Pieces of the Puzzle: Addressing the Complex Issues of Homelessness

Two years ago, the Pohlad Family Foundation – a leading and traditionally low-key player on the Twin Cities charitable giving scene -- shifted its focus to housing stability. The foundation’s new goal: preventing and ending homelessness for families and youth in the Twin Cities region.

That turned out to be a timely move. Since then, demand for emergency overnight shelters here has increased markedly. Rental rates here have continued to climb, amidst historically low vacancy rates. Affordable housing remains in short supply. The foundation estimates that people in 60,000 Twin Cities households are at risk of becoming homeless and that overall, 142,000 households are devoting more than half of their income to housing. Some as much as 70 percent.

Yet as Susan Bass Roberts notes, financial advisers have long suggested that households cap their housing payments at 30 percent of income. By that measure alone, perhaps it should not come as a surprise that homelessness has become – in her words – “a growing problem in this community.”

Bass Roberts is vice president and executive director of the Pohlad Family Foundation. She joined the foundation in 2016 after six years at Best Buy, where she oversaw community relations, outreach and that company’s foundation. She and the family initiated the strategic planning process that laid the groundwork for the Pohlad foundation’s new focus.

The Pohlad Family Foundation was established in 1994 by Pohlad Companies founder Carl Pohlad, who died in 2009, and his wife, Eloise, who died six years earlier. Today, their three sons continue to oversee the activities of the foundation. Bill Pohlad is the president. His two brothers Jim and Bob, who run most of the Pohlad family businesses, sit with him on the foundation’s board.

(Bert Colianni, one of the two lay trustees for Our Lady of Lourdes Parish, works closely with the foundation as the CEO of the Pohlad Companies).

The Pohlads’ financial successes have generated the assets the foundation uses to make its grants. Since 1994, the foundation has given away more than $200 million to youth programs, scholarship funds, social service and housing nonprofits and the arts. The foundation’s grants go largely for the operations and programs of non-profits active on the affordable housing front. It does not fund homeless people directly. Much of its support goes to housing affordability projects for youths and families currently experiencing homelessness. The foundation has been a strong backer of Twin Cities housing non-profits such as CommonBond and Project for Pride in Living. It has been a leading supporter of Catholic Charities’ new Dorothy Day campus in St. Paul, which has added significant overnight shelter capacity, affordable housing, and related services since 2017.

As the process of shifting Pohlad foundation focus kicked into gear, Bass Roberts and the Pohlad brothers familiarized their seven children with the family’s philanthropic activities . In 2017, two of them, Joe and Kiki Pohlad, joined the foundation’s board.

Family members examined four possible focuses – education, job training, discrimination, and housing. Bass Roberts says that ultimately, they concluded that their giving would have the greatest impact if it riveted on housing. Soon after the foundation settled on its new focus, a Wilder Foundation survey found that nearly half of the Minnesotans who experience homelessness are children and unaccompanied youths under the age of 24.

Bass Roberts says the foundation crafted four strategies to carry out its more targeted grant-making:

+ Catch youths and families before they experience homelessness. This includes preventing eviction and helping youths move out of the foster care system.
+ Fund housing affordability solutions. To that end, the foundation backs the Minnesota Housing for All alliance, a broad coalition that advocates for more state and federal support of affordable housing initiatives, among others
+ Address systemic change. The foundation believes homelessness problems can best be addressed by working with partners in the public, private, and non-profit sectors rather than through programs operating independently or by philanthropy alone.
+ Create awareness and galvanize support.
As the foundation puts it, “We strive to be a powerful voice for change, shining a light on the issues, championing the solutions, and speaking for those who cannot advocate for themselves.”

The Pohlad Family Foundation has demonstrated the flexibility to move quickly when critical needs arise. In December, with winter settling in, Gov. Walz put out an urgent call for funds to open emergency overnight shelters across the state. The foundation, along with the Richard M. Schulze Family Foundation and the Metropolitan Council, each chipped in $1 million. Those gifts accounted for almost two-thirds of the initial round of nearly $5 million that was quickly raised.

Similarly, in December of 2017, the Pohlad Foundation gave $1.4 million to emergency housing funds operated by Hennepin, Ramsey, and Dakota Counties. In turn, officials in those counties channeled the money into smaller grants that helped at-risk people to stay in their homes.

Because homelessness is such a complex issue, many organizations seek to address various pieces of the puzzle – mental health concerns, addiction, more affordable housing, racial disparities and so on. Bass Roberts cites a need for more coordination of these efforts. The foundation is exploring ways that could be done.

Meanwhile, the challenges persist. “There is no reason our neighbors should be sleeping in cars or outside,” says Susan Bass Roberts. “We are Minnesotans and we’re better than this.”