Tasks Unlimited CI Report – Interim

What has been most instrumental to your progress?

Development Meetings and Collaboration
As Envision Community moves closer to land acquisition—a major step in our growth and evolution—a key component has been the progress made in our development meetings. By bringing Envision Leaders together with an architect, developer, project director, and others, we have been able to make strides in:

• Identifying potential sites that fit the Envision vision and community need
• Determining community engagement needs in and around the neighborhood where each site is located
• Working with the City to finalize our application for exclusive development rights on the land located at 2100, 2106, and 2110 Penn Avenue North.
• Reviewing the Penn Ave. parcel of land to ensure that our housing model will be a fit for the zoning laws, permits, and other logistical requirements
• Planning to adapt and adjust our designs and implementation plans to accommodate both the characteristics of the site and the needs of the community

Organizational Development
• After taking the stabilizing step of partnering with Tasks Unlimited as our managing organization, Envision had made strides toward establishing Envision as an independent 501(c)(3) to ensure that our operations reflect the direction, voice, and lived experience of Envision Leaders.
• Envision Collaborative hired a project coordinator, Rochelle Washington, meeting regularly with her to develop key skills including teamwork, conflict resolution, public speaking, email communication, engaging funders, managing a project budget, tracking grant outcomes and deadlines, designing evaluation questions, analyzing results, and sharing results within Envision Leaders’ community.

Community Outreach
• Through our prototype tours and at several community meetings, Envision has engaged council members, neighborhood organizations, the mayor, and other key contacts to build momentum for our land acquisition.
• We have given presentations at community meetings in the neighborhoods where we were exploring land acquisition so that we could build relationships and open up ongoing communication with the residents and stakeholders in and around those potential Envision sites.

Key lessons learned

Collaboration is tricky. Working with a large collaborative of partners, we realized that we must define roles and expectations of collaborative members more clearly, while also being mindful of the different working styles each partner brings to the collaboratives. Further, at times we have had to navigate expectations and assumptions in initial meetings, as some individuals are less accustomed to collaborating with people who have experienced homelessness and/or people of color in leadership positions.

Land acquisition is a marathon, not a sprint. For starters, we learned that collaborating with city officials and councilmembers can make timelines unpredictable. Further, even when locations seem promising, there are many pitfalls and obstacles that might throw the process off track—sometimes irrevocably.

We also learned it helps greatly to have a champion on the Minneapolis City Council. We were able to connect with Councilmember Jeremiah Ellison, who was instrumental in moving our land acquisition process forward.

Reflections on inclusive, collaborative or resourceful problem-solving

Envision was founded on the idea that previous affordable housing initiatives have fallen short of including all voices—namely those of the people they house. By forming a leadership team made up of people who have experienced homelessness, we started from a place of inclusion and have been able to make progress by bringing that spirit to all our work.

By building our initiative from the ground up, we aim to organize underrepresented communities in an innovative way, clearing a space for people who have experienced homelessness to advance equitable housing practices and systems.

Further, by involving Envision Collaborative partners (from architects to Elim Church to PPL) in every step of the process, they are more inclined to remain committed to our vision—since they can see their voices in the decisions and results. This spirit extends to another essential group of community members who must be included in our plans and vision: the neighbors living around the site where we will eventually house Envision Community’s first tenants.

You can see our list of partners at the bottom of this page: https://envisioncommunitymn.org/designed-led-by-residents/

Other key elements of Community Innovation

Another key element is our innovative approach to leadership, which ties closely to inclusivity. Our affordable housing solution is led entirely by people with lived experience of homelessness, and our Envision Leaders are all from BIPOC communities. We believe there is power in creating a housing community not just for, but by, people who have experienced housing instability. The broader community has responded to this unique approach, and it has played an essential role in our progress to date.

Understanding the problem

Because Envision is led entirely by people who have experienced homelessness, we have greater clarity about the needs of Envision Community’s first residents. We have looked deeply at the reasons why people become homeless—and why many experience long-term homelessness even after living in housing environments.

Envision Community’s resident makeup is also a strategy that we believe will address that need. 80% of residents will have experienced homelessness, while the other 20% of residents will have no history of housing instability. Envision is a mixed-income community by intention—our Leaders have made it clear that this diversity in lived experience will help residents avoid the traditional “bubble” of housing for people experiencing homelessness.

As one of our Leaders put it, ‘At Envision, relationships are more important than roofs.’ While our ultimate goal is to create housing communities where people feel safe, healthy, and stable, we know our success rests on our ability to meet community needs and co-create our work in partnership with other groups that seek to provide low-barrier housing or serve people experiencing homelessness.

If you could do it all over again…

Among the other key learnings shared throughout this report, it would have been important to know more about the process of becoming an independent nonprofit, and to develop a common understanding earlier on about what that process will mean for Envision Community. On the path to eventually becoming our own 501(c)(3), we have encountered legal requirements and other formal structures that seem at odds with Envision Leaders’ assumptions about how our organization would function. We are navigating this process now, but a better shared understanding up front would have made the journey less challenging.

One last thought

Another key learning as we continue to navigate the COVID-19 era: connecting virtually helped us all develop new communication tools and skills, and now that Envision Leaders all have devices and experience on Zoom and other platforms, we can use this expertise to broaden the way we connect with people. For example, we can build new relationships with people who may be outside the Twin Cities, or communicate with people who might face transportation challenges and cannot meet in person.

We also believe that the nature of this project—a housing community led by people with lived experience of homelessness—can drive a shift in perspective across the wider community. To spur community empowerment, we will share our project with other local housing partners, potentially motivating them to incorporate aspects of our model into their own work.