New affordable housing complex serves Native tenants as a response to encampment evictions

Joseph Maxwell lived in his car and various shelters for the last six years, staying alert for danger even as he slept. Noise made by others kept him awake at night, as did staffers at one shelter checking on him every three hours.

Now that has all changed. Maxwell is one of the first to move into Bimosedaa, an affordable housing complex in downtown Minneapolis that offers supportive services with a special focus on the needs of Native American tenants. Eighteen residents currently live at Bimosedaa, one of a handful of developments in Minnesota that caters to Native residents facing homelessness and struggling with substance abuse.

"Here, I fall right in a deep sleep," said Maxwell, who moved into the building in December. "For the first week I was here, I didn't hear anything. I caught up on all my sleep just from not being alerted."

Two nonprofits — Beacon Interfaith Housing Collaborative and Avivo — partnered with the Red Lake Nation to develop Bimosedaa in May 2019. It was a direct response to the eviction by Minneapolis city officials of the Wall of Forgotten Natives homeless encampment in 2018.

The city evicted a second iteration of the camp last August and the Camp Nenookaasi encampment early last month, both of them with large numbers of Native occupants. Two encampments that then sprang up in the Phillips and Ventura Village neighborhoods were evicted last week, with city officials citing health and safety problems. A new camp was reported to have been established Friday near Abbott Northwestern Hospital.

Bimosedaa ― "Let's walk together" in Ojibwe — is in Minneapolis' Warehouse District and includes 48 units on seven floors. Each unit is rented out at $1,010 a month, which is 30% of the area median income.

Maxwell shares his unit with his partner, Elizabeth Howard. They each have their own bedroom and bathroom but share a communal kitchen.

"It was just not a good environment at those kinds of houses where we were staying at," Maxwell said of the shelters. "I mean, it was good that we were still around Native people, but it was just not like this. We have our own apartment. This is my first apartment ever."

Both Maxwell and Howard are from the Red Lake Nation. Maxwell has received Social Security benefits for over 20 years, of which three-quarters — about $750 per month — goes toward rent. A Hennepin County housing program contributes another portion, he said.

Thirty-six units at Bimosedaa are studios and a dozen units are two-bedroom apartments. The lobby and other common areas are in the final stages of renovation, and work to preserve the building's facade will be finished in a few months.

Each unit comes with a small table, mattress and bed frame, and an armoire. There's no free parking, said Dan Gregory, Beacon's communications manager, but there's a light-rail station about a block away, and the building offers a bike room in the basement.

Beacon develops affordable housing across the state, serving a rental clientele that is about 90% people of color. It purchased the building for Bimosedaa in 2019 for $1.9 million and renovated it over the last five years.

"This pacing is actually impressively fast for deeply affordable housing developments and was only possible thanks to concerted efforts by Beacon, our partners, the city, county, and state to bring all the resources to bear," according to a Beacon news release.

Beacon has invested $30 million in Bimosedaa, including nearly $7 million from state historic tax credits. The building's previous owner, the L.A. Rockler Fur Co., operated as furriers going back to the 1920s. When Rockler closed its doors, Beacon took the remaining furs and donated them to the Red Lake Nation to be repurposed. Beacon hosted a Native ceremony to bless the furs and the building before Bimosedaa opened.

Avivo will provide social services to Bimosedaa residents, helping them with things like rides to doctors' appointments, government aid and job applications. The building houses Avivo offices, including counseling rooms and a medical exam room. Nurses from community clinics will provide free health services.

Other services include mental health and substance abuse treatment. Bimosedaa tenants don't have to be sober to receive the treatments, said Avivo program director David Jeffries. "That's something that we're looking to do ... is be non-judgmental, open-minded, inviting, supportive," he said.

Adrian King, a spiritual care coordinator at Avivo, will provide culturally relevant services to Native tenants at Bimosedaa. At Avivo Village, a transitional "tiny homes" community in Minneapolis, he leads smudging ceremonies, burning sacred herbs to draw out negativity. He also facilitates talking circles with residents to have a safe, private space for processing personal trauma.

Maxwell and Howard said they can see themselves living at Bimosedaa long-term because they feel safe and stable there and have privacy.

"We didn't have the help like we do down here," Maxwell said. "They really got a lot of stuff started down here for people who are on drugs. I'd say the biggest barrier was having people shut the door to your face, time and time again."

About the partnership

This story comes to you from Sahan Journal, a nonprofit newsroom dedicated to covering Minnesota's immigrants and communities of color. Sign up for a free newsletter to receive Sahan's stories in your inbox.