Our Framework for Supporting Our Communities to Survive and Recover from Operation Metro Surge
Like countless Minnesotans, the Family Housing Fund has been working urgently to address the housing stability crisis created by federal immigration enforcement. For months, many families have been afraid to leave their homes to go to work, school, medical appointments, or shopping. Some families have lost primary household earners to detainment or deportation. Many businesses have closed or reduced hours. A new report from the Center for Urban and Regional Affairs (CURA) estimates that Operation Metro Surge led to at least $27.4 million of rent debt across the state, which has devastating implications for both renters and housing providers. While there are reports of drawdowns and the end of Operation Metro Surge on the horizon, our communities will be feeling the damage for months, if not years, to come.
FHFund staff have developed a working framework to guide and focus our response to this crisis, thinking big picture at the systems level to develop and implement multi-pronged strategies. This framework prioritizes supporting mutual aid efforts; strengthening the capacity of community-based and culturally-rooted nonprofits on the frontlines; and supporting state and local governments to coordinate response now and consider policies and funding levels for the long run. All three of these pathways to assistance – mutual aid, nonprofits, and government – need to be working in tandem to meet this moment. These three types of assistance can be braided together to meet complex needs and give families choice in how they engage for support.
- Supporting mutual aid efforts as they grow and evolve.
Mutual aid is fast, low-barrier, and trusted by community members. The mutual aid response that has poured out of Minnesota communities – neighborhood groups, parent-teacher organizations, faith communities, local businesses, family foundations, and so many more – is astonishing and inspiring. Mutual aid works best when people are directly in relationship with each other. It is flexible and fast, but it will not be sustainable for the long haul in its current structure. Personal networks are being financially and emotionally tapped. In our conversations with mutual aid groups, we have heard that some mutual aid efforts are thinking about transition or consolidation as this housing stability crisis continues. That evolution may include merging or collaborating with other mutual aid efforts, merging or partnering with established community organizations, transitioning families to other sources of support and winding down, or other methods.
What we’ve done so far: Family Housing Fund is the fiscal sponsor for the Twin Cities Ice Relief Fund led by Neighbors Helping Neighbors – a mutual aid network connecting community members who need support with caring volunteers and resources ready to help. Together, we aim to raise $1.3 million for housing assistance, utilizing FHFund’s operational infrastructure to ensure it gets to our neighbors quickly and safely while mitigating financial risk to partners on the ground. This month, we’ve raised more than $480,000. (Donate here.)
Looking forward: We intend to continue engaging with mutual aid networks, following their lead and helping support them as they determine what structures make sense for them and their communities both now and for the future. This could include providing technical assistance, making connections, or lending our organizational infrastructure to pool and manage funds to ensure mutual aid partners can continue holding and managing critical community relationships.
2. Strengthening the capacity of community-based nonprofits on the frontlines.
Nonprofit partners are seeing an overwhelming increase in demand for their support and services. Culturally-rooted organizations are grappling with capacity and funding constraints while trying to meet the moment. They require funds to deploy as emergency assistance for their communities, but they also require funds to sustain their own capacity and strengthen their organizational infrastructure so that they can continue doing this work. From Family Housing Fund’s Safety Net initiative, as well as our previous work deploying COVID-19 emergency rental assistance, we know it takes time and resources to deploy housing stability funds. Good administration requires dedicated administration funding. FHFund seeks to support community partners with both program-specific funding and funds for staffing and sustainability.
What we’ve done so far: Family Housing Fund has committed $450,000 as housing stability operating grants to community-based nonprofit organizations that are working with community members who are the most impacted by Operation Metro Surge. General operating grants ensure that nonprofits have the capacity to help community members navigate this crisis and the flexibility to be most responsive to the needs of their community – including providing funds directly to impacted families for housing stability needs like rent or mortgage payments, utilities, and food. These grants are supporting a group of organizations rooted in cultural communities that serve the Twin Cities metro as well as St. Cloud/Central MN, Willmar/Western MN, and Austin/Southern MN. We heard from some of our partners that the funds we provided were exhausted in a matter of days. While this was a significant level of investment from FHFund, it is not nearly enough to meet the need and we continue to advocate for other partners to support this work as well.
Looking forward: We see a need to raise and deliver additional support to nonprofit partners who have been stretched thin during this crisis – including many nonprofits who are now fiscally sponsoring mutual aid efforts on top of their own crisis response work. These community nonprofits are critical system infrastructure; for the future health of the nonprofit field and the strength of the housing safety net, we will need systemic solutions for sustaining these organizations.
3. Helping state and local government partners act now and consider policies and funding levels for the long run.
In this moment, government partners do not have the same flexibility of resources as mutual aid efforts and nonprofits, but there is still much they can do to make it easier to access assistance for the families who feel comfortable reaching out for government support. Minnesota communities have a long road to recovery ahead as this immigration enforcement surge gradually ends, and we will need government intervention to respond to the impacts of the crisis. Beyond large economic relief packages, the public sector can implement policy changes – even small administrative policy changes – that will have large impacts for housing stability. As we saw in the aftermath of the COVID-19 crisis, it will take families months, if not years, to re-stabilize. And as with the COVID-19 crisis, the crisis response will illuminate processes and procedures ripe for re-evaluation and long-term funding levels required to improve housing stability across the State of Minnesota. Government systems will need to change and evolve to meet those needs, and Family Housing Fund will inform and support the process.
What we’ve done so far: In January, FHFund worked with Dakota County staff to convene a meeting of over 50 people, including staff from multiple county departments, nonprofit partners, school communities, faith communities, and mutual aid networks. The goal of convening was to 1) leverage existing community relationships, 2) create coordination and connection, and 3) maximize rapid support. The meeting identified several short-term and long-term strategies for coordinated response. FHFund will continue to support Dakota County with convenings and coordination to help maximize their response to this crisis. We believe there are lessons being learned during this process that can be shared with other counties to help them develop their own coordination efforts. Additionally, FHFund staff testified at the state legislature in support of a proposed policy change that would allow mutual aid organizations to provide guarantee letters, which can stave off eviction filings by promising forthcoming rent payments.
Looking forward: We will continue to add our expertise to inform policy discussions as more opportunities arise. We intend to work collaboratively with government partners – leveraging the strong relationships we’ve built under our Safety Net initiative – as we support and push for systems change and additional financial resources.
Our framework for crisis response in this moment considers a combination of short, medium, and long-term strategies in coordination with many partners. That includes expanding our definition of safety net infrastructure to include the vital mutual aid networks who have stepped up over the last three months to organize housing stability resources. We are focusing on immediate needs, planning for how they may evolve in the medium term, and thinking long-term about systems change. What can emergency response systems learn and apply from today’s efforts? How can activated community members continue to engage as housing champions when this crisis eventually ends? How can we harness the public will of this moment to strengthen social safety nets for the long term? FHFund will continue working with mutual aid, nonprofit, and government partners to answer these questions and implement solutions to keep Minnesotans housed.
Have ideas for how we might advance one (or more) of the streams of work we’ve outlined? Contact us.