages with an interest rate of 2.5%.

But only months after VASP was fully functional and helping vets on that scale, the Trump administration had taken office and killed it. On May 1, 2025, amid fear of the potential cost, the VA abruptly did away with this safety net, giving mortgage servicers and even its own VA staff just one-week's notice. Vets who were already enrolled would keep those low-cost, affordable loans. But the door was slammed shut for any more veterans.

The Ledfords and other vets who needed the help hadn't managed to get enrolled yet.

"I found out that [VASP] was ending and I called the VA loan technician and they didn't even know yet," said Ledford. "They had to go figure out what was going on."

Mortgage companies told NPR back then that they were scrambling to enroll as many vets as they could, but the abrupt closure of the program caught them off guard.

"What the hell?"

Many veterans were hurt in a different way, too. After VASP was shut down, vets who didn't get enrolled in time felt they had no choice but to accept the offer of a loan modification, even though the higher interest rate meant punishingly higher payments.

Army vet Jon Henry, from Kansas City, Mo., wound up in a modified loan with monthly payments that are $380 higher than his original mortgage.

"It's a struggle," said Henry, who served in Iraq during the first Gulf War in a unit meant to counter chemical warfare attacks. "Especially with everything else being inflated in the country, you know, with groceries, gas … I'm like, what the hell?"

Henry, who lives outside Kansas City, Mo., fell behind on his mortgage after losing his job managing a manufacturing plant. He's working again now and just needed to catch up on his payments.

Veterans who've fallen behind on their loans are in a worse position than most nonveteran homeowners. Mortgages backed by the government through Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac or FHA all have emergency options for delinquent borrowers that don't raise their interest rate or monthly payment. But that's not true anymore for veterans with loans backed by the VA.

Mortgage rates have been between 6% and 7% over the past 10 months since VASP shut down. That means the other option for a VA loan, a loan modification, often sharply raises the monthly payment because many vets originally got their loans when rates were lower. Many veterans have to choose between selling their house, getting foreclosed on, or accepting a much higher-cost mortgage.

"It hurts paying $3,200 a month," Shante Benfatto told NPR. She served in Afghanistan and is rated 100% disabled by the VA. She and her husband fell behind on payments when he was between jobs. They say they tried for months to get into the VASP program but that their lender didn't get all their paperwork together before the VA suddenly shut it down. After receiving letters threatening foreclosure, the Benfattos reluctantly accepted a new modified mortgage with payments about $300 a month higher than their original loan.

"We're paying late because we can't afford to pay the extra money until the end of the month, until she gets her disability," said her husband, Mark. The late fees add an additional $105 to their monthly mortgage bill.

Some vets have seen their payments go up by a lot more.

Jerome Thomas, an Air Force vet in Port Charlotte, Fla., got hit with a payment that's $800 higher every month. His interest rate more than doubled to 6.8%. He said his lender told him he either had to agree to that or get foreclosed on, so he says he felt forced into the higher-cost loan.

 "I told them I can't afford to pay it," Thomas, who's lived in his house for 10 years, told NPR. And as he predicted, he's now behind on that modified loan and is receiving letters warning he's headed into foreclosure. " I got my three kids in here, I've got the wife, she's a teacher … it's bad."

Even when the Trump administration's new loan program is up and running, it won't help vets like Thomas, Benfatto, or Henry who were already forced to accept loans with higher interest rates. It won't lower their payments back down to where they were before. In theory, some vets could refinance if mortgage rates drop sharply, but rates have been rising again.

The VA's new fix

The Trump administration's new program, when it's up and running, will work by allowing vets to take their missed payments and move them to the back of their loan term. So they'll get to keep their current mortgage and interest rate. That should be a big help to vets who have a relatively low rate.

There's a qualifier in the current draft. The way it's written, the VA is telling mortgage companies that if a new, modified loan at a higher interest rate only raises a veteran's monthly payment by up to 15%, they must place vets into that more costly loan.

So a veteran with a $2,000 monthly mortgage payment could still be pushed into a modified loan that raises their payment by up to $300 a month. And they wouldn't be given the option of moving their missed payments to the back of their loan and keeping their original, lower-cost mortgage.

The mortgage industry is telling the VA that that doesn't make any sense.

"As drafted, Veterans will continue to have worse options than similarly situated non-Veterans," Pete Mills, an executive with the Mortgage Bankers Association, wrote in a letter to the VA.

"Payment reduction is the most important driver of modification performance, and the current policy will lead to higher redefault rates," Mills said. The association, along with housing groups, is recommending that the VA put a loan with a higher payment at the very bottom of its so-called waterfall of options for homeowners who are behind on payments.

"The VA should restructure the waterfall to only allow increased monthly payments as a last resort," Mills said.

Housing advocates are also pushing the VA to ask the mortgage industry to hold off foreclosing on vets until its new program gets up and running in a few months. That would buy time for the tens of thousands of vets who are already behind on their loans or in the foreclosure process.

"We're talking about a heck of a lot of folks," said Sharpe, with the National Consumer Law Center.

Eviction looms

It's already too late for Leann Ledford, her combat-disabled husband and their 10-year-old son in Spokane, Wash. Freedom Mortgage sold their house in a foreclosure sale, and it's now owned by the VA and they're being told they need to leave.

Ledford's husband has spiraled. He's having seizures again, and the issue made him so stressed that he didn't want to be interviewed for this story. " It has really impacted him, and he is really struggling," she said.

The VA said in a statement that it has helped thousands of vets to avoid foreclosure, but didn't offer specifics. VA press secretary Pete Kasperowicz wrote, "Per federal law, VA's home loan program is based on the premise that while Veterans may need some assistance, they must generally be able to make their mortgage payments."

The Ledfords, who receive $3,971 a month in Ledford's husband's disability pay, say they could have afforded mortgage payments under the VASP program. And they could have afforded their original mortgage with its $1,447 monthly payment, had VA's new program been up and running and allowed them to move their missed payments to the back of their loan term. But because VA killed VASP before standing up the new program, they were stranded without either option.

"VA worked tirelessly with the Ledford family to help keep them in their home. However, they were nearly four years behind on their mortgage payment, and the decision to foreclose on their mortgage was made by Freedom Mortgage," Kasperowicz said. Freedom Mortgage declined repeated requests for an interview or statement.

That VA statement ignores the fact that the Ledfords, like many other vets, were not allowed to resume making mortgage payments after a series of the VA's own missteps trapped them in a bureaucratic quagmire. They were told to just keep applying for help through a loss mitigation process that dragged on for years and in the end, never offered them any actual assistance.

The VA did not respond to questions about whether it could do anything to save the Ledfords from losing their home, since the VA now owns it following the foreclosure sale. The only offer from VA so far was $3,500 to vacate the house in what's known as "cash for keys."

The Ledfords have been told that to get even that much help, they need to vacate their home by April 3.

In its written statement, the VA said it stands ready to assist the Ledfords with health care services as needed.

NPR's Robert Benincasa contributed to this story.

Copyright 2026, NPR

The explosive growth of the group home industry in the northwestern suburbs of the Twin Cities is being driven largely by a relatively new licensing system overseen by the Minnesota Department of Health. And in Brooklyn Park, which has more group homes than any other city in Minnesota, those Health Department-licensed facilities appear to be responsible for an outsize number of the police calls that the city says are overwhelming its first responders.

Historically in Minnesota, group homes have been overseen by the Department of Human Services. But since 2009, there’s been a moratorium in place prohibiting the department from licensing any new group homes.

Despite the moratorium, the industry continued to grow. Providers were able to seek exemptions from the Department of Human Services or enter the industry under the auspices of the Department of Health. Today, those Health Department licenses are technically classified as “assisted living” facilities, and they have been expanding rapidly in the northwestern metro area.

About two-thirds of the group homes in Brooklyn Park are licensed by the Health Department, but even so, their impact on the city’s first responders appears to be disproportionate. The Brooklyn Park Police Department maintains a list of the group homes it responds to most often. Of the top ten facilities on the list, nine are licensed by the Health Department.

An analysis of state maltreatment investigations and police reports found that all 12 Brooklyn Park group home residents who died in the past few years were living in group homes licensed by the Health Department. In three of those cases, the state found neglect by the group home contributed to the resident’s death.

In a statement to MPR News and APM Reports, a Minnesota Department of Health spokesperson said the division’s "goal is always that Minnesota have zero deaths from maltreatment or neglect”.

“We are always open to improving relationships with our local partners,” The Minnesota Department of Human Services said in a statement.

Even the lobby groups for group home providers agree that the current system is overly complicated.

“It seems weird to have these populations served in two disparately regulated settings,” said Matthew Bergeron, a lawyer for the Residential Providers Association of Minnesota, the trade group that represents group homes licensed by the health department.

Sue Schettle, CEO of the Association of Residential Resources in Minnesota, the trade group that represents facilities licensed by the Department of Human Services, said she expects the state will eventually need to streamline the system.

“The system right now, where there are differences in how these organizations are regulated, is puzzling to me,” Schettle said. “I would imagine at some point in time that that will be rectified and it will be tightened up.”

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey has vetoed a proposal to extend the city’s eviction timeline. Instead, he proposed allocating $1 million in city funding to rental assistance as an alternative way to help residents pay their bills.

“I believe that this is the best path forward,” Frey wrote in a letter to the City Council. “Rental assistance is working and getting to renters quickly.” 

The eviction extension policy would have required landlords to give tenants 60 days’ notice before filing for eviction, instead of 30 days. The city council approved that measure last week.

Council members and several local housing advocates said the measure would have helped residents who are struggling to pay rent amid the federal immigration surge, as some have stayed home from work or seen a family breadwinner detained.

The council passed the policy after hearing from dozens of residents at a public hearing who said they wanted the council to step in to stop evictions. Several housing advocates also told the council and Frey that this would help keep people housed.

Council President Elliot Payne said in a statement that the veto is frustrating. 

“I’m proud that the City Council can say we did everything in our power to give our neighbors more time to stay in their homes after they were forced to hide for months from the federal government,” Payne said. “I’m so disappointed Mayor Frey vetoed this bare-minimum policy.” 

But several local shelters and affordable housing landlords spoke out against the proposal. They said it could end up hurting residents. 

In letters to Frey and the council, several organizations said they worry that landlords would simply evict residents as soon as the extension expired — leaving them with an eviction on their record and debt from months of unpaid rent.

Hoang Murphy is the president and CEO of People Serving People, a Minneapolis homeless shelter. He said he saw this happen in 2021, when a pandemic-related eviction moratorium ended.

Some families who come through the shelter have $20,000 in unpaid rental debt, he said.

“If you can’t pay one month rent without additional support, you’re not going to obviously be able to pay three, and so it’s really just kicking the can down the road,” Murphy said. 

Murphy said that doesn’t mean eviction restrictions are always a bad idea — but they need to be paired with financial aid. More time without more money doesn’t change tenants’ situations; but it can take time to access money set aside for rent assistance. 

A city report released last month estimates that the immigration enforcement surge created a need for an additional $15.7 million in rent assistance. Hoang said his organization has seen skyrocketing requests for emergency rental assistance, even as neighbors pool additional money in mutual aid to help each other pay rent.

In an interview with MPR News, Frey said he doesn’t want to extend eviction timelines in the hopes that more money comes through.

“Getting a whole ton of money from the state or the federal government for emergency rental assistance is not guaranteed,” Frey said. “We don't want to be put into place at the city where we are getting people with the expectation that a ton of money is going to come in… and then that money doesn't actually materialize.”

He also cited concerns that landlords would lose money and miss repairs and maintenance.

Supporters of the measure on the council say the city needs a better plan to keep people housed.

“Mayor Frey has not articulated a plan to prevent mass evictions caused by Metro Surge,” said policy authors Robin Wonsley, Jamal Osman, Soren Stevenson, Jason Chavez, Aisha Chughtai and Aurin Chowdhury in a statement following the veto. “Mayor Frey’s veto was with full knowledge that current resources for rental assistance are significantly insufficient to address the need.”

The council will take a vote on whether to override the veto. Supporters will need to flip some votes — an override requires at least nine in favor and the measure passed 7-5 last week.

The authors of the policy said they welcome the proposal for more rental assistance. Frey’s proposed funding, which would come out of the city’s affordable housing fund, will need approval from the city council.

So far, the city of Minneapolis has approved $1 million for rental assistance; Frey’s proposed funding would double that. City council members say they’re working with city staff to get that fund set up and start taking applications for help in the coming weeks.

Council member Jamison Whiting says the Wilson Foundation has also agreed to match that $1 million if the city council passes it.

The city council previously considered a proposal to reallocate money from that fund for rental assistance, but voted it down. Opponents said that money is needed for ongoing affordable housing work. But Whiting said he’s hopeful the council will approve it this time.

“We had an additional million dollars attached to this,” he said. “We have to get this money out the door, and this is an avenue to do it.”

A proposal for rental assistance is also moving through the state Legislature.

Housing advocates in Minneapolis are urging Mayor Jacob Frey to sign a measure giving tenants more time to catch up on rent before facing eviction.  

The City Council passed the measure last week. It requires landlords to give tenants 60 days’ notice before filing for eviction, instead of 30 days. The extension would expire at the end of July. 

Frey has not yet said if he’ll support the policy.

Advocates and council members who voted in favor of the extension say it’ll help residents who missed work out of fear of leaving their home during the federal immigration enforcement operation — and residents who saw a family breadwinner detained.

“It is always more efficient to prevent eviction, rather than waiting for someone to get evicted then working to rehouse them. It is also way more humane,” council member and policy author Robin Wonsley said at a news conference on Monday.

In a statement, Frey’s office said the mayor is meeting with housing experts this week to get more input. 

“Mayor Frey believes the most effective solution is a targeted one, which is why we’re working to get the $1M we recently approved out quickly to help our neighbors,” a spokesperson said in the statement. “Eviction moratoriums or notice extensions are a blunt measure.” 

Eviction filings in the city for the first couple months of 2026 are down slightly from the same time period last year, according to data from HOME Line, a legal help service for Minnesota renters. 

But HOME Line’s co-executive director Eric Hauge said there’s still an emergency.

“Millions and millions of dollars have gone out in mutual aid,” Hauge said. “That was not true last year.” 

Advocates for the policy say mutual aid won’t completely make up for the need. They argue an extension will give people more time to access rent assistance funds — including any additional proposed funding that could come through the state legislature this session. 

In public letters to the city council, several affordable housing providers opposed the measure. They said an extension could put tenants further into debt and could squeeze landlords’ already-tight budgets for repairs and maintenance, ultimately hurting residents. 

Council member Jamal Osman, who supports the measure, said that’s not a reason to veto the policy.

“What is the solution? Is it eviction?” he said at the Monday press conference. “That’s the only other option.” 

Frey has until Wednesday to make a decision on the measure.

Rent was due Sunday, and for some Minnesotans paying it wasn’t possible. Others scraped by, struggling after weeks of economic disruption tied to the recent ICE surge.

In some families, a breadwinner has been deported. In others, people have stopped going to work out of fear, or workplaces have temporarily shut down.

Over the past few months, staff at HOME Line say they’ve heard story after story like these. The organization is a nonprofit that provides free legal help and advocacy for Minnesota tenants.

Jess Zarik is co-executive director of HOME Line, and she joined Minnesota Now to talk about what her team has been hearing, and what she expects in the weeks ahead.

Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation.

Subscribe to the Minnesota Now podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

We attempt to make transcripts for Minnesota Now available the next business day after a broadcast. When ready they will appear here.

Minnesota families who have stayed home from work since the federal government’s surge into the state in December are facing the challenge of paying another month’s rent from dwindling bank accounts.

In an effort to pressure the government to help, housing activists are threatening an experimental move: a Twin Cities-wide rent strike they say would be the largest in the U.S.  in more than a century.

The action is led by Twin Cities Tenants, a coalition of tenant unions that launched about a month ago, demanding a statewide eviction moratorium and a $50 million rent relief fund from the state. Since that hasn’t happened, they’re using a new strategy to get politicians and power brokers to heed those calls.

“We are the collective power and we are able to wield that power to protect our neighbors,” said Nadia Langley, an organizer with Twin Cities Tenants, at a rally Tuesday. “People will be evicted unless we do something about it.”

If 10,000 people pledge to withhold their rent by the end of the month — a bold action that could mean eviction for anyone who doesn’t pay — the group could vote to authorize a strike the next day.

The group estimates that the number of people withholding rent would amount to the loss of at least $15 million in payments to property owners per month. Their goal is to build leverage by posing a massive economic threat, forcing landlords to turn up the pressure on state lawmakers to take action.

If the group doesn’t reach 10,000 pledges, they won’t strike. And if those involved in the group determine there has been enough movement from politicians before the end of the month, they also may choose to call off the strike.

“We hope that we don’t have to actually authorize a rent strike, but we need to see some material commitments and a level of urgency and focus on what’s going to be done at every level to make sure that people are okay on March 1 and beyond,” said Tara Raghuveer, the director of the Tenant Union Federation, which has been supporting organizers locally.

The federal government’s more than two-month surge into the state sent a mass of residents into hiding, and, in Minneapolis alone, resulted in an estimated loss of $47 million in monthly income for families impacted by the operation. University of Minnesota researchers estimate that by February, rent debt linked to the surge swelled an additional $27.4 million to $51.3 million.

While there hasn’t been a significant spike in statewide evictions, filings are up in Hennepin County, which is the state’s most populous county and one of the hardest hit during the federal surge. Advocates and academics warn that families in hiding and even local mutual aid efforts might be exhausting their funds — and the worst could be yet to come. 

Legislation that would help renters cover their bills face headwinds at the Minnesota Legislature. A Minnesota House bill for $50 million in rent relief was voted down by Republicans earlier this month. A similar Senate measure, that proposes $75 million, is still being hashed out. 

Democratic Gov. Tim Walz has said he can’t enact a statewide eviction moratorium without declaring a peacetime emergency. He has not been willing to make that move and hasn’t shown signs of changing his mind.  

As for the potential rent strike, Raghuveer, the national organizer who is assisting Twin Cities Tenants, said if enacted, it would be the largest rent strike in the United States in more than 100 years. 

On a much smaller scale, using rent strikes has shown some promise as a tactic. She recently helped lead a strike in Raytown, Mo., where tenants withheld more than $110,000 over several months. In January, they won rent reductions and an agreement with the landlord for major building repairs.

This rent strike in Minnesota would be different.  It’s more geographically spread out and focuses on property owners at large. 

But there is some legal and economic jeopardy for people who choose to withhold rent. The state law wouldn’t protect them like it would in cases where a landlord hasn’t maintained their property or otherwise violated the state law. 

“It’s a huge risk and it’s a big swing,” said Raghuveer, who said she expects broader rent strikes to become more commonplace as modern-day crises mount. 

There are no legal protections for renters who strike as a form of protest, said Jess Zarik, a co-executive director at the tenant advocacy organization HOME Line.

The organization — which also operates a legal aid hotline that has seen a surge in calls about rent assistance during the ongoing ICE deployment — put out a letter outlining more risk- assessment information.

Zarik said if people decide they’re in a position where they can and want to strike, then it’s a move that “could have a huge impact.”

But she added that the way the strike drive happened was “very, very fast” and activists in meetings didn’t go over some crucial questions — like what happens if someone has a housing voucher — which can “ultimately can put tenants at a really major risk.”

One south Minneapolis renter named Dominic Minor said he understood those risks when he pledged to strike and has hope that it will build momentum for people to take action beyond traditional protest. 

“What’s more radical than saying that I’m willing to risk my housing, I’m willing to risk my life, comfort, livability and safety to stand with the people who have that already threatened for them?” Minor said. 

Twin Cities Tenants is leading the strike drive with the support of leaders from five labor unions, including SEIU Local 26 and Unite HERE Local 17. Four Minneapolis City Council members have also pledged to withhold their own rent.

Twin Cities Tenants will hold an authorization vote Saturday if they hit 10,000 pledges.

A coalition of unions in Minnesota is calling for a rent strike on March 1 as many people are asking Gov. Tim Walz to enact an eviction moratorium.

The call is in response to the recent federal surge in the state spreading fear among many who are afraid to leave their homes, making them unable to work.

The last time an eviction moratorium went into effect was March 23, 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Brian Niemczyk, a landlord-tenant attorney with the law firm Hellmuth and Johnson, said that not only does Walz have to declare a peace-time emergency to execute a moratorium but it also doesn’t free renters from the possibility of eviction.

“It lasts only as long as it lasts, and after it’s over, any debt that has accrued during the period that the moratorium was in place remains,” Niemczyk said. “If it went like it did in the COVID era, at the end of the moratorium, there was a sudden influx of evictions.”

Niemczyk also said that comparing 2020 to now, there was much more federal money in the form of COVID relief, helping people pay their bills and alleviating some of economic burden for renters and landlords alike. Nowadays, that money isn’t coming into the state.

Listen to the full conversation by clicking the player above.

Federal immigration enforcement is fueling a growing rent crisis. Many immigrant workers — even those with legal authorization — fear leaving home due to increased enforcement, while others are losing income as workplaces cut hours or shut down. Without paychecks, rent and other bills go unpaid.

Advocates report a surge in calls to tenant hotlines and emergency assistance programs, particularly in immigrant communities, and some leaders are calling for a temporary ban on evicting tenants.

MPR News host Angela Davis discusses how immigration enforcement is upending people’s livelihoods and how communities are responding.

Resources mentioned during the show:

• Home Line’s tenant advocacy hotline is 612-728-5767 or email at homelinemn.org/email.

• United Way 211 provides free and confidential referrals to a range of resources, including rental assistance. Call 211 or find more information here.

• West Side Community Organization has created a rent assistance fund for low-income renters living on the West Side of St. Paul.

• Pillsbury United Communities is raising $1.5 million for a rapid response fund to help 250 families with urgent needs and rental assistance.

• Centro De Trabajadores Unidos En La Lucha (CTUL) has created a fund to support its worker members, primarily people working in construction.

• Stand with Minnesota is an online directory of legal and other resources started in response to federal immigration enforcement activity in Minnesota. It lists more than 30 informal groups and organizations that have created rental assistance funds.

Guests:

• Jess Zarik is co-executive director of Home Line, a tenant advocacy organization founded more than 30 years ago. It staffs a hotline for tenants seeking legal and other help related to rental housing.   

• Miguel Brito is an organizer with the West Side Community Organization in St. Paul. The nonprofit organization started a fund to help cover rent for immigrant families and others whose work has been disrupted by immigration enforcement activity. 

Subscribe to the MPR News with Angela Davis podcast on: Apple Podcasts, Spotify or RSS.

Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation. 

With new listings rising 4.6 percent to a three-year high, the 2025 Minnesota housing market saw more active sellers. Meanwhile, first-time buyers were largely priced out, according to a new report from Minnesota Realtors, which represents realtors across the state.

The report found median home price rose 2.9 percent statewide to $355,000, with the Twin Cities seeing a 2.6 percent increase to $390,000. They’re both a new price record that’s followed a 14-year-long trend of climbing prices. 

The surge has been driven in part by a supply-and-demand imbalance, with more high-end luxury homes coming on the market, while stagnant wages have left fewer buyers able to afford housing prices.

Those who can buy homes have been more selective in their choices, said Wendy Uzelac, president of the Minnesota Realtors.

“They're not feeling as much pressure to purchase in a particular timeline that they maybe did in the last couple of years,” Uzelac said. “And because the inventory did rise slightly, they have more choices.”

Interest rates have also eased a bit, which has motivated some to purchase new properties. However, rates remain higher than they were a couple of years ago, making them unappealing to first-time buyers. 

“They've just, in a lot of ways, been waiting for interest rates to come down just a little bit or steady out a little bit so they have that confidence in purchasing that first property,” Uzelac said.

Nationwide, about a fifth of all buyers were first-time buyers, according to a report from the National Association of Realtors. The average age of those first-time buyers was about 40, which is the highest it’s been in 45 years. Younger first-time buyers haven’t been able to accrue the stock wealth or equity that more experienced buyers have built over the years.

Still, Uzelac said she expects an increase in buyer activity in 2026.

“I believe that we're going to continue to see a little bit better inventory in the market, which will not only help the move-up buyers, it will also help first-time home buyers,” Uzelac said. “And the realtors, we're ready to go to work for our sellers and our buyers.”

An eviction notice peers at 25-year-old Daisy Banuelos Alonzo from her kitchen table, where she eats cereal with her 6-year-old son. There’s an empty chair because their favorite person is missing from the table: Banuelos Alonzo’s husband. 

Tomas Martinez-Gregorio was taken by federal agents on New Year’s Eve, while the three of them were on their way to the hospital.

Less than 24 hours later, rent was due. 

Now, Banuelos Alonzo is among the growing number of people facing housing instability because of the surge of ICE activity in the Twin Cities. For many, it’s a catch-22: Leave the home and risk being detained or hurt, or miss paychecks to stay home and risk losing its protection.

Banuelos Alonzo’s husband was the breadwinner and the one paying the bills. Without him, she couldn't come up with the rent. And even though she and her son are U.S. citizens, Banuelos Alonzo, who is Latina, said she doesn’t leave the house most days. 

Federal agents have been documented detaining young children and U.S. citizens, and, in less than three weeks, have shot and killed two U.S. citizens.

Going outside for work — for anything — doesn’t feel safe.

“What if they take me?” she said. “What’s gonna happen to my kid?”

Banuelos Alonzo’s 6-year-old son rarely attends his Spanish immersion kindergarten these days, because she is anxious it will be targeted by masked federal agents armed with tear gas and guns. She keeps her door locked and, on nights when the panic is worse, puts a section of her couch in front of the door. 

A dangerous encounter feels all the more likely to happen since her husband’s detention.

Her family was en route to her son’s tonsil surgery when federal agents cornered their vehicle, pushed Banuelos Alonzo into the hood of the car and took her husband, while the boy watched from the backseat. 

Martinez-Gregorio, who is undocumented, remains in a detention facility in Minnesota. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has repeatedly claimed it is targeting “the worst of the worst criminals including murderers, rapists, pedophiles, gang members, and terrorists.”

A public records database showed one incident on Martinez-Gregorio’s record in which he drove over the speed limit without a license and insurance. 

It’s been three weeks without him now, and the costs are mounting. 

There’s the internet bill. The phone bill. The gas and electricity bill. Legal fees for the attorney she hired to help get her husband out of detention. There’s the rent. 

Beneath the visible violence frequently captured on phone videos and by journalists, statewide help lines for social services and legal aid show signs of this looming, quieter crisis.

Staff at 211 Greater Twin Cities United Way, a line that connects Minnesotans with resources, report growing numbers of callers asking for assistance paying rent in recent weeks. At HOME Line, a tenant hotline, staff said callers have specifically tied their need for assistance to the presence of ICE.

Meanwhile, calls for local government intervention have grown louder, including for an eviction moratorium to provide relief from what many public officials and residents are calling an occupation.

Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesperson for DHS, did not comment on housing instability following the ICE surge, but said “those who are here legally and are not breaking our laws have nothing to fear.” On the ground, residents dodge tear gas in their neighborhoods and pepper spray on school property, and demand justice for the two U.S. citizens, Renee Macklin Good and Alex Pretti, who were killed by federal agents.

Hotlines see a wave of residents seeking help 

Calls to 211 requesting rent assistance more than tripled in mid-January compared to the weekly average the previous quarter, according to Shannon Smith Jones, a senior vice president at Greater Twin Cities United Way, which operates the phone line. 

Many of the calls went through the Spanish language line, which has seen a 1,646 percent spike in calls. On one day, the line soared to more than 1,000 callers with 130 people in queue. 

Greater Twin Cities United Way is seeing “a huge increase in calls. A lot of that is driven by people unable to go to work, unable to leave their homes,” said Smith Jones. 

People calling the suicide hotline have also begun to reference ICE, she said. 

Operators of a second hotline report a similar trend. 

HOME Line, a hotline for tenants in Minnesota, has so far received more than 60 calls specifically referencing immigration enforcement, said co-executive director Eric Hauge. He said he expects that number to climb.

Though a majority are dialed from the Twin Cities counties, HOME Line has received these calls from all over the state. Most are from families with children at home.

Data shared by HOME Line shows the number one inquiry from those callers is about financial aid due to the loss of income, either because the caller fears going to work because of ICE, or because the caller relies on the income of someone taken by ICE.  

HOME Line has received 317 requests for financial aid since the start of December, when the federal government’s “Operation Metro Surge” began. That’s a 72 percent increase from the same window last year.

HOME Line also tracks statewide eviction numbers. The number filed so far this year is slightly lower than the same period last year. Hauge said it may be too soon to see the impact of ICE on evictions, which aren’t filed immediately after nonpayment.

Hauge said HOME Line supports an eviction moratorium paired with low-barrier access to rental assistance. His is among a growing number of legal and advocacy groups urging the state to intervene. 

“There was a lot of direction during the pandemic around how to keep yourself safe and then the governor instituted the eviction moratorium,” Hauge said. “People were fearful of leaving their home because of public health concerns. Now, we’re hearing people haven’t left their home because they think they’re going to get abducted or shot.”

State senator: “People should not be evicted when we are under occupation.”

More than 60 local groups have signed onto a letter calling for the governor to declare a state of emergency and enact an eviction moratorium, paired with rental assistance — including the Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Committee and the unions that represent Minneapolis and St. Paul teachers.

Both the Minneapolis and St. Paul city councils have also passed resolutions calling on Gov. Tim Walz to issue a statewide eviction moratorium. 

Through tears at a recent press conference, City Council member Jason Chavez thanked Minneapolis residents who have been driving each others’ children to school, patrolling neighborhoods, delivering groceries and donating rental assistance to help their immigrant neighbors. But, he said, it’s time for the local government to step up. 

“Stop being on the sideline,” he said.

The governor’s office did not respond to an inquiry from MPR News about the possibility of an eviction moratorium. 

Sen. Lindsey Port, DFL-Burnsville, who chairs the Housing and Homelessness Prevention Committee, said she agrees with the “underlying call of the moratorium.” But, she said, “I think there are practical challenges to an eviction moratorium in the way that it has existed before,” including the absence of pandemic emergency funds from the federal government. 

“People should not be evicted when we are under occupation, which is what is happening in the state of Minnesota right now,” said Port, who plans to introduce an emergency rental assistance bill when the legislative session begins next month. 

There were more than 1,100 eviction filings served to renters across the state so far this month, according to HOME Line.

For now, Daisy Banuelos Alonzo and her son are still in their two-bedroom apartment. Her landlord took mercy on the family, giving Banuelos Alonzo two months to get her footing and apply for rental assistance. 

It’s much-needed breathing room while she struggles to process what happened to her.

“It's hard seeing all these videos. It's hard going outside,” she said. “And you know, the only person that actually made me feel protected, the only person that actually made me feel like I'm strong, is locked up.”

She said sometimes she forgets to eat until her 6-year-old tells her that he’s hungry. She suffers from nightmares that transport her back to the car where her husband was taken.

Her son asks her how they will save “Tommy,” which is the main thing she thinks about, when she can pull her thoughts together at all. 

Then, she remembers the bills. 

If you or someone you know is in crisis or needs immediate mental health support, call or text 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. 

If your budget is being squeezed from all sides, you’re not alone. Owning an insurance policy for your home is becoming more expensive.

“Insurance is getting more expensive because the cost of repairing homes is getting more expensive,” said Julia Dreier, deputy commissioner of insurance for the Minnesota Department of Commerce.

Additionally, Dreier said premiums themselves aren’t rising as much as the deductibles are.

“So their insurance product is not as valuable as it used to be,” she said. Dreier also recommended that policy owners really spend time to review their policies and see what’s covered and what isn’t.

“A lot of people don’t realize that floods aren't covered under a typical homeowner's policy, and now is the time you want to think about buying a separate flood insurance policy before spring thaw happens,” she said.

Listen to the full conversation by clicking the player above.

Millions of dollars for homeless services in Minnesota are up in the air after the Trump  administration proposed changing the rules for housing programs that helped people get off the streets.   

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development plans to shift money away from long-term housing programs that provide services.   

Instead, more federal money would go toward breaking up homeless encampments and to short-term shelters with work requirements and mandatory addiction treatment.  

Critics warn this could force thousands of Minnesotans back into living in their cars, onto friends’ couches or onto the streets — including people who have relied on supportive housing for years.

On Dec. 19. a judge temporarily halted the administration’s proposals, creating more uncertainty. 

MPR News guest host Catharine Richert talks with her guests about what helps people move into permanent homes and how federal policy shifts could affect Minnesotans.

Guests:

• Chris LaTondresse is the president and CEO of Beacon Interfaith Housing Collaborative, one of Minnesota's largest nonprofit providers of supportive housing for families, single adults and youth who have experienced homelessness. He previously served as a Hennepin County Commissioner and chaired the Hennepin County Housing and Redevelopment Authority.

• LeAnn Littlewolf is the executive director of the American Indian Community Housing Organization (AICHO) in Duluth. The nonprofit organization runs Gimaajii Mino-Bimaadizimin, a community center with supportive housing for women and children. She is a member of the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe and previously worked with the Minnesota Coalition for the Homeless.  

 Subscribe to the MPR News with Angela Davis podcast on: Apple Podcasts, Spotify or RSS.     

Use the audio player above to listen to the full conversation.     

It’s not your imagination — the cost of your home insurance is going up.

Weather-related extreme events have sent homeowners’ insurance rates skyrocketing. Federal budget cuts to the Federal Emergency Management Agency will exacerbate these issues, particularly affecting state budgets and risk reduction efforts.

In Minnesota, homeowners insurance rates increased the last decade due to hail damage, leading to non-renewals and some companies leaving the market.

Jordan Haedtler, a climate financial policy strategist with Climate Cabinet, based in Duluth, talks with MPR News Chief Meteorologist Paul Huttner about climate-change-fueled risks and steps the state Legislature is taking to address to address the issues.

Click play on the audio player above to listen to this episode or subscribe to the Climate Cast podcast.

By Shubhanjana Das and Katrina Pross |
Sahan Journal

This story comes to you from Sahan Journal through a partnership with MPR News.

“Where did you sleep last night?”

Lisa Gustner asks the question as she talks with people on E. Lake Street in south Minneapolis on a gray November day. 

She and her colleague Mervel LaRose approach people they suspect might be struggling with homelessness. Others on the street call out to them after seeing their clothing emblazoned with the name of Hennepin County’s Streets to Housing Program, for which Gustner and LaRose do outreach as part of the county’s response to homelessness. 

Asking where someone slept the night before helps Gustner gauge how severe their situation is and if they may qualify for county services. 

“Some people don’t sleep, so they stay up all night,” she said.

That’s why it’s common to see people experiencing homelessness sleeping in public areas during the day, she said.

Gustner and LaRose walk up to a man sitting on concrete steps near the Lake Street Midtown Transit Station. They learn that he doesn’t have a place to stay. LaRose calls around to nonprofits that serve Native men facing homelessness to see if he can find a bed. While they wait to hear back, they instruct the man on what to do next and where he can find help. 

“Be safe,” they tell him as they resume walking down Lake Street. 

The county is targeting chronic homelessness, a federal definition from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) that describes people who have been homeless for more than one year or on at least four separate occasions in the last three years, and have a disability.

In 2023, Hennepin County created a goal to end chronic homelessness by the end of 2025, partnering with a national organization to collect better data on the issue. 

As the year draws to a close, that goal is far from completion, although the county has made strides. While it has been able to house more than 700 chronically homeless people since October 2023, 254 people were experiencing chronic homelessness in Hennepin County in November. 

“We’re still in it, but it is not likely in the next month that we are going to achieve the end-of-2025 goal,” said Danielle Werder, senior department administrator with Hennepin County’s Office of Housing Stability. 

County officials say difficulties in data collection and an end to pandemic-era funding are factors that kept that goal from coming to fruition. Now, with substantial reductions in federal funding for housing services, the number of unhoused people is once again on the rise, and challenges are piling up. 

They said they are still committed to ending chronic homelessness, but are not setting a new timeline. 

“Where we are at is we are still laser-focused on ending chronic homelessness,” Werder said. “We’re still going to create bold goals, but we also don’t want to create false starts by declaring something that may not be completely in our control to get to.”

Difficulties with data

A major aspect of Hennepin County’s goal to end chronic homelessness included creating better data systems to count, track and stay in touch with people. 

In 2018, the county partnered with Community Solutions, an organization working with cities across the country in a program called Built for Zero, which addresses homelessness in specific populations in each area. For Hennepin County, the focus was on chronic homelessness. 

“They provide really great technical assistance and connection to other counties doing this work,” said Olivia Haidos, principal analyst for chronic homelessness in the county’s Office to End Homelessness. “They are helping us get a broader bird’s-eye view of the work that we’re doing.”

One of the main outcomes of the partnership was a by-name list of those whom the county had identified as experiencing chronic homelessness. Previously, Hennepin County mostly relied on a counting methodology called Point in Time, a national, annual and mandatory count of those experiencing homelessness on a single night in January. 

Those who work to address homelessness say the Point in Time data show a small and often reductive picture of the state of homelessness in a region. The homeless population is fluid and transient, often forced to move from place to place. Additionally, during bitterly cold Minnesota winters, it can be harder for outreach workers like Gustner and LaRose to find people on the streets. 

Hennepin County’s by-name list allowed for a more comprehensive data set that could be updated regularly. Instead of relying on anonymous statistics, the by-name list allows the county to track specific individuals and their unique needs. The list is compiled from the Homeless Management Information System, which each county that has a homeless response system uses. The list tracks client profiles, shelter stays, referrals and housing eligibility. 

Hennepin County staff meet with Community Solutions regularly, looking at who is coming in and out of the system each month. Jane Moy, strategy lead for data coaching and capacity building at Community Solutions, said that can show what areas staff need to focus on, and if there are aspects that need to be improved or given extra attention. 

 “It really points to what levers we can pull in the system,” Moy said. 

After the county set its goal, it began to see progress. In March 2024, 379 people were chronically homeless. By July of that year, that number had fallen to 267. Since then, the number has remained in the 200s. 

Beginning in July 2024 and lasting until May 2025, the Homeless Management Information System went through a transition to another software vendor, which led to the county having to use a data set that wasn’t as updated. 

Additionally, an issue with the by-name list is that people are added to it only if they seek or take part in county services. This means that the count of those experiencing chronic homelessness is likely much larger. 

“Every study of homelessness that you’re going to find out there is going to be an undercount,” said Michelle Decker Gerrard, senior research manager with Wilder, a St. Paul nonprofit that specializes in housing research. “It’s a minimum count, and it tends to be people that are connected in some way to a service provider. There are a lot of people that can be completely invisible.”

City’s reaction to homeless encampments

With chronic homelessness persisting, large encampments have reemerged across the Twin Cities, not only as last-resort shelter, but as places where people can remain in community and visible to outreach workers. Some of these sites have drawn urgent safety concerns, like the fire in the encampment near the intersection of 14th Avenue S. and E. 29th Street and more recently, a mass shooting at the encampment on Minneapolis landlord Hamoudi Sabri’s property on E. Lake Street. Another encampment near St. Paul’s Pig’s Eye Park continues to grow, with as many as 350 people living there. 

The city of Minneapolis has repeatedly cleared out encampments and claimed that it offered housing and treatment services to the occupants. However, the demand is much higher than the supply. On Dec. 10, Hennepin County, which covers most of the metro area, reported just 65 available beds that morning. 

Advocates say that clearing visible encampments drives people further from services and support, and prevents them from being counted in the county’s by-name data.

“If you’ve lost track of someone and you don’t know where they are, or they’re being pushed around from location to location, then it’s very, very hard to be able to make that connection with that person and get them to the provider to then get them into housing,” said John Tribbett, service area director at Avivo, a nonprofit that provides addiction treatment, job training and housing services, as well as low-barrier and culturally responsive shelters at Avivo Village in Minneapolis and St. Cloud. Tribbett oversees street outreach, harm reduction programs, Avivo Village emergency shelter operations, and housing initiatives. 

Tribbett added that while there are not enough shelter beds, at the same time, a reductive narrative persists that people were offered services and chose not to take them.

“It’s just simply not the case that there is enough availability; there’s not enough services, and a short arc of time to get everyone realistically into a housing opportunity or shelter,” he said. 

What has and hasn’t worked

Still, “there’s a lot of progress, if you look back 10 years ago, to where we are today,” Tribbett said.

A combination of approaches has helped serve the especially complex population of chronically homeless, he said. They include “low barrier” or “no barrier” access to shelters, in contrast to past restrictive practices like requiring a Breathalyzer before entry; harm reduction-oriented services and housing-first practices, street outreach teams, and shelters that offer a combination of mental and physical health and addiction treatment services. 

Kelina Morgan is vice president of housing services at Sabathani Community Center in south Minneapolis. Sabathani offers a Continuum of Care program — HUD-designated regional bodies that oversee homelessness funding, coordinate services and set strategy across providers — that specifically caters to the chronically homeless. The program is small, serving about 20 clients. 

Clients pay 30 percent of their income for rent, and the program pays for the rest. If the client has no income, the program pays for the rent entirely. Sabathani also provides education on housing and tenants’ rights, and once the person is housed, supports them in applying for apartments and with rent.

“We ultimately want to be a resource that doesn’t just house but that we provide, like a wraparound connection or referral to any needs in the community that’s going to help provide the stability for that household,” Morgan said. 

When addressing chronic homelessness, such wrap-around services and stable housing are essential, Morgan said. 

However, the system isn’t without flaws. “Once you hit the homelessness system, it is just its own world, and it’s easy for people to just get lost and mired into it,” Tribbett said.

He pointed out that in addition to imperfect data that don’t reflect the true number of chronically homeless people at a given point, there are structural and bureaucratic barriers, such as restrictive shelter admission requirements, complicated processes, and high wait times that make it difficult for many to seek shelter, often driving them away from shelters for good in anticipation that they will not get a bed. 

Funding changes create uncertainty

After COVID-era funding for the American Rescue Plan, which provided billions for housing and homelessness relief, ended last year, this year has brought further proposed changes and cuts to federal funding for many housing services. 

In November, the Trump administration announced funding changes to HUD’s Continuum of Care program, the largest federal program that provides funding to communities for addressing homelessness.

The new policy would cap the portion of CoC funds that can be used for permanent supportive housing at 30 percent, down from about 87 to 90 percent historically, and shift the remaining money toward short-term and transitional housing with requirements tied to work, treatment or other conditions. 

This would mark a major departure from the long-standing “housing-first” model, which prioritizes moving people directly into stable, permanent housing without preconditions. It also proposes a competitive system, giving federal officials greater control over which programs get funded and under what conditions. 

The National Alliance to End Homelessness predicts that at least 170,000 people in the country would lose their supportive housing due to the shift. According to the group, 48 percent of permanent housing beds in Minnesota are funded through Continuum of Care. This could cause nearly 4,000 people in the state to lose housing, and more than $26 million to be cut.

In response, lawmakers like Sen. Tina Smith, D-Minn., signed a letter last month urging the Trump administration to reverse those changes, writing that they would especially impact those who are chronically homeless. Several lawsuits were also filed. 

“This … undermines local decision-making authority, and ignores decades of research that has proven that permanent supportive housing and rapid rehousing are less costly and more likely to be successful in providing long-term stability than other strategies, particularly for chronically homeless people and families,” the letter reads. 

Smith told Sahan Journal that the changes will have a “devastating impact” on Minnesotans experiencing homelessness. She said Continuum of Care programs provide a holistic approach, helping people find stable housing while also connecting them with resources and helping them tackle issues like substance use. 

“It’s throwing out the door 20 years of experience and knowledge and saying, ‘No, we’re not going to do it that way anymore.’ And it is kind of shocking,” she said of the cuts. 

Following the legal and political backlash, HUD temporarily withdrew the funding notice as of Dec. 8, just hours before a major court hearing, saying it will issue a revised version after review. But the move has sowed deep uncertainty among homeless-service providers and advocates about when and how support will be restored, Politico reported. 

Morgan said that the federal government moving away from funding permanent housing isn’t the solution. She said it takes time for people to get used to being in an apartment to begin with, and that under the new changes, people will be back on the streets again. 

“There’s a period of time where you really don’t establish yourself as being housed, and that could be up to two years, like, ‘I still got to keep my bags packed, because, you know, anything can happen,’” she said. 

The Continuum of Care Pathways program through Sabathani Community Center is entirely funded with HUD dollars. Morgan said her program has funding through most of next year, but after that, its future is uncertain. 

“Right now we are in the mindset that we continue until we’re told not to, while still knowing that there is that potential that that could be sooner than later,” she said. 

To secure its contract for 2026, the program had to scrub any language that referenced diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, which Morgan said was challenging, as Sabathani predominantly caters to the Black community. According to Wilder, 77 percent of those experiencing homelessness in the Twin Cities metro are people of color.

But she said they concluded that it wouldn’t impact Sabathani’s mission, so they signed the contract to continue providing services.

At Agate Housing and Services, Executive Director Kyle Hanson is “deeply concerned” about these changes.

“They’re really talking about some significant, permanent shifts that would reverse decades worth of work that we’ve done in our communities to really get people stabilized,” he said. Hanson said that with federal funding in threat, nonprofits like his will face increased pressures. 

But it isn’t just direct funding changes that affect nonprofits. Other sweeping cuts to health care funding have forced nonprofits like Avivo to redirect their limited resources and capital to the most immediate need, such as when SNAP benefits were cut and then threatened with a pause during the recent government shutdown. “So then you’re not looking at doing further programming, or even really putting as much as you should into your current programming, because you’re having to do these triage crisis moments,” Tribbett said.

“We’d be stuck with working a lot more with money within the state, but, realistically, the pot in the state is only as big as it is,” he said. 

Native population is the most impacted

Wilder collects one of the state’s most comprehensive data in its Minnesota Homelessness Survey. Conducted every three years, it goes beyond the HUD point-in-time count, offering a fuller picture of who is unhoused, why, and for how long. 

In its most recent survey in 2023, Wilder found that the majority of Minnesota’s unsheltered population is stuck in long-term – which Minnesota defines as being homeless for a year or longer or four or more times in the last three years – and chronic homelessness., 

It is also the only statewide study in the country that includes reservation-level data, gathered in partnership with tribal nations.

The data emphasize the overrepresentation of Native Americans in chronic homelessness compared to the proportion of their population. They represented 30 percent of adults interviewed in the 2023 Minnesota and Reservation Homeless Studies despite making up just 2 percent of Minnesota’s adult population. Nearly half of them were located in Hennepin County. Seventy percent of the homeless population is between ages 24 to 54, and a majority have been unsheltered for the most part. 

Historical and generational trauma, mental health disorders and substance abuse, and a lack of affordable housing are some of the many factors that have put this population in a cycle of homelessness. The study found that Native Americans experiencing homelessness in the Twin Cities would need to earn 5.5 times more per month than they currently do to cover the cost of rent. 

“We’re seeing increases in that long-term homeless population across all populations that we’re looking at,” said Decker Gerrard, co-director of the Minnesota Homeless Study and the Reservation Homeless Study. “The fourth biggest issue as a population, besides physical health, mental health and chemical dependency that we really have seen over time, is childhood trauma and also current trauma in their lives.”

At the American Indian Community Development Corp. (AICDC), a lot of CEO Travis Earth-Werner’s efforts have been directed toward serving those experiencing chronic homelessness in the community. Earth-Werner said this community faces many barriers in accessing and maintaining stable housing, adding that denial of help is one of them. 

“These individuals are often told no, and when you’re told no enough, it’s hard to continue to ask if you already know what the outcome is going to be,” he said. “The hopelessness, the feeling that nothing’s going to change, even if I try my best.”

In addition to offering comprehensive services such as street outreach, round-the-clock shelters, harm reduction, and abstinence-based housing, AICDC’s work stresses the importance of culturally rooted traditions, such as offering tobacco, doing a prayer, holding a sweat lodge ceremony, and even fostering community-based living to build trust and break the cycle of hopelessness. 

“Housing doesn’t change behaviors. It just changes the situation and where they’re at,” Earth-Werner said. 

The path ahead

Every housing and outreach professional Sahan Journal spoke to acknowledged the concerted effort to mitigate homelessness in all shapes and forms, while also acknowledging systemic gaps that have led to chronic homelessness becoming a sustained issue.

“The folks that are experiencing chronic homelessness, probably had a system fail [them] at some point,” said Werder, of Hennepin County. “It could have been our system. It could have been a different system. But there’s a reason why they’re stuck in this space, and there’s probably barriers to housing that they need support in breaking down.”

Even though the county’s goal to end chronic homelessness by this year could not be met, the county will “keep finding those light bulb moments of what works for someone,” Haidos said. 

Dawn Moskowitz, who works as a data coach and performance advisor on Community Solutions’ Built for Zero team, said that it’s encouraged for communities to set ambitious goals.

“You go farther faster when you have a shared goal that people are aligned around,” she said.  “You will learn more from it. You will get more done.”

Haidos added that the county’s next phase of work will center on identifying what works for chronically homeless residents by analyzing individual-level data more consistently, especially the reasons people are denied housing, to pinpoint specific supports each person needs and spot broader system changes that could improve long-term outcomes.

The goal, she said, is to find where the right intervention and the right staff connection can help someone exit homelessness for good.

“I want to stay focused on our successful outcomes,” Haidos said.

Some Minneapolis homeowners are assessing how to tighten their budgets to help cover their growing property taxes.

“It's hurting people,” said Steve Brandt, president of the Minneapolis Board of Estimation and Taxation. The current taxation plan for the city shows the burden of property taxes on homeowners shifting from 48 percent in 2025 to around 56 percent in 2030.

That increase, Brandt said, is because of declining values in downtown commercial areas. The Minneapolis City Council already approved an 8 percent increase on Dec. 9. Hennepin County followed closely behind with a 7.79 percent increase to its property taxes as well.

Brandt said he has ideas on other income streams to offset that added financial burden, but he doesn’t have the power to implement them.

“The Legislature is crucial for most of these ideas” Brandt said. “I think the more other cities come in and say, ‘Hey, we need something besides the property tax,’ the better off Minneapolis is.”

Listen to the conversation by clicking the player above.

The Minneapolis City Council passed an ordinance Thursday that its authors say aims to require a more humane and public health-centered response to homeless encampments, including how they are closed.

Prior to this ordinance, the only official policy in place regarding encampment response was a police order to break up camps that begin to form, according to city spokesperson Jess Olstad.

But the new ordinance faces a likely veto from Mayor Jacob Frey.

The ordinance itself codifies the city’s obligation to provide portable bathrooms, hand-washing stations, trash collection services and overdose reversal medicine within 10 days of an encampment forming with more than 20 people present.

It also mandates people are provided a week’s notice before the city shuts down the encampment, barring emergencies that would require immediate closure. 

Some opponents of the ordinance say it incurs costs that have not been budgeted for, while advocates for people experiencing homelessness say the ordinance, while better than no policy, does not go far enough in advancing long-term solutions.

Supporters on the council say it’s necessary for shifting the city’s approach in a different direction. 

“The city’s current approach to encampments fails to address public health concerns and fails to recognize the humanity of our unsheltered neighbors. It also leaves neighboring residents frustrated and confused,” co-authors Aisha Chughtai, Aurin Chowdhury and Jason Chavez said in a joint statement.

“This policy works to create a consistent codified response that is less traumatic and treats unsheltered homelessness as what the city has declared it, a public health crisis.”

A spokesperson for Mayor Jacob Frey said Frey intends to veto the ordinance.

“Once shelter and services have been offered, encampments should be closed,” Frey said in a statement. “We’ve seen what happens when encampments grow, and I can’t support an ordinance that encourages more of them. They’re not safe or healthy for anyone involved, and they end up hurting the very people we’re trying to help.”

Unsheltered homelessness a public health emergency in Minneapolis 

“We’re not saying let’s keep the encampments. We’re saying that if you have 25, or 30 or 40 people … you cannot hold back Porta Potties. You cannot hold back trash pickup,” said Council member Jamal Osman, who voted in favor of the ordinance and represents parts of the city where homelessness has been more visible.

When the city council was debating whether or not to authorize legal action against Hamoudi Sabri, the real estate developer who was served public health citations after allowing people to camp on his property, Osman said the city did not hold itself to the same standard. He said the city has declined his ask for portable bathrooms when encampments swelled in size.

But with this ordinance, he said,  “I don’t have to go to the mayor every time and beg for services that we deserve in Ward 6. I need to be able to tell him, ‘hey, this is the policy that you need to follow as the leader of the city.”

In 2023, the city of Minneapolis declared unsheltered homelessness a public health emergency. Guidance from the Minnesota Department of Health recommends portable toilets, handwashing stations and waste removal at encampments to prevent the spread of infectious diseases. 

“To promote ongoing public health efforts, enforcement actions should consider the intention of minimizing the disruptions to people’s property (including medications); support networks; and connections to services,” the guidance states. 

The ordinance requires the city to provide information about warming or cooling centers and coordinate with partners over access to housing services. 

During closures, it calls for the “minimum number of law enforcement personnel” needed to safely respond alongside mental health professionals — which could include the behavioral crisis response team — and for residents to receive assistance in locating adequate alternative housing or shelter. 

It also requires the city to provide free storage for belongings that is accessible via public transportation. 

When the city clears an encampment or Minneapolis police officers make people move, there currently is not a place where the city will store belongings. City spokesperson Olstad said the city put out a contract request for a storage facility but it did not elicit any response.

Council needs one more vote to override veto

The council approved the ordinance by an 8-5 vote. Those who voted against it were members Michael Rainville, LaTrisha Vetaw, Linea Palmisano, Andrea Jenkins and Katie Cashman. If the mayor vetoes the ordinance, one of the five would have to switch to a ‘yes’ vote in order to override that veto. 

Throughout her tenure, Cashman has more frequently voted with the progressive majority, instead of the more moderate Frey-aligned wing. At Thursday’s council meeting, she voted with the minority.

Cashman said she was concerned the seven-day window would limit the ability for city staff to take action on an encampment as it grows larger within that time.

Still, she said she supported the ordinance’s aim of reducing police hours and resources spent on encampments, as well as the shift to a response that considers mental health support.

Palmisano, who voted against it, said the ordinance lacks provisions addressing issues of trafficking and other crimes. That’s a concern that was raised by the chair of the Metropolitan Urban Indian Directors Public Safety Committee, Wahbon Spears, who opposed the ordinance in a letter to the council.

Palmisano added in the meeting: “These health and safety resources will be expensive to provide and maintain. I assume that we would have to make those arrangements to cover that in our budget.”

Olstad said the city council’s ordinance would slow down the city’s ability to close encampments and supersede parts of the police order. She said the city follows internal guidelines for closures, including aiming for a 3-day notice. However, that is not always what happens.

At a public hearing Tuesday, more than a dozen people signed up to comment on the ordinance. Several of them expressed support in the “step forward” but said it didn’t do enough to advance long-term solutions. That included community organizer Nicole Mason who advocates for indigenous community members who are disproportionately impacted by homelessness. 

“Our relatives living outdoors are not choosing homelessness. They are navigating trauma, displacement, unaffordable housing and systems that have not kept pace with community needs. Yet, the ordinance focuses on restrictions and removals rather than safety, stability and pathways to housing,” Mason said. “The ordinance must be paired with actual resources, timelines and accountability measures to move forward long-term housing solutions, not short-term displacement.”

City’s primary policy is a law enforcement response

The other policy on the books — Police Chief Brian O’Hara’s order from January — directs officers to prevent encampments from forming by not allowing people to set up tents in the first place. The directive points to laws around trespassing and damage to property as grounds for citations and arrest. 

Christin Crabtree, a community organizer who is part of the support network for people living outside and who has witnessed the city’s on-the-ground response, said having the city’s only policy be a police response serves to end encampments but not homelessness. 

“What happens as a result is not that people get housed, but more that people are just moved from area to area and often into less and less safe conditions. It creates desperation and desperation puts people into survival mode,” she said. “What we are seeing is MPD roll up and shine bright lights on folks and take away whatever very minimal heating source they might have, oftentimes take what minimal belongings they have and people are left with nothing.”

She added that it also serves to fracture trust in the city.

“If their only experience with the City of Minneapolis is with law enforcement, that is oftentimes very unkind and gruff, then why on earth would they trust that same institution to provide them with services?” 

The Duluth City Council voted 8-1 late Monday night to transfer the former Lester Park Golf Course to the Duluth Economic Development Authority, clearing the way for a land use study of the more-than-200-acre parcel that could lead to a neighborhood-scale housing development on Duluth’s far northeastern edge.

The ordinance also permanently protects as city parkland about 1,500 acres of former county tax-forfeit land scattered throughout the city, a process that had been in the works for years.

The vote came after two hours of impassioned public testimony, much of it focusing on the public process that led up to the vote, which several residents described as confusing and lacking in transparency.

But City Council Vice President Lynn Nephew said the council tried to strike a balance by preserving green space — one of the key factors that draws people to Duluth, she said — while also addressing a critical housing shortage.

A recent study found the city needs to add more than 8,000 housing units in the next decade to meet increasing demand.

“We need to think about tax base growth. We need to think about housing folks. Our community is going to grow. We have to make sure our community does leave the gate open and welcomes more people in,” Nephew said.

Duluth Mayor Roger Reinert said the former golf course is one of the few places in Duluth where housing can be built at scale to put a meaningful dent in the city’s shortage.

“Where we can actually create an entire new neighborhood, where greenspace and outdoor amenities are primary assets, versus just leftovers, which is what traditionally happens in residential planning,” Reinert said.

Critics of the public process argued that a land use study should have been conducted first, before transferring the land to the city’s economic development arm, which required a supermajority vote of at least 8-1.

Council member Wendy Durrwachter, whose district includes the golf course land, was the sole councilor to vote against the ordinance. She said she supports housing on a portion of the site, but heard overwhelming objection to the public process from her constituents.

“If we vote yes today, we throw away our protection of the 8-1 security, before knowing the outcome of the land use study,” she said to applause from the crowd in attendance.

She also called the coupling of the preservation of the 1,500 acres of land with the Lester Park land transfer a “false choice.”

“The 1,500 acres are not threatened to any sort of level where we need to acquiesce to this quid pro quo,” Durrwachter said.

Supporters of the ordinance disputed that characterization. “What the council is doing by tying it together, it’s accelerating the permanent protection work so that it has to get done,” said council member Arik Forsman.

It puts a deadline in place to convert the land to park status by January 2027, Forsman said.

Reinert stressed that after the nine-month land use study, the city council will still have an opportunity to vote on the plan the Duluth Economic Development Authority produces.

“It will provide a real plan for this city council to evaluate,” Reinert said. “If what comes back doesn’t meet your values, you still retain the option to vote no.”

The former Lester Park golf course sprawls along the far eastern edge of Duluth. What used to be more than 250 acres of lush fairways is now an unofficial off-leash dog park, with footpaths winding through tall grass and trees in the summer, a groomed cross country skiing and skijoring track in the winter, and stunning views of Lake Superior year-round. 

The city of Duluth closed the golf course in 2020, as golfer numbers declined and the city decided to instead invest in improving its Enger Park golf course in another part of town. The prime real estate sits mostly vacant now, with the parking lot pavement crumbling and pocked with potholes, while the clubhouse sits boarded up. 

But now this beloved piece of land is at the center of a fierce debate in a community proud of its abundance of wild green spaces, over whether the course should be sold and developed into badly needed housing, protected as public parkland, or some combination of the two.

The Duluth City Council takes a key step in determining the land’s future Monday night when it votes on a proposal to transfer the former golf course to the city’s economic development arm to pursue a housing development. 

The public process that has led to the vote has come under scrutiny. Many residents and outdoor groups have argued that a promised land use study of the golf course should be conducted first, before any land transfer takes place. 

Others are critical of the city council tying the golf course vote to a different issue: the permanent protection of 1,500 acres of county tax forfeit land scattered throughout Duluth as city parkland. That project has been in the works for years. 

There was plenty of skepticism voiced by city residents at the last city council meeting.

“It is an unfair way to ram through a highly contested issue,” said Duluth resident Julia Carlson. 

“I cannot figure out what the rush is on this whole thing,” added fellow Duluthian Dave Pagel.

“Selling public lands should undergo the highest scrutiny with robust and meaningful public input,” said Libby Bent. 

But others, including several city council members and Mayor Roger Reinert, insist the process has been open and transparent, and that it’s imperative to move quickly to address the city’s severe housing needs and generate new property tax revenue. 

“Lester (Golf Course) cannot continue to sit and deteriorate. It dishonors both the legacy of Lester, and its potential,” wrote Reinert in a recent letter to constituents encouraging the transfer of the land to the Duluth Economic Development Authority (DEDA). 

Reinert said that a housing development will help the city meet the housing needs of its growing workforce and population, “while also meeting our goals for green space preservation and additional outdoor recreation opportunities.” 

A ‘historic’ opportunity

Like many other Minnesota cities, including Rochester and Mankato, Duluth is facing a severe housing shortfall. A recent study commissioned by the city found that Duluth needs to add nearly 9,000 new housing units by 2035 to meet increasing demand. And as an older, fully built-out city, Duluth has very few large areas like this available to build major housing developments.

One of them, said Mayor Reinert, is the former Central High School site, where a developer who had proposed a massive development of apartment buildings recently defaulted on agreements with the city after running into financial troubles. 

The second area is downtown Duluth, where underutilized office buildings could be repurposed as housing. And the third is the Lester Park golf course — which, Reinert stresses, is the only one of the three potential development sites that the city owns. 

Reinert calls the opportunity to develop Lester “historic in terms of moving our community forward and trying to increase housing inventory, trying to decrease the cost of housing, but also doing it in a way that integrates a number of elements.”

Reinert envisions a mixed-use development that still could include golf, as well as green space and connection to hiking, biking and ski trails, and restaurant and retail amenities. 

“It's one of our very rare opportunities to do a planned, thoughtful, entire new neighborhood with housing at scale,” Reinert said. 

Discussions on the golf course’s future go back at least two decades and four mayoral administrations. There have been several proposals and task forces created in attempts to coalesce community support around a single vision for the property. But nothing’s stuck. 

The issue has taken on new urgency in recent months. In October, the city council approved a nine-month land use study of the property which would include a “robust public engagement process.” 

But several community members have asked for that land use study to be completed first, before a decision is made on whether to transfer the land to the Economic Development Authority. 

“It really feels like we should do this land use study to figure out what parts of that property are developable, what makes sense to meet our actual housing needs, and then transfer just that portion to DEDA,” said Ansel Schimpff, executive director of COGGS, a mountain bike advocacy group. 

“So that we're not giving up this whole 260 acres of park and then hoping that we get some of it back,” added Schimpff, who was part of the latest working group to explore options for the golf course land.  

State law requires that any vote to take public land out of city park status requires a supermajority vote — in this case eight out of nine council members. That’s a tough bar to meet, and Schmipff and others argue that once the council transfers the land, the public will lose some of its sway, as future votes on the land would only require a majority vote. 

Duluth City Council member Wendy Durrwachter, whose district includes the golf course, said she plans to vote against the land transfer because of similar concerns she’s heard from constituents. 

“People want the land use study done first,” said Durrwachter. “So it's really unfortunate that we're being forced to throw away our eight to one vote on what occurs at Lester prematurely.”

At-large councilor Arik Forsman, who also serves as a DEDA commissioner, said the critics have it backwards. 

“We've set up the entire process so that we have to complete a land use study before we can close any portion of the property, and the study itself is actually what will inform whether we close on any of it,” Forsman said. 

He added that transferring the land to DEDA would allow the development authority to pay for the land use study, which is expected to cost up to $200,000. Otherwise, he said, the city would be on the hook for the expense. But council member Durrwachter believes the city could come up with funding for the study. 

Forsman and Reinert also point out that the council would have another opportunity to vote on the land transfer after the land use study is completed. The council would also have to sign off on any development proposal down the road. 

“And yes, those are majority votes, but the majority of the city council still speaks for Duluthians on almost every other issue,” Forsman said. 

Public lands

With its extensive network of biking, hiking and ski trails on the hillside that rises up from Lake Superior, Duluth has become a haven for outdoor recreation enthusiasts. 

Julie O’Leary, president of the Duluth chapter of the Izaak Walton League, said the city should be extremely wary of selling the very public green space that helps attract new residents. 

“It's a resource and an asset for all of us. We're not going to get any more of it. The demand for outdoor activities is not going to go away. As Duluth grows, there's going to be a greater demand,” O’Leary said. 

For years Duluth has been working to add new land to its parkland inventory. Two years ago the city acquired over 2,000 acres of tax-forfeit land from St. Louis County. Much of that land includes areas that are already used for outdoor recreation — including large sections of the Lester Park and Piedmont cross country ski trails. 

But that land is still zoned residential. The vote to transfer the Lester Park golf course to DEDA also includes a provision to permanently protect 1,500 of those tax-forfeit acres as parkland. 

“Being able to combine development with preservation, those two things should be done in tandem,” said Roz Randorf, a Duluth city council member and DEDA commissioner who spearheaded combining the two provisions. 

“We saw it as the perfect coupling of development and preservation in tandem. And so it really shows our commitment to the environment, and our commitment to housing,” Randorf added. 

Critics see it differently. “It seems really just kind of slimy to effectively be holding that land hostage in order to get this Lester golf course land transferred,” said Schimpff. 

“The process to identify that 1,500 acres of land has been a great example of engagement and participation by community and government at all levels. What's happening with the Lester Park golf course is not a good process,” said O’Leary.

But after languishing for years, others say it’s imperative to start a new process to finally settle on a plan for the golf course’s future–while also addressing critical housing needs. 

“I’m not satisfied with an outcome where Lester Park Golf Course remains a dog park where very few people clean up their dog poop,” councilor Arik Forsman said at the last council meeting. ”That’s not its highest and best use.”

By Shubhanjana Das, Sahan Journal

This story comes to you from Sahan Journal through a partnership with MPR News.

This summer, Minnesota Indian Women’s Resource Center (MIWRC) opened a 24-unit Permanent Supportive Housing community on their property in the East Phillips and Ventura Village neighborhood of Minneapolis. Named Oshki-Gakeyaa, which means “New Way” in Ojibwe, its newly renovated apartments were instantly occupied by unhoused Native individuals or families. 

Twenty of those units are for high-priority individuals as well as those experiencing long-term homelessness, while four units are reserved for people with disabilities. There is now a waitlist for the apartments, a sign of the deep and persistent demand for housing, especially as temperatures drop and tents reappear in the heart of Minneapolis’ Native community. Currently, a majority of these units are occupied by Native women. 

This is the latest effort from the Native community to combat the disproportionate number of individuals and families from its community who are experiencing homelessness. 

Minneapolis has been confronting an ongoing homelessness crisis, and Native Americans are overrepresented in the homeless population, despite making just 2 percent of the state’s population. Native women are especially vulnerable, and can face additional risks of being targeted if they are unhoused. 

Homelessness and safety concerns of Native women have been two of the top concerns Ruth Buffalo has had to address this year at MIWRC, a nonprofit that offers holistic services to Native women and families that are rooted in American Indian traditions. 

Buffalo said in early October, a group of three men and one woman from Oklahoma attempted to traffic Native women from the MIWRC grounds in the pretext of offering addiction treatment and shelter in San Francisco. MIWRC helped the victims report the incident to the Minneapolis Police Department.

This recent incident is only one of the many instances of unhoused Native women being accosted or harmed in some capacity, Buffalo said. 

“For a number of reasons, our Native women are more susceptible to being unsheltered, whether [because] they were tricked into believing they were getting in a relationship with someone, or fell into active addiction and are stuck there,” she said. 

Native Americans are 30 times more likely than white Minnesotans to experience homelessness. In 2023, they made up 20 percent of the state’s homeless population, according to a Wilder report, a disparity that was even more pronounced in the Twin Cities metro area. The report also found that 44 percent Native adults have been attacked or assaulted while homeless, compared to 33 percent of non-Native adults. 

For Native American women, these disparities are even higher. 

The Urban Indian Health Institute placed Minnesota among the top 10 U.S. states reporting the highest number of missing or murdered Indigenous women and girls. 

While specific, up-to-date comparative statistics are limited, existing research strongly indicates that Native women in Minnesota face disproportionately high risk of sexual exploitation and trafficking compared to their share of the population. 

Allison Haro was homeless for over 10 years, living in encampments across the Twin Cities. “I was in survival mode,” she said. “Moving from place to place, you know, experiencing a lot of trauma. I was trying to figure out how I was going to get my next meal, or how I would stay warm through the winters, just trying to live for the next day.” During that time, Haro said she regularly saw people trying to prey on Native women and traffic them.

“There would be these random cars; they would try to pick up women in our community by offering them substances, a place to stay, or offering them food,” she said. “A lot of these traffickers know that a lot of these women who are in the streets and who are homeless, they know that they’re vulnerable, so they’re going to take every chance they get to try to pick up our women, especially our younger women.”

Now, she works at MIWRC as a sexual assault advocate. She said she wants to use her lived experience to offer Native women the space to speak up, one she didn’t have when she was homeless. “Our women, we always get put on the back burner,” said Haro. “Because we get treated so differently that we don’t get to express or even talk about how we’re feeling or what we’re going through.” 

The high rate of assault that Native women experience is not treated as a crisis, said Travis Earth-Werner, CEO at the American Indian Community Development Corp, which offers sober and multifamily housing, along with a shelter and a drop-in center for unhoused community members. It’s “an afterthought,” he said.

Perpetrators feel a sense of immunity and victims go unacknowledged. “And when that’s the case, individuals feel like they can get away with so much more, and it’s an escalating behavior, which often goes to further violence,” he said.  

A policy brief from the National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center says that Indigenous survivors of violence face “unique intersection of housing instability and homelessness and domestic and sexual violence.” 

Many Native American women experiencing homelessness become victims of violence and exploitation before and during their time without housing. A 2020 study by multiple Native organizations stated that 98 percent of the women interviewed that had been prostituted and sex trafficked were either currently experiencing or had experienced homelessness. Over half the Native women experiencing homelessness said that they stayed in an abusive situation because they had no other housing options, the same Wilder report found. 

These numbers confirm a persistent crisis, both in Minnesota and nationally: that violence, in its many shapes and forms, against Native women is extremely common, and homelessness is often both a cause and effect of that.

“[Homelessness] creates a perfect storm for missing and murdered women,” said Guadalupe Lopez, director of the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Relatives office. “This is something that we have to keep within our scope at all times and within this office, because we know that that is a high indicator that that is where harm is caused.”

“It’s a huge risk factor in not only being sexually exploited and used in trafficking, but also going missing or being murdered,” she said. 

Nicole Matthews, CEO at the Minnesota Indian Women’s Sexual Assault Coalition said that homelessness is “a huge risk factor” and “critical” to the work that MIWSAC does in addressing sexual violence and sex trafficking of Native women. 

‘Enmeshed in intergenerational trauma’

For the Native community, homelessness and violence are rooted in a long history of discrimination and unjust policies that produced this heightened vulnerability.

“We often talk about colonization as if it happened, you know, hundreds of years ago, and it’s kind of over now, and so everything is fine, but the impact is still very relevant today,” said Matthews.

Decades of federal policy that deliberately disrupted Native communities, through removal from their land, forced assimilation through boarding schools, relocation from reservations to cities, and even the forced sterilization of Native women, still reverberates today.

Amy Arndt was raised by a mother who was trafficked and raised in 16 different white foster homes. When she found herself in south Minneapolis surrounded by the Native community, she was around people grappling with addiction and became addicted herself. Arndt’s mother was raised by grandparents who were forced to go to American boarding schools. 

“We’re still enmeshed in this intergenerational trauma,” said Arndt. “They came out [of boarding schools and foster homes]. They couldn’t handle it, they didn’t feel like they belonged to the family anymore. There’s sexual abuse, physical abuse, emotional, mental abuse … They had so much trauma that they self-medicated.” This generational as well as historical trauma of the Native community causes a breakdown of family units, separating people from their relatives, Arndt said. “Our youth are so incredibly vulnerable.”

Now, as the director of Youth and Family Services at Ain Dah Yung Center, which offers shelter and housing for Native youth from ages 5 to 24, Arndt’s work is informed by her lived experiences. She said that over half the residents across its shelters are female presenting.

Culturally aware interventions

Apart from poverty, income disparity and lack of affordable housing, Native leaders in the community also point to ongoing systemic racism, discrimination, and institutional apathy as factors that have led to Native women developing deep-seated mistrust in non-Native governing bodies. 

Native leaders in the community think a systemic change is required to address this issue at its roots: from culturally aware interventions to coordinated response systems. 

Earth-Werner said that for social systems to respond better to unhoused Native women’s concerns, there needs to be accountability by identifying and punishing perpetrators of violence against Native women. He also stressed the importance of building a long-term approach through helping unhoused Native women develop skills, coping mechanisms and offering dedicated housing as they rebuild their lives.  

And that needs to be a consolidated effort, which is missing, according to Lopez, of the state’s Missing and Murdered Indigenous Relatives office. 

“The services don’t always talk to each other,” she said. “There’s big, huge cracks within the ways that systems might work or not work together. We don’t ask that we don’t always make a space and clear sacred, special space for the most impacted, and really listen and say, ‘What can we do?’”

Ain Dah Yung offers an example of what traditionally rooted interventions could look like. From sweat lodges to traditional healing and medicine, Arndt said that it helps bring the community together with “support and unconditional love.” 

“We’re seeing increasing homelessness and an increase in the violence and exploitation,” said Matthews. “And sometimes I wonder, is it that we’re seeing more violence, or is it that we’re paying more attention? And I’m not sure. Maybe it’s both.” 

Even as MIWRC supports the women living in Oshki-Gakeyaa through recovery, Buffalo says “it is only the beginning.” 

“There’s a huge transition period that takes place and additional support is needed to assist their solid road to recovery and building a stronger path forward,” she said.

Using a new state law and executive order meant to fight fraud in state aid programs, the Minnesota Department of Human Services has ordered a two-year ban on new licenses for programs designed to help people with disabilities live in their communities.

The department will stop issuing new Home and Community-Based Services licenses, stop accepting new license applications, cancel existing license applications and prevent any licensed providers from adding new services. The order is set to take effect next month.

Shireen Gandhi, temporary DHS commissioner, told lawmakers in a letter this week that the number of licenses approved for such services is far outstripping demand.

Over the past five years, the average number of Minnesotans using those services each year rose by nearly 25 percent compared to the five years before that, but the average number of businesses licensed to serve those people grew by 50 percent, Gandhi wrote.

Without the moratorium, she added, the number of licensed businesses would be on track to nearly double “surpassing what is needed now or in the next two years.”

The looming moratorium comes roughly a month after Gov. Tim Walz announced he was bringing in a contractor to audit 14 Medicaid programs in Minnesota the department deemed at high-risk of fraud. The goal: to ensure money is being spent as intended.

Minnesota has struggled the past few years with massive fraud in federally funded programs administered by the state, including Feeding Our Future, an operation prosecutors say stole some $250 million in federal funds meant to feed hungry children. Nearly 80 people have been charged and more than 50 convicted.

‘This is not a partnership’

Home and Community-Based Services licensing covers a variety of in-home and out-of-home programs for people with disabilities, including community residential settings, commonly referred to as group homes. Similar programs licensed by the Minnesota Department of Health are not affected by the moratorium.

While state officials maintain the two-year ban on new licenses is needed, disability services providers and those who use the programs say they were blindsided by the decision.

“We found out about this right before the general public did, or at the same time the general public found out about it,” said Sue Schettle, who runs the Association of Residential Resources in Minnesota, a trade group.

“This is not a partnership,” Schettle added. “This appears to be decisions being made behind closed doors, without consultation.”

While the licensing ban won’t directly affect people who currently use Home and Community-Based Services, advocates say Minnesotans with disabilities are increasingly concerned that services they rely on could be suspended. 

Zach Johnson uses Integrated Community Supports, a program licensed under the Home and Community-Based Services umbrella. The program was flagged as a high risk for fraud last month. 

“When you compare the money, you have to compare it to what will happen to me if these services don’t exist,” Johnson said. “My cerebral palsy isn’t going anywhere.”

The Department of Human Services says an exception process will be available based on requests from counties, tribal nations and case managers.

The department also said that during the two-year moratorium, the agency will evaluate whether additional reforms are needed to improve licensing oversight.

A federal judge Monday dismissed a lawsuit filed by residents of a Minneapolis homeless encampment that's been cleared multiple times by the city.  

Residents of Camp Nenookaasi sued Mayor Jacob Frey, claiming he intentionally inflicted emotional distress by ordering the camps cleared. After the first closure in January 2024, residents set up new camps only to be cleared again.  

The plaintiffs also said they lost valuable possessions, including vital documents, during those closures.  

In his dismissal, Judge Eric Tostrud wrote that no reasonable jury would find the mayor's decisions to clear the encampments to be "extreme and outrageous."

In court documents, plaintiffs described Nenookaasi as a “community-based healing camp rooted in Native religious and cultural practices, drawing upon evidence-based harm reduction strategies to meaningfully intervene in cycles of addiction and houselessness.”

Chum, which operates the largest emergency shelter for people experiencing homelessness north of the Twin Cities, has received a $2.5 million grant from the Bezos Day 1 Families Fund. It’s the largest private gift the Duluth-based nonprofit has received in its 52-year history.

The grant is part of $102.5 million distributed to 32 organizations nationwide this year by the foundation started by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and philanthropist Lauren Sanchez Bezos.

Since it was founded eight years ago, the fund has awarded more than $850 million in grants to nonprofit groups in all 50 states, including to several Twin Cities organizations. They include St. Stephen’s Human Services, Simpson Housing Services and The Link, all of which operate in Minneapolis, and Solid Ground in White Bear Lake.

This is the first award given to an organization in greater Minnesota. It was also a huge surprise to Chum and its executive director John Cole, who said he had never heard of the foundation before Chum was invited to apply for a grant. In fact, Cole said the Fund’s original email went into his spam folder.

Chum applied for the grant, but Cole said he had forgotten all about it until he received an email this weekend.

“I was stunned,” Cole recalled. “I was really overjoyed. This is a once-in-a-lifetime gift that will certainly change the trajectory of many lives.”

Cole said Chum will likely use the grant to expand its Emergency Family Shelter and to offer more support services for parents — and more programs for children — to provide assistance as they move toward stability.

"We don't want any children sleeping outside, and we want to be able to move families from shelter to permanent housing in a much faster and more efficient way. And so when we can get resources injected into our shelter operations, this really helps us to move further along in achieving these objectives,” Cole said.

Chum was founded in 1973 and opened its Emergency Shelter, Drop-in Center and Food Shelf in 1983. It also offers street outreach and, in 2014, opened a building with 50 units of supportive housing for individuals and families who have experienced homelessness.

The organization served more than 8,000 people last year through its various programs, including 46 families and 110 children.

“That is unconscionable that we could have children out there having to wrestle with homelessness because of the situation their families ended up in,” Cole said.

Earlier this year, the group began construction on an expansion of its emergency shelter located on Duluth’s steep hillside above downtown. The $10 million project will add two stories to the facility and double its capacity.

The shelter was built to serve 30 people, but it regularly served 125 people every night, forcing many to sleep on chairs, at tables or on the floor.

Chum has opened a temporary facility at another nearby service provider, the Damiano Center, while construction is ongoing. The new expanded shelter is expected to open in late 2026 or early 2027, and will serve around 160 people.

Chum also manages a winter warming center in Duluth, and it runs the Safe Bay program, which provides a secure area for people to sleep in their vehicles during the warmer months.

Duluth, like many cities around the country, has struggled with a rapidly growing homeless population since the COVID pandemic. Encampments sprung up around the city, including one outside Duluth City Hall and the St. Louis County Courthouse.

Business owners and downtown workers have raised concerns about panhandling and safety. The city council has passed several public safety ordinances aimed at addressing those issues but declined to make camping on city property a misdemeanor crime.

Chum and other service providers say there simply aren’t enough beds and services available for the number of people experiencing homelessness.

“We’ve been seeing a dramatic increase in chronic homelessness,” Cole said, while at the same time, traditional funding streams are shifting and shrinking. That’s why grants like this are so important, Cole said, when “we're constantly in a battle to try to piece together the combinations of funding from a wide variety of sources to enable us just to operate.”

Chum’s board of directors and staff will decide how best to use the grant from the Bezos’ foundation, which Cole said is designated to address family homelessness over the next five years.

Minnesota is one of 21 states suing the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development over funding cuts to long-term programs that could put more than 3,600 Minnesotans at risk of losing their homes. 

The cuts target permanent supportive housing, a research-backed approach to addressing homelessness that moves people into affordable housing without preconditions and with access to built-in support, like a caseworker or mental health care. HUD announced the changes earlier this month.

The changes also disrupt ongoing federal grants which had previously been easily renewed, leaving communities scrambling to turn in applications that align with the administration’s priorities.

In Minnesota, people benefiting from these types of programs include children, seniors, veterans, people with disabilities and survivors of domestic violence. 

MPR News spoke with residents and service providers affected by the cuts.

Just over a year ago, Hennepin County’s permanent supporting housing program allowed a single mother of two named Mary to escape domestic abuse. MPR News is only using part of her name because of that. 

The unraveling of Mary’s life happened abruptly.

“The landlord decided that she wanted to sell the house and gave us 30 days after 13 years of living there,” she said. “We were left to stay where we could.”

That Minneapolis house had been where her middle-school daughter discovered her love for spooky movies and where her kindergarten-aged son walked his first steps. 

Mary had no savings and lost her job at a nonprofit soon after that. Unable to find another home, her family split up.

Mary ended up living with an abusive former partner and her daughter moved in with her grandmother across town.

“It was hard not being able to see my mom when I wanted to,” her daughter said. “When I needed her, I couldn’t go to her because we lived so far away.” 

The county provided a safety net: access to a safe place to live. 

Within a few months of losing their home, her family was placed in a two-bedroom apartment in the suburbs of Minneapolis where she and her neighbors pay steeply discounted rent. 

Caseworkers on site help make sure the families living there have their basic needs met. They have driven Mary to medical appointments and made sure her first-grader had a warm coat. 

“I think that this place has saved all of us,” she said, referring to her family and neighbors who escaped homelessness and domestic violence. 

But now, the Trump administration is reversing course from permanent supportive housing. In just Mary’s apartment building alone, there are 100 other children at risk of losing their homes. 

Previously, about 90 percent of federal HUD dollars that reached local communities was allocated for permanent supportive housing. Now, only 30 percent of federal HUD dollars can be spent on those programs. 

“This is a hammer blow for the system if it goes through as currently set out,” said David Hewitt, the director of Housing Stability at Hennepin County.

Hennepin County is one of ten local jurisdictions in Minnesota that funnel federal funds to housing homeless people. It stands to lose $12 million for permanent housing.

In a written response to an MPR News inquiry, a spokesperson for HUD said the department “refutes any claim or assertion that reforms will result in increased homelessness.”

The spokesperson, without evidence, blamed Housing First policies for increased homelessness nationwide. 

A recent federal report showed homelessness across the country had increased 18 percent over the previous year. Local planning bodies reported rising housing costs, the expiration of pandemic-era rental assistance, and increased migration and displacement from natural disasters as factors behind that rise. 

“We hope current permanent supportive housing providers will shift to transitional housing by providing robust wraparound support services for mental health and addiction to promote self-sufficiency,” the HUD statement read. “We also want to bring new players to the table by encouraging faith-based organizations to step up.”

Hewitt, with Hennepin County, said making these shifts in the timeline provided is unrealistic. “Developing $12 million worth of new street outreach and transitional housing in less than two months is pretty much impossible,” he said. 

‘A day that will live in infamy’

Permanent supportive housing is “the invisible backbone of our community,” said Chris LaTondresse, the president of Beacon Housing Interfaith Collaborative, which operates more than 600 permanent supportive housing units statewide.

LaTondresse previously served as a Hennepin County Commissioner and chaired the county’s Housing and Redevelopment Authority. He said the day HUD announced the cuts to permanent supportive housing was “a day that will live in infamy for any of us that have been working on advancing proven bipartisan solutions on homelessness.”

Decades of research has given permanent supportive housing a positive reputation across party lines. Studies show that supportive housing placement saves communities money from emergency room and jail costs.

And data suggests the majority of people who are housed through permanent supportive housing stay housed. In some studies, that figure topped 90 percent — including in Hennepin County, where more than 2,500 people were placed in permanent housing last year.

The new HUD rules don’t just walk away from this approach. They also relay an expectation for communities to follow an executive order that calls for strict camping bans nationwide and encourages governments to commit homeless people with mental illness to institutions long-term and against their will. 

Additionally, it shifts the majority of HUD funding to a competitive process that gives the federal government more control over how local communities approach homelessness.

“That’s billions of dollars,” LaTondresse said. “It’s going to go to the administration’s preferred vendors and priorities. The opportunity for waste, fraud and abuse in that alone is just breathtaking to contemplate.”

The changes to HUD’s funding mechanism will allow the administration to tie funding for housing to local policies around gender identity, immigration and encampments — and whether or not projects include work and drug treatment mandates. 

Cathy ten Broeke, who leads the state’s Interagency Council on Homelessness, said Minnesota will continue to direct its resources toward proven solutions that align with its values. 

There are “so many different people in our community that we need to put our arms around,” she said. “The common denominator that every single one of those human beings needs is connection to support and connection to a safe and stable place to call home. And that is what we will continue to focus on.”

Still, the state relies on $48 million in federal funding from HUD. 

“If the community feels like homelessness is really challenging now, which of course it is, this will be demonstrably worse,” ten Broeke said. 

She said she wants Minnesotans to understand the stakes and take action, including by imploring Congress to intervene.

The lawsuit filed Tuesday alleges HUD illegally proceeded with the changed rules without receiving congressional authorization and abandoned longstanding Housing First policies without explanation or acknowledgement of the tens of thousands of people who would face eviction. 

“If the Trump administration’s attempts to cut this funding go through, tens of thousands of formerly homeless people will end up getting evicted from their homes through no fault of their own,” Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison said in a statement.

Keeping it ‘good’

These days, Mary’s apartment is an oasis. A safe haven. The refrigerator is a rainbow of alphabet magnets and family photos. There are brightly colored children’s books for her son to practice reading and bins of plastic Legos.

It’s a place where the single mother is finally able to sit down and breathe. Mary said her first-grade son, a silly “mama’s boy,” has been encouraging her to do morning meditations. She said she’s just beginning to get out of crisis mode.  

It’s not a perfect situation for Mary and her family. Neighbors come from a variety of complex backgrounds and some days can get “chaotic,” she said. Ultimately, Mary hopes to buy her own house in Minneapolis. But for now, her family is safe and they can be together. Permanent supportive housing, she said, is a “necessity.”

“When we’re all good, everything’s good. You know what I mean?” she said, seated on a couch beside a row of thriving succulents. “I try hard to keep it good.”

This report was produced as part of a collaboration between Minnesota Public Radio News and The New York Times's Headway Initiative, focused on covering housing in Minnesota. This reporting is supported by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF), with the Local Media Foundation serving as fiscal sponsor. Funders have no control over the selection, focus of stories or the editing process and do not review stories before publication.