In tight budget year, Minnesota program to help homeless seniors faces stiff competition
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For Mark Peterson, being able to open the door to his own apartment once again, feels at times like a miracle.
“Got a roof over my head, and I can cook my own meal, shower when I want,” he said.
It wouldn’t have happened without a program supported with state funding and run by Catholic Charities Twin Cities. But as the group seeks to replenish the money to keep assisting people like Peterson, it’s running headlong into the reality that state lawmakers have less money to prop up all kinds of worthy projects.
Sen. Tou Xiong is sponsoring the Homeless Elders program appropriation in the Senate, which would total $3 million over the next two years. The Maplewood DFLer said this year will be tougher than most.
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“Every budget year, whether it’s a surplus or a deficit, it will always be hard,” he said. “But I think, given the deficit, the conversations will probably be much longer. We’ll be looking harder and longer at the spreadsheets and trying to see where we can get additional funding.”
And that means touting the success stories, like the one for Peterson.
About two years ago, Peterson’s life took a devastating turn.
His girlfriend of 23 years died. While mourning her, he realized that without their dual income, he could no longer afford the house they rented together on the East Side of St. Paul. He was given 30 days to pack up and leave. So he began selling what he could and he bought a 1997 Pontiac Bonneville for $500 from a friend. The car became his home for the next year or so.
“At 69 years old. I never thought I’d end up in that position,” he said.
In a Cub Foods parking lot, Peterson and his 6-year-old dog, Piper, would sleep in the car. Peterson wondered how after a life spent working — as a mechanic, in factories, as a roofer and as a maintenance man — could all have led him to this. He said he first thought it was just a temporary thing, but soon found he was in serious trouble. Some nights, Piper would bark off people who came up to the car to try to open the doors.
Then someone with the Catholic Charities Homeless Elders program reached out to him. Workers with the program helped Peterson and have helped others to get enrolled in Medicaid, set up Social Security correctly and find housing — as they did for Peterson and Piper — an apartment on St. Paul’s West Side.
“When she called me and told me that I had a place, she found a place for me. You know, I was never so happy in my life,” he said.
A few miles from his apartment, lawmakers will decide whether they’ll set aside more money to keep the program afloat.
Catholic Charities Twin Cities is asking for $1.5 million per year for the program.
In the scheme of a two-year state budget that is around $66 billion dollars, it doesn’t seem like much, but the Legislature gets hundreds of these requests each session — for workforce programs, community events and nonprofits.
Melea Blanchard runs the Homeless Elders program for Catholic Charities. She points to a consistent rise in that displaced population over the last few years. A recent homeless census says between 2018 and 2023, unhoused people 55 and older grew from 10 percent to 17 percent of the homeless population.
“We just see our older adults experiencing a lot more vulnerability. They are dealing with complex medical needs, mental health diagnoses,” she said. “We’ve worked with more and more people with memory loss who come into our shelter system, struggling with dementia, struggling with really navigating the systems that they need to navigate to get out of homelessness.”
Blanchard said these are much more complex cases that often need one on one help. She said this community is also frequently targeted by those looking to take advantage of them.
Blanchard said about half of the older adults she works with — those who are 60 years old or older — are experiencing homelessness for the first time in their lives. She said last year the program placed about 70 percent of its clients in stable housing.
The funding request will likely be heard in Senate and House committees sometime next week as deadlines for action start crashing down on the Legislature.
For Peterson, it’s a program that is the difference between cold nights in his 26-year-old Pontiac Bonneville, and having a heated apartment with a shower, a bed and a couch where he can sit with his dog Piper and feel at home.
“I’d probably still be sleeping in my car if they didn’t help me,” he said.