Thanks to Fran and Tim for making this thread local.
We had a nursing home conversion in Kingfield this past year. It did not
become affordable housing. There may be some lessons here.
One thing to remember about most of these nursing homes is that they have
private owners. (In this case, the Good Samaritan Society.) The Good Sam
folks had three homes to sell and they wanted to move them quick. They were
asking what most of us in the neighborhood thought was a big number ($1.8
million), especially for a building with cruddy heating/air condition
systems.
As a neighborhood board, we voted to encourage two priorities: affordable
housing or a community school. As it turned out, the property was much too
small for a Minneapolis Public School, so housing quickly became #1.
Our former board president, one of Minneapolis's best landlords, studied it
intensely before deciding that the older heating-ventilation systems, low
ceilings, and many, many cinderblock walls made it a renovation nightmare,
at anything about half the asking price.
The neighborhood and council member Herron then invited the MCDA to take a
look - they did check it out and seemed interested in some vague option,
maybe single-room occupancy, which the neighborhood leaders (including me)
were not opposed to. We learned that it all depends upon the management
company, and we just started the process of talking to operations like
Central Community Housing Trust to learn more about the landscape. I didn't
see MCDA really "pushing" to do housing here, and as a neophyte neighborhood
board, we didn't really know to push them.
We were starting to weigh how much of our 3-year, $3 million NRP funds we
could dedicate to the project, and on what basis. Then, out of the blue,
Good Sam struck a purchase agreement with a group called Prodigal House,
which wanted to convert the home into a 75-plus bed long-term treatment
facility. This is a long sidetrack but suffice to say the neighbors hated it
and city officials were nearly unanimous that the treatment center violated
city zoning codes limiting non-downtown group homes to 32 beds (this can be
a separate thread for those of you interested). Without neighborhood
approval, Good Sam didn't want to sell to Prodigal (who couldn't really
prove they could raise the cash anyway).
So, the thing is back on the market. We gear up to pound on a few more
housing doors. Within a few weeks, the owners have struck another deal -
with a charter school named Friendship Academy of Fine Arts, a project of a
group called Friendship Neighborhood Services, which had been scouring the
landscape to find a suitable facility near the Powderhorn Community, their
primary service area. Their search had been so fruitless they had to come
into a neighborhood (Kingfield) that was not in their primary service area.
Now, I am not the definitive finance person, but it seems our public finance
systems are much more geared up to helping charter schools than affordable
housing. Friendship Academy is selling bonds, I believe through the MCDA,
backed by the per-pupil aid they get from the state. Put another way, if
they can get enough students, they get enough revenue from the state to do a
$3 million-plus renovation, with city bonding assistance, and the deal was
done. (By the way, the neighborhood people I have talked to are very happy
about the school being here - it's not a community school in the way
full-scale public schools are, but it's an attractive, convenient option for
some neighborhood folks during our baby boom. Plus, we like building bridges
with the Friendship communities on the other side of the highway.)
We have some terrific affordable housing advocates in our neighborhood who
were mighty disappointed that the nursing home did not become affordable
housing. I can't say we as a neighborhood did everything - though we are
wiser and have already established (with the advocates very cool and
constructive help) an affordable housing committee to get ahead of the next
deal.
I'm not sure if the city/MCDA did everything they could either - but I don't
necessarily mean that as a rip. I honestly don't know everything they could
have done, and am still learning. There's a definite experience gap, at
least in our neighborhood.
One final thing: there's a state law that says once nursing home beds are
removed from a facility, they can't be put back. It's part of a state policy
to cut nursing home beds, of which the state believes there are too many,
and drive people toward cheaper, in-home or alternative care. Don't know the
effectiveness of the policy, but it does mean those older folks have to go
somewhere, especially in the future.
Thanks for reading,
David Brauer
Kingfield - Ward 10
President, Kingfield Neighborhood Association
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