How our collaborative made Emerson Village a reality
Written by Kate Taber, Congregational Organizer
“The question of whether we’re going to take an old furniture store and use it to provide shelter or leave it vacant is more than a political question. It’s a moral question,” declared Minneapolis City Council Member Jeremiah Ellison as he spoke to a packed room of over 100 congregational, community, and government partners, at the Emerson Village Groundbreaking celebration on September 21.
“The answer is that we have to invest in this community,” he continued. “We have to invest in the Northside.”
His words refer to both the history of the ground being broken, and also the long journey it took to gather the political will and public resources needed to make these 40 homes for families a reality.
It started with an idea
In 2010, when Beacon was still known as the Plymouth Church Neighborhood Foundation and merging with the Families Moving Forward Shelter Program (FMF), FMF brought with them a property at 1808 Emerson Avenue North, which was once a furniture store now being used a shelter day center.
Pictured is the FMF day center in 2003 when it was a furniture store.
Beacon and FMF dreamed together of using the site to one day build homes for Northside families, the same population the shelter served. Attempts to move this idea forward were met with too many obstacles at the time, but the dream stayed alive for an entire decade, during which the site continued to serve families in shelter as a day center for several years, then again laying vacant after the closing of the FMF Hennepin County shelter program.
The continued push from our collaborative
In the middle of 2020, eight people from various congregations of different faith traditions formed a team to try again. Their efforts were informed by research done in 2018 by volunteers from the collaborative. Five months into a global pandemic, and three months into a racial reckoning sparked by the murder of George Floyd, Beacon announced the launch of Emerson Village, a development that would provide homes to 40 families from the Northside of Minneapolis.
The team chose the name to reflect the community that would create, nurture, and arise from these homes. That team worked hard to gain the community and political support to make those homes a reality. Setbacks abounded, including rejections to funding requests, delays in funding decisions, and resistance from community members.
Pictured is community members giving design input for the building.
Roadblocks lead to policy wins
One funding rejection from the city of Minneapolis gave birth to a new advocacy campaign. This campaign sought to influence the Minneapolis city council members, the mayor, and the city staff to both increase the Affordable Housing Trust Fund and target the Trust Fund to invest in homes for those at the very lowest income levels. Both of these goals have been won as of this spring 2023, and we are watching with expectation and hope to see how the Trust Fund money is allocated at the end of this year.
It takes a village
Despite, and perhaps as a result of, the many setbacks, the journey of Emerson Village truly brought together an entire village to see the vision through.
Clergy and members of nearby congregations, including Wayman AME Church, Church of the Ascension, Greater Mount Vernon Missionary Baptist Church, Fellowship Missionary Baptist Church, Christ the River of Life Lutheran Church, Shiloh Temple and Robbinsdale Parkway UCC, organized for resources and local support alongside team members from other congregations in the collaborative. Neighboring community organization Juxtaposition Arts convened a design workshop, bringing the architects of UrbanWorks together with service provider Project for Pride in Living (PPL), clergy and congregants, and community members with experience of housing insecurity or homelessness, to offer input and feedback into the design so that it would best serve the families calling it home. Congregations in Beacon’s collaborative showed up for the land use vote, advocated for public funding, and contributed significant private funding of their own—all essential pieces of the puzzle needed to make Emerson Village a reality. Pictured is some of the clergy who helped make Emerson Village possible.
It took over three years, but in September 2023 Beacon had secured the funding resources needed to close on Emerson Village and begin breaking ground!
Funding is being provided from an array of partners including the federal government, Minnesota Housing, the Metropolitan Council, Hennepin County, the City of Minneapolis, and the Federal Home Loan Bank of Des Moines, along with 40 Project Based Vouchers from the Minneapolis Public Housing Authority. Individuals, families, and congregations have raised over $700,000 for Emerson Village. Thanks to all these partners, forty new homes for families are being built right now, and they will have on-site supportive services provided by PPL.
Celebrating the groundbreaking
Beacon’s collaborative held a groundbreaking celebration on September 21 at Church of the Ascension. Over 100 supporters came to celebrate, from congregations near and far, representatives from the city, county, Met Council, and state, staff from PPL and Juxtaposition Arts, architects and construction staff, Ward 5 Council Member Jeremiah Ellison, and Mayor Jacob Frey. The feelings in the room were of pride, joy, and triumph.
We celebrate a day like this because it means so much to our staff and the collaborative and our community partners when all our efforts come together, and something starts to take shape that will turn into new homes for those who need them most.
Marcy Frost, member of Temple Israel and of both the 2010 and 2020 Emerson Village teams, spoke at the celebration, sharing the history of this development and reminding all gathered that our work is not complete.
We still need your support
“Today marks the beginning of the Emerson Village construction phase, but it does not mark the end of Beacon’s efforts,” Marcy shared. “We still need to raise $150,000 from gifts of all sizes from individuals, families, businesses, foundations, and congregations to complete the development. We must build on the momentum of our Emerson Village success to ensure that there are enough resources for everyone in our community to be in safe and stable housing. We invite you to stand up for the vision that all people have a home and to invite your friends and neighbors to join you.”
We need to keep being the village that supports these new homes. We invite you to click here to get involved, or email Kate Taber at KTaber@beaconinterfaith.org for more information.
