Housing
Homelessness
Homelessness continues to be a problem for our society. In order for housing to work for the homeless, clients must be able to live; but also have the ability to set aside funds from earnings to get them back on a strong footing. The next step would be Transitional Housing*, eventually leading to permanent housing to meet their individual needs. This could be in a mixed housing complex or through single family home purchase.
*Transitional programs concentrate on the reason the person or family became homeless, stressing education and life skills to prevent the situation from recurring.
Hospice Care
AIDS is a difficult and isolating disease which generally means a person's life expectancy is greatly shortened. Providing housing for patients who have been diagnosed with AIDS will allow the patients to live alone or with a family member(s) in an apartment atmosphere until their passing; while being cared for with kindness and dignity by trained professionals. Staffing the facility with nursing care and planning for a patient's final days would be provided in an atmosphere of love and respect.
Housing for Sobriety
We need to provide housing complexes with services provided in-house for crisis situations. The design would be for two to four bedrooms in a rental or condo style; allowing the family to stay together in their unit while the affected family member is treated in an in-house ward on a separate floor. This treatment would include medical, counseling and social work staff to assist the patient until such time they can move back with their family. This would prevent many children from being taken by the county and placed in foster care, thus separating the family and prohibiting them from functioning as normally as possible. We need to try harder to keep families together, except in abusive, extenuating circumstances which make that prohibitive. There is no reason we cannot plan housing for these situations and design them with this purpose in mind.
Immigrant Transitional Housing
With immigrants continuing to arrive in our country and state at a steady pace, we need to make certain we, as a state, are ready to receive these families and get them off to the best possible start. We should continue to do this until they can establish themselves with permanent jobs and permanent housing. Once families are more stable and have received employment they would be able to provide for their own housing. We need to continue to think about the best way to house and to educate our new arrivals about life in Minnesota and America. We need to continue to immerse the entire family in the English language; studies in Civics. We need to provide access to education for resume writing, job seeking skills and English literacy. We also need to teach the rules for green card status and renewal; as well as Visa renewal and applying for US Citizenship.
Minnesota needs to think about multiple use, affordable housing. We need to bring solutions forth for families. It seems as though we have focused on townhouse solutions as a one size fits all families. This narrow-minded thinking clearly falls short of considering what families with more than two to three children need to live comfortably and affordably.
If we can afford to build town homes for $150,000.00 - $190,000.00 and call them an affordable option for people who are struggling in the lower and middle-income brackets, we are not thinking clearly. Those of us, who were lucky enough to purchase two and three bedroom homes in the eighties for under $100,000.00, would never be able to buy that same house now because in many cases property values have tripled. We also need to think about developments or affordable housing "cluster" neighborhoods for single-family, two bedroom expansions with a yard. If we build these "clusters" wisely for low income families, fund the down payments with one-time, 5 year forgivable grants from foundations and private donors, we could also offer a 40 yr mortgage that would allow some equity to be seen in a few years.
The idea of providing a central community center, playground and park with walking and bicycle paths throughout the community would give the whole space a more residential feel; more suited to family life with kids. In addition, it would be wise to consider having additional services available to assist families. An example would be an onsite daycare center with a sliding fee scale. There is a crying need for teen drop-in centers with computers to do homework, computer games, board games, puzzles or television.
For a fee, cooking and craft classes could be offered. A large community room which people in the neighborhood could rent for a small deposit would help them in many ways. That deposit would be returned when the facility is cleaned and kept tidy. A social worker on the premises can assist families who are receiving special funding from the state, or be on hand to give advice on networking for employment and life skills needs.
This would also be a model which can be customized for any population. People with disabilities can have customized wheelchair accessible cabinetry made to work for their particular disability. It would be great to provide retail shops on the bottom floor for necessities such as dry cleaning, pharmacy needs, groceries, and a small restaurant.
We mainly need to think in the design stage about how we can make lives more functional and pleasant and give people more options.
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