The city of St. Cloud is located in central Minnesota on the Mississippi River. St Cloud is a fast growing regional center for retail trade, health care, finance, industry and government. It is located in three counties and is the county seat of Stearns County - the largest of the three. A key focus of city officials for the past decade has been dealing with all of the financial, political, infrastructure and social service demands made on a burgeoning community.
St Cloud is an entitlement community for HUD Community Development Block Grant funding which is administered by the St. Cloud Housing and Redevelopment Authority (HRA). In addition, the HRA administers Low Income Public Housing, including the Comprehensive Grant Program, Section 8 Rental Assistance and the Low Income Housing Tax Credit programs for the city. The HRA also applied for HOME funds for rental rehabilitation, Economic Recovery Funds for job retention and expansion, and other federal and state funding to assist special needs populations participating in rental assistance programs. All told the St. Cloud HRA plans on providing rental assistance to more than one thousand families and administering more than two million dollars to assist low income persons in St. Cloud in 1995.
Several local nonprofit-profit organizations are also involved in providing housing and supportive services to low income persons in St. Cloud. The HRA works with many of these organizations by providing financial support and/or technical assistance for the development of affordable housing and services for special needs populations.
In addition to the required public hearings, ten public meetings were held
on varying topics throughout the community during the development of the
Consolidated Plan. HRA staff also worked closely with representatives from key
nonprofit-profit organizations in the area. In fact, the bulk of the community
needs section of the Consolidated Plan was created during the past two years of
different HUD mandated planning programs - i.e. the CHAS.
St. Cloud has a population of 48,812 persons according to the 1990 Census. Approximately 48 percent of the population is low income and nearly 49 percent of the households are renters. The average household size is three persons, the average household is also younger and more likely to be single and living alone than the surrounding suburban communities and the state as a whole. Some of these population characteristics can be explained by the high number of college students living in the city. St. Cloud State University with about 17,000 enrollees skews the demographics for the city as a whole. St. Cloud is largely homogeneous with a minority rate that is inflated to about 3.5 percent with the presence of university students.
The city is a regional center for jobs and job growth, but much of the
growth is in lower paying service and retail jobs. St. Cloud's role as the core
city in a metropolitan area of more than 190,000 people has brought an
extraordinary amount of special needs and homeless persons to the city.
St Cloud had 18,828 housing units in 1990. Nearly 49 percent of the housing stock is rental housing, with more than 80 percent of the rental stock being one and two bedroom units. The single family housing is more evenly distributed among two, three, and four bedroom units. Almost 90 percent of the owned housing stock in St. Cloud is single family detached housing. Nearly 50 percent of the rental stock is made up of buildings with 20 or more units.
Building permits issued between 1981 and 1991 averaged 79 single family units and 375 multi-family units per year. The strong growth in multi-family housing units was driven by the expanding university, while the low number of single family units was based on a lack of residential lots in the city proper and strong suburban growth. An HRA study conducted in 1994 identified 7.2 percent of the single family housing stock in St. Cloud in need of rehabilitation, and 10 percent of the rental housing stock in need of rehabilitation.
Homeownership opportunities are very limited for lower income households in St. Cloud. The median selling price for a home in St. Cloud in 1990 was $59,900. More than 52 percent of the households in St. Cloud had insufficient incomes in 1990 to afford that price. Additionally, more than 30 percent of St. Cloud's households were unable to afford the lowest priced homes in the city.
Prevailing rental rates are also not affordable to many households in St. Cloud. Nearly 30 percent of households are unable to afford the rent for a typical one bedroom unit in the city. Eighty-four percent of extremely low income renter households and 74 percent of low income renter households are experiencing a cost burden. The private rental housing market is not providing housing that is affordable to the majority of lower income families in St. Cloud.
The average sheltered homeless population in St. Cloud was about 83 persons per night during the past five years. The average capacity of the local homeless shelter providers during that same time was 98. The homeless population in St. Cloud consists of 39.8 percent men, 29.9 percent women and 30.3 percent children. These numbers include a transitional housing facility for families, and a battered woman's shelter that serves several counties. The two emergency shelters serve a more homogeneous population. About 69 percent of persons in an emergency shelter in St. Cloud are adult men.
About 27 percent of all emergency shelter guests are veterans. Records from the St. Cloud Veteran's Administration Medical Center, a regional treatment facility for chemical dependency and mental illness, indicate that they release an average of ten veterans a month that they consider homeless. Many of these people make it back to the communities they are from, while many others stay for a while in St. Cloud's emergency shelters.
There has been a marked increase in the number of families using the emergency shelters during the past few years. This has prompted both shelters to seek assistance from the St. Cloud HRA to assist in developing emergency shelter space that is more appropriate for families. The Community Shelter, presently a 100-year-old converted single family house located near the university, is also in need of replacement. Domus Transitional Housing program is also in need of a new facility as their lease is ending soon and will not be renewed.
There are 1,486 rental units in St. Cloud with a monthly federal subsidy that guarantees affordability to the tenants in that housing. An additional 20 units receive partial subsidies, which brings the total subsidized housing units in St. Cloud to 1,506, more than 17 percent of the rental housing stock. The St. Cloud HRA administers 1,103 of the units, and 517 are privately operated. Nonprofit organizations own 148 units and for-profit entities own 369 units of subsidized housing. The vacancy rates for all subsidized units in St. Cloud averages zero to three percent. All of the projects have a waiting list, some from one to six months, others as long as two years. Family units are in highest demand with single disabled and elderly units - when housed together - in lowest demand.
A special task force was formed in July of 1993 to address the issue of barriers to affordable housing in St. Cloud. The task force consisted of city, county and HRA staff along with local developers, contractors, lenders, real estate agents, landlord associations, environmental groups, school districts, legal services, university staff and social service providing nonprofit-profit organizations. This extensive effort took several hundred hours of staff time, along with countless volunteer hours to complete. The group concluded its efforts with a plan titled, "St. Cloud Area Affordable Housing Task Force: Final Report - 2- 24-94," This report was attached to the city's consolidated plan.
The strategies for removing barriers varied from proposing an area-wide effort at increased communication on the issue to proposed changes in local zoning law. Most of the report emphasized the importance of the issue because of the imminent annexation of land to the city that would eventually double its physical size and spur further rapid growth.
The city of St. Cloud is affirmatively furthering fair housing with many actions of the HRA. In addition, a city-wide task force - similar to the affordable housing task force - is being formed to address this important issue and conduct an analysis of impediments to fair housing.
The Minnesota Department of Health Division of Environmental Health found a total of 110 reported incidents of traceable lead levels in blood tests in St. Cloud in 1992. Thirty-nine of the reported cases had levels higher than 10.0 and are considered a health hazard. The exact number of low-income households with lead poisoning is not in the reports. This information suggests considerably lower risks than the national formula.
Medical assistance to low-income families to treat lead poisoning is available through counties in Minnesota.
The non-housing community development needs of St. Cloud range from public
facilities improvements to infrastructure improvements in older neighborhoods to
downtown redevelopment. St. Cloud's five year Capital Improvement Program
identifies several hundred thousand dollars a year in physical improvement needs
that may adversely impact low income families and their ability to afford
housing.
The long-term housing affordability strategy for St. Cloud is based on the concept of the need for a continuum of affordable housing. All of the priority steps listed in the Plan are intended to produce, protect and/or preserve elements of the needed continuum of affordable housing in St. Cloud. The Community Profile section of this report has identified several areas of need that are growing as the community grows. It also identified several excellent existing programs administered by a wide variety of organizations. With the expectation that no additional federal funding for affordable housing will become available, and that all federal funding is at risk of being reduced or eliminated, local initiatives are the key to a successful strategy to provide affordable housing for the people of St. Cloud.
St. Cloud will need all interested parties to move to a new level of cooperation in order to accomplish meeting the growing housing needs. Coordination will be needed to increase the effectiveness of existing programs and also allow new programs to develop which will fill the existing gaps. Creativity will be needed to finance new initiatives, including development and administration over the long term. Government will need to work closely with nonprofit-profit and for-profit affordable housing providers if future housing needs are to be met. Gaps between existing housing and social programs will need to be closed to provide appropriate housing and services and to increase efficiency. And, finally, affordable housing will need to be produced if it is to be available for future demand. To accomplish this, the public sector will need to work to remove unnecessary barriers and expenses and provide creative incentives to allow private for-profit and nonprofit-profit developers to produce affordable housing.
Efforts will be made to utilize limited public and private resources for housing to the maximum extent possible. The most effective means to do so is to develop affordable housing, which preserves affordability for as long as possible. Whenever practical, public and private resources will be targeted to developments which preserve long-term affordability such as long-term rent restrictions, limited equity housing cooperatives and community land trusts. Whenever feasible, public resources for affordable housing will be targeted to households with the lowest income.
The long-term strategy for meeting the needs of lower income small and large renter families are very similar in St. Cloud. This strategy includes rental assistance, self-sufficiency training, rental rehabilitation, affordable housing production and economic development. This multi-faceted strategy includes the application by the St. Cloud HRA for additional rental assistance for small families, administering a Family Self-Sufficiency Program in cooperation with Tri-County Action program, administering a HOME rental rehabilitation program, developing affordable housing and promoting economic development. None of these steps in the overall strategy will be targeted to a specific geographic area.
To a large extent, the housing market and the availability of federal and state funds will dictate which strategies are emphasized each year for lower income renters. St. Cloud is experiencing rapid growth. This growth has made land scarce and expensive for development. The development of affordable housing is dependent upon whether land becomes available and if it is zoned properly. In general, it is expected that 22 units of affordable family housing will be developed in St. Cloud each year using Low Income Housing Tax Credits in combination with other funding sources.
The city of St. Cloud has a much lower rate of homeownership than the surrounding communities or the state of Minnesota. St. Cloud is the central city in an expanding urban area, and as such, contains much of the older, less valuable housing stock for the area. So unlike the strategies for renter households, the strategy for owner occupied housing does contain some geographic targeting. These targets are based on the age and condition of the housing located in the central part of the city.
The long-term strategy for existing low income homeowners in St. Cloud is based on preservation of the housing stock and providing affordability of that stock to the homeowner. The promotion of single family ownership is a crucial part of St. Cloud's affordable hosing strategy. New homeowners of all income levels must continue to move into St. Cloud to promote quality neighborhoods and prevent the ghettoization of the inner City. Much of the needs identification section of this report indicates that St. Cloud is becoming an island of lower income households. This is not healthy for the city or the lower income households in the various neighborhoods throughout the city.
The long range community development strategy for the city of St. Cloud includes economic development, redevelopment, neighborhood revitalization, public and nonprofit-profit facilities' development and infrastructure improvements.
The St. Cloud HRA Board of Commissioners has committed to a three-year cycle of capital improvements for nonprofit-profit organizations in St. Cloud with CDBG funds. A minimum of 30 percent of CDBG funds is targeted each year to meeting the capital improvement needs of local nonprofit-profit organizations.
For 1995, almost half of the entire CDBG allocation is targeted for the production of an expansion to the Whitney Senior Center to add space for senior activities and for the WACOSA program to provide space for disabled persons activities. The 1996 and 1997 allocations are already targeted to provide critical amounts of capital to guild a new Community Homeless Shelter and Domus Transitional Housing facility.
The city of St. Cloud is committed to improving the economic environment of the City through the use of public funds to create jobs. It is the goal of the city to assist in the development of 500 new living wage jobs in the next five years.
An anti-poverty strategy at the local level may be impossible. In order to eliminate poverty, incomes must rise regardless of whether those in poverty have affordable housing or are experiencing a cost burden. With this in mind, the strategy for St. Cloud to help improve wages is an aggressive economic development effort targeted at the creation of living wage jobs in St. Cloud.
The city of St. Cloud is an entitlement community for Community Development Block Grant funding. CDBG funding is the key resource for all non-subsidized housing and community development needs in St. Cloud. The main resources for subsidized housing in St. Cloud are the existing HUD programs - Low Income Public Housing and Section 8 Rental Certificates. The Minnesota Housing Finance Agency also provides a small amount of rental vouchers for special needs families and families working toward self-sufficiency.
The HRA also accesses federal HOME funds for Rental Rehabilitation. The Minnesota Housing Finance Agency is a key resource in funding housing rehabilitation and housing development projects. The Minnesota Department of Economic Security is a key resource for economic development efforts with its Economic Recovery Fund. The Internal Revenue Service provides the key major incentive for development of affordable rental stock with its Low Income Housing Tax Credit program. Local resources, in the form of Tax Increment Financing, are available in St. Cloud for economic and housing development.
The local service providing community took a step toward more communication and coordination with the formation of the St. Cloud Area Human Services Council in July of 1992. This group has a membership of more than 50 organizations including the St. Cloud HRA, Stearns County Social Services, St. Cloud Hospital, Minnesota Job Service, St. Cloud Area United Way and numerous nonprofit-profit housing and service providers. The Human Service Council was developed expressly to assist local providers in delivering better programs to the people of this area.
The St. Cloud HRA has also been involved with local task forces that are
attempting to improve job opportunities for low income households and the local
welfare delivery system.
Rehabilitation
Targeted Neighborhood Revitalization - CDBG funds will be used to fund a single family rehabilitation program targeted to the core area of the city for low to moderate income homeowners.
Rental Rehabilitation - Multi-family rental rehabilitation using HOME funds, which improve deteriorated rental property for lower income households and preserves their affordable rents.
Acquisition - Neighborhood Revitalization
CDBG funds will be used to purchase and demolish deteriorated properties for single family development opportunities. This fund will be matched with Minnesota Housing Finance Agency funds to assist in a long-term neighborhood revitalization effort in the core neighborhoods of St. Cloud.
Youth at Risk Program
CDBG funds will be used to provide employment opportunities for at risk - low income youth during the summer months.
Public Facilities Improvements
CDBG funds will be used to match city general funds to assist with a major expansion of the Whitney Senior Center. This project will provide needed classroom space for the lower income elderly and the disabled elderly populations in St. Cloud.
Transitional Housing for Homeless Chemically Dependent Veterans
The St. Cloud HRA, the Veteran's Administration and Catholic Charities have teamed up to provide a four bed transitional housing facility for recovering chemically dependent veterans at high risk of becoming homeless. This project is funded through a loan from the Minnesota Housing Finance Agency for the purchase and rehabilitation of the single family property. The ongoing cost of running the program is a cooperative effort of the VA and Catholic Charities in addition to an affordable program fee charged to the residents.
Roughly half of the available funds in the one year action plan will be used for public facilities improvements at the existing Whitney Senior Center site. Another third of the funds will be used in core city neighborhood revitalization projects. Remaining project funds will be used for city-wide activities.
St. Cloud's housing goals for its 1995 program year include increasing the supply of affordable housing for 16 households through rehabilitation, acquisition, new construction, and demolition of deteriorated properties; and improving deteriorated property rented by approximately 100 households.
Other City goals are to provide employment opportunities for approximately 10 at risk - low income youth, as well as needed classroom/program space for potentially thousands of low income elderly and disabled elderly.
MAP 2 is a map of the entire community showing points of interest and an outline of the low/mod income areas.
MAP 3 is a map of the entire community showing the low-mod outline and areas of minority concentration.
MAP 4 is a map of the entire community showing the low-mod outline and unemployment.
MAP 5 is a map of the community showing projects with the low-mod outline and unemployment, with streets displayed; in addition, a table provides information about the project(s).
Mr. Leslie Henson
HRA Director of Community Development
The Housing and Redevelopment Authority of Saint Cloud
619 Mall Germain, Suite 212
Saint Cloud, Minnesota 56301
Telephone: (612)252-0880
Fax: (612)363-0889
