Local experts weigh in on Bemidji's housing shortage as demand grows

123023.N.BP.HOUSING 1.jpg — For developers that pursue building housing in the area, each project requires approval from the local planning authority. This step can be challenging for larger projects as they frequently deal with neighborhood opposition.

By Nicole Ronchetti

December 30, 2023 at 8:30 AM

BEMIDJI — Bemidji has a housing shortage, and it's a severe one.

But for those who haven’t recently struggled to find housing, who might have the comfort of reading the newspaper in their home of five, 10 or even 20 years, the true scale of the problem can be difficult to grasp.

Meanwhile, those who are living it are all too familiar with the issue. From recent graduates and young families attempting to find and afford apartments and starter homes, to homeless individuals working to get off the streets and repair their lives, the lack of housing is affecting people across every walk of life.

“We need housing at all socioeconomic levels,” shared Sandy Hennum, a community development specialist with the Headwaters Regional Development Commission. “We need more housing for college students, for new families, for elders. Everyone.”

The problem isn’t new. Bemidji’s lack of housing has been steadily growing for more than a decade, in part due to aging stock and natural population growth.

But recent events have exacerbated the situation, both nationally and locally. Between trends of inflation, increasing interest rates and local housing emergencies that have led to the closure of two subsidized apartment complexes, it’s an issue that’s hit a new level of urgency.

“We’re losing housing faster than we can replace it, even before the crises of Ridgeway and Red Pine ,” explained Reed Olson, the executive director of the Nameless Coalition for the Homeless in Bemidji. “The stock we have is in poor quality, it’s deteriorating and we’re just not building fast enough.”

Housing supply

Even if the solution was just building more housing, that process isn’t simple. It requires funding, developers, approval from local planning authorities and more.

“(Developers) do what they can, but even with that we haven’t been able to keep up,” said Dave Hengel with Greater Bemidji. “Building homes has gotten expensive. Some of those factors are outside our control. One is interest rates, second is construction costs.”

With both of these factors increasing expenses, developers have had to slow down projects or consider more profitable markets that have a better return on investment.

“When (developers) look at their ROI they know that they can get that many years faster in other markets,” Olson said. “Basically this is a failure of the market, it won’t supply the housing we need for Bemidji because the return isn’t there.”

For developers that do pursue building housing in the area, each project requires approval from the local planning authority. While this step can sometimes be simple, for larger projects in particular it can be more challenging as they frequently deal with neighborhood opposition.

“Building housing is a political process,” Olson explained. “You have politicians at the top making these decisions and they can be swayed by really angry and loud minority populations.”

While Olson understands concerns about how a development might impact a neighborhood’s character, he also believes that the housing crisis is too dire to reject a project for that reason alone.

“The need is so great we can’t make these decisions based on whether or not you want a multifamily dwelling next to yours,” he said. “We have to look at the entire community and what’s best for all of us.”

An example of the scale of that need can be found in the number of affordable housing units that Bemidji requires, according to a housing study Hennum referenced. Not including housing at all other income levels, Bemidji needs an additional 1,068 affordable housing units just for lower-income individuals and families.

The consequences

With the low housing supply and high demand, those who have the most difficulty finding housing are frequently those with the highest need.

“There’s not enough housing to go around, so who’s denied housing first? It’s the people who have severe mental health issues, or justice involvement, or bad credit, single mothers with multiple children,” Olson explained. “They’re the ones who can’t get in.”

Housing insecurity also disproportionately affects people of color, and in the local area, particularly Native Americans.

“(Native Americans) are only around 19% of the local population, but they’re 70% of the homeless population,” Hennum said. “That tells us right there we have a systemic problem with how we’re approaching housing.”

For people who are white, the nature of the additional challenges people of color face can be hard to understand. Ebony Warren, the executive director of Evergreen Youth and Family Services, explained that discrimination adds further obstacles even when it's unintentional.

“I think a lot of times people assume that everyone is going to be treated the way they are, but for people who look like me or our Indigenous community members, it’s much more difficult,” she said. “Before you do anything people see you and they have their preconceived notions based on something they’ve heard.”

And when people can’t find housing, they end up on the streets or at shelters like the Wolfe Center, People’s Church or Village of Hope. Olson shared that he’s seen a 33% increase in use at the Wolfe from 2022 to 2023.

“We’ve seen a huge increase in need, and it’s really frightening,” he shared. “We don’t need more shelter beds, we need more housing.”

When counted in 2022, Beltrami County had just under 150 people living on the streets. But since this study occurred in the cold winter months when people are more likely to find temporary housing with friends or family, it’s understood to be an underestimate.

“That’s big numbers for a small population,” said Barbara Johnson, a continuum of care officer with the Northwest Minnesota Foundation, “but as large as that number is, and it’s an appallingly large number, it’s also an undercount.”

Living on the streets, in cars, or filtering through emergency shelters causes all sorts of other challenges in people's lives. It makes it harder to hold down a job, though many still do, and more difficult to access health care.

“The glib answer is that (a lack of housing) kills them,” Olson said.

For children and students experiencing homelessness, their education suffers as the stress of their situation makes it harder to focus on learning.

“They don’t have their basic needs met, but they’ve got to get good grades and focus on schoolwork when they’re trying to figure out not only where they’re going but if they’re going to eat that night,” Warren explained.

And once someone is on the streets it can become even harder for them to find housing.

“People don’t always want to rent to the youth that we serve,” Warren shared. “(They) come with tremendous trauma and a lot of challenges. We have to work hard to be the middleman with landlords.”

To help with this, several organizations have a landlord risk mitigation fund, promise to help their clients pay double deposits and provide housing vouchers to help with rent payments.

But even these steps don’t always guarantee that a client will be rehoused.

“There’s landlords who will take one voucher but not another from a different agency,” said Catie LeMay, a housing case manager with Sanford Health. “Landlords can also put stipulations on apartments, like the apartment has to be on the market for 14 or 15 days before those with a voucher can apply for them.”

Each of these layered challenges impact individuals beyond just their day-to-day lives. Eventually living on the streets and experiencing housing insecurity affects their perception of self.

“People put a lot of this on their own shoulders, how it’s their fault they’re here and being treated as a second-class citizen when they’re out in the community,” Olson said. “It causes a lot of people to give up. Nobody is telling them they have any worth or that there’s any reason they should even try.”

Changing the narrative

Few people believe there is a simple solution to the housing crisis, but there are steps that communities can take. On the economic front, this means understanding how housing impacts everyone in a community by limiting economic growth.

“Economic development is a race for people now,” Hengel said. “The number one issue facing economic development is our ability to attract workers.”

Low supply and high demand for housing also affects the value of housing that does exist, increasing property taxes for homeowners across the board.

Fixing this situation requires partnerships with developers and local governments taking advantage of state programs and money designed to help communities struggling with housing.

But potentially more importantly, it requires changing the narrative around who “deserves” housing. Johnson explained the ideal model as “housing first” which places getting someone into housing as the first step in helping individuals regain stability in their lives.

“We shouldn’t have to be perfect or solve all of our problems in order to qualify for a place to live," Johnson said. "Housing is a human right."

This means readjusting how those who are unhoused are viewed within communities. While individual choices do have an impact on a person’s situation, Olson explained that the larger fault lies with the system.

“People become comfortable in the narrative of individual fault, and they can’t free themselves of it,” he said. “Once we realize it’s a societal issue that puts responsibility on communities and governments to do something, but if it's just poor choices made by one person then we can wash our hands of it.”

By taking a more community-oriented, housing-first approach, the benefits also extend past those who need housing. Olson explained that keeping people off the streets is less expensive than rehousing them and that it improves community safety.

“If we want safe streets, safe neighborhoods, we need to house our people,” he said.

As uncomfortable as it might be to recognize that this is a societal problem, one that places responsibility on each community member to change their understanding and work towards solutions, it’s a necessary step in addressing the issue.

“We need more housing, we need our community to look at ‘housing first’ as the only approach to housing,” Johnson said, “but we have to recognize there’s a problem first.”