According to MAHUBE-OTWA executive director Liz Kuoppala, there are currently 142 households in the five-county community action partnership’s homeless programs.
“Some of these households only need help for a month, some a lot longer,” she said. “It’s a serious issue.”
In addition, she said, from June through September 2023, MAHUBE-OTWA helped about 800 families who were either homeless or at risk of homelessness through a “fast track” program, providing one-time assistance through a significant boost from the State Legislature.
“The numbers are big,” she said, but acknowledged good relationships with supportive landlords, counties, housing authorities, churches and others.
In a 2019 Minnesota Department of Education survey of students in Hubbard County, students in grades 8, 9 and 11 were asked the question, “During the last 12 months, have you stayed in a shelter, somewhere not intended as a place to live, or someone else’s home because you had no other place to stay?”
Kuoppala said 9% of eighth graders said yes, they were homeless with their parents or an adult family member; 3% of ninth-grade boys and 8% of ninth-grade girls said they were homeless with family members, and 3% of ninth-grade girls said they were homeless without family members. Among 11th graders, 2% each of boys and girls said they were homeless with their family, and 2% of each said they were homeless on their own.
Extrapolating similar numbers across all age groups, Kuoppala said, “That’s a pretty dramatic number.”
In our area, she said, homelessness tends to be temporary and situational. In most cases, she said, “People are housed, and then something happens. Someone is without housing.”
For example, a couple breaks up and there isn’t enough housing in the community, or enough income for an easy solution. “Then someone is kind of trapped. Often, with low income people, their friends and family are renters. They’re not homeowners who might have an extra room in the basement.”
Other examples include lost income, sickness, car repair – something happens, even temporarily, that makes it hard to pay the rent. “Sometimes it’s young people aging out of foster care or out of their parents’ home,” she said. “They think they have a plan, and it works out for a while, but then something happens.”
Or it may be two seniors living on fixed incomes, making ends meet, until one of them dies. Having a felony record, poor credit history or a history of mental health or substance use disorders also makes it challenging.
“What Homebase Housing Services Inc. does, what we do, is try to walk alongside people, help them resolve the core issue, stabilize them, and help them toward upward economic mobility again,” said Kuoppala.
