Haven Housing Blog
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Since we opened our doors as Haven Housing in 1981, we’ve been forward-looking—anticipating solutions to community needs before crises hit. Today, the need for shelter and housing far outweighs the resources available. Seeing this critical need, we’ve decided to act now—to change the way we work and help more families move home. We are pleased to announce that Haven Housing plans to gift St. Anne’s Place emergency shelter to our longtime partner, People Serving People, on May 2, 2024. This is a unique response to a growing need, and we are confident it provides the best chance of making family homelessness rare, brief, and non-recurring.
Haven Housing @ St. Anne’s Place's annual back-to-school party is always filled with smiles. For more than a decade, employees at RBC Wealth Management have helped ensure that any child who has ever stayed at the emergency shelter can get a backpack and the supplies they need to start the school year. If you look deeper, the event is also a chance for families to heal and build their support network.
The last woman staying at Haven Housing @ Ascension Place moved home this week! It’s a bittersweet celebration because after 42 years of providing a stepping stone for women and non-binary people, the Ascension Place sober transitional housing program is closing.
Before you can help others, you have to take care of yourself. Sarah (33) struggled with addiction for years. In 2018, she found out she was pregnant with her daughter Aubrianna and knew she wanted her life to change.
At first, she felt ashamed and upset about having to seek emergency shelter at Haven Housing @ St. Anne’s Place. But, then, she recalls feeling immediate relief when she saw all the opportunities for growth Haven Housing offered.
Randi moved into her own apartment in Brainerd, Minnesota in July 2022, after living at Haven Housing @ Ascension Place, a transitional housing program, for four years. For her, it’s not just a new home, it’s a homecoming.
Could you make ends meet with just $121 per month to pay for transportation, your cell phone, clothing, hygiene products, and the rest of your essential living costs? What limits and barriers would it put on your ability to stay healthy, work, save for the future, and live your life?
Haven Housing’s Board of Directors has elected Shereese Turner, Chief Program Officer with Twin Cities Habitat for Humanity, as the chair of the Board of Directors. Turner becomes the first former shelter guest to serve in this capacity.
Alex has set his sights further in where he hopes football will take him. After completing a successful season, Alex plans to continue working on his game and hopes to play football, the game he loves, in high school and in college.
Over the past four decades at Haven Housing, we have seen how the gift of a fresh start isn’t just a new place to call home, it’s a new mindset and set of skills for pursuing our goals and overcoming obstacles, which are passed on from parent to child.
Our latest installment of Half Hour with Haven Housing takes a look at our early years when Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet moved out of their convent to welcome women in crisis or transition to live at Ascension Place.
As an organization that serves the specific needs of women and women-led families, we are committed to ensuring each woman has the right to not have a baby, have a child safely, and parent in a safe and healthy environment.
Learning is our first act of service. Watch the latest in our Half Hour with Haven Housing series where Executive Director Monica Nilsson and Randi, a Haven Housing resident, lead a myth-busting discussion on the causes of homelessness.
“Running two marathons was about willpower, but alcoholism is a disease. I wish more people understood that,” says Jennifer, a former resident of Haven Housing’s Ascension Place sober supportive housing program.
Thanks to a generous award from the City of Minneapolis, Haven Housing is set to embark on a multi-phase project that will enhance the safety and health of the moms and their children who stay at the 82-year old-former convent that houses St. Anne’s Place emergency shelter.
Gay! We're going to keep saying it with pride, compassion, and a holistic view of each person's health and wellbeing. LGBTQIA+ youth disproportionately experience homelessness. Anti-LGBTQIA+ laws like the "Don't Say Gay" law passed this week in Florida harm children and will lead to more periods of homelessness.
We support the teachers' and staff’s request for fair pay, support services for struggling children, and efforts to recruit and retain teachers of color.
Short stories written by Haven Housing shelter guests and residents, showing their strength and resilience in honor of Women’s History Month 2022.
At Haven Housing, we are committed to creating a safe place for LGBTQIA+ people to live and work.
By Dylan Struwe
I was only ten years old when I first walked through the doors of a Haven Housing program. My church, Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Church, has a long history of partnering with St. Anne’s Place.