22 January 2024
Facing flat funding from a federal agency, Dakota County-based 360 Communities this month officially closed its 21-bed battered women’s shelter in Hastings.
The goal now is to restore all those beds and more at a $14.6 million reinvention of its Lewis House shelter in Eagan, which could expand from 23 beds to 50 in a newly constructed building on Nicols Road.
“We had to make a decision quickly,” said Tony Compton, the nonprofit’s marketing director. “(Closing Hastings) came earlier than we’d hoped. The plan was to get the shelter done, and then consolidate the shelters. We couldn’t continue at the funding level.”
To bring back the lost beds, the nonprofit is asking for $12.1 million from the state and the rest from private donors. Given that this year’s projected $2.4 billion state budget surplus is about one-seventh the size of last year’s $17 billion surplus, competition for public funding will be tough.
‘Our priority is the shelter’
Burnsville-based 360 Communities assists some 18,000 people annually in Dakota, Scott and Carver counties through 40 food shelves and emergency shelter sites “co-located” inside buildings operated by partner agencies.
The Lewis House location, which is owned directly by the nonprofit, would be designed according to “trauma informed” standards, including pet-friendly spaces, independent living units each with their own kitchenettes, wide halls and other amenities.
A further goal is to build a $20.7 million affordable housing community next door — 30 to 40 units of permanent housing, with supportive services provided by 360 Communities.
“But I want to be clear,” said president and chief executive officer Jeff Mortensen, while recently touring a delegation of state senators. “Our priority is the shelter.”
He added that 360 Communities is the only organization in Dakota County supporting victims of domestic and sexual violence.
“Last year was a horrific year across the state. There were 37 domestic-violence related deaths,” he said.
Bonding requests
State Sen. Sandy Pappas, DFL-St. Paul, the chair of the capital investment committee, warned organizers that money would be tight this year. State bonding dollars rarely flowed to nonprofits before 2020, she said, and they were buoyed by the $17 billion state surplus last year. This year, that won’t be the case.
“We certainly need the housing,” she acknowledged. That said, even progressive cities like St. Paul and Minneapolis have moved away from looking to the state infrastructure bill to service nonprofits, Pappas noted.
Neither the Lewis House project nor a proposed expansion of Dakota County Technical College training labs in Rosemount made it into the governor’s $982 million in capital budget recommendations, which were released Tuesday. Pappas said local governments and other agencies have requested $7.2 billion in funding, and her committee has heard presentations from 360 projects across eight tours since August.
State Sen. Sandy Pappas, DFL-St. Paul, left, listens to Dakota County Technical College President Michael Berndt talk about the school’s bonding request during a visit to the school in Rosemount Tuesday, Jan. 16, 2024. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)
The college hopes to add modern new training spaces for its nursing, heating-ventilation-air conditioning and electrical linemen programs through an expansion project that would touch 7% of the Rosemount campus. More presentations will unfold over the course of the legislative session, which starts Feb. 12.
Among the officials attending the Lewis House site visit on Tuesday were state Sen. Jim Carlson, DFL-Eagan, Eagan Police Chief Roger New and Tony Schertler, executive director of the Dakota County Community Development Agency, which has supported the Lewis House project with planning funding.
Schertler said the CDA recently acquired a single-family home next door to the Nicols Road site that will be torn down this month to make room for future development, whether it be for the 30 to 40 units of affordable housing or another purpose down the line.
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