Higher Ground Academy moving to Metro Deaf building

School shuffle means that 19-year-old charter school will open second campus in Como neighborhood next fall

By TESHA M. CHRISTENSEN
Higher Ground Academy (HGA) will open a second campus in the Como neighborhood in fall 2019.
The K-12 charter school currently at 1381 Marshall Ave. will be moving into the facility at Brewster and Pascal that Metro Deaf School intends to vacate at the end of 2018. Metro Deaf School is moving to 1125 Energy Park Dr.
“This is really an opportunity for us to serve our students better,” said Principal Dr. Samuel Yigzaw.
Higher Ground will spend the spring and summer next year renovating the space, converting smaller, 1-on-1 spaces into about 18 larger classrooms suitable for grades seven and up, according to Yigzaw. There will also be smaller classrooms available for group work.
Photo right: Higher Ground Academy (HGA) will open a second campus in the Como neighborhood in fall 2019 at the facility at 1471 Brewster St. that Metro Deaf School is currently in. Metro Deaf intends to move at the end of 2018 to 1125 Energy Park Dr. (Photo by Tesha M. Christensen)
‘Cramped’ at current building
HGA initially applied with its authorizer in 2013 to expand its academic program to a second location, with the intention to move the younger grades.
Driving the move for the charter school is the desire for more space, and greater flexibility for programming, pointed out Yigzaw. The new location will offer this and the ability to add students. High on the list of desires is more labs and open space. The new facility has a gym that is not available at 1381 Marshall Ave.
“We are cramped here,” stated Yigzaw. “Now with a larger space, we should be able to bring in more opportunities to our students.”
He added, “Higher Ground is an environmentally friendly school, and we want students to grow in sustainability towards the environment. Proximity to Como Park will be a very good opportunity for us.”
In the fall of 2019, about 300-350 students will move to the second campus. The plan is to eventually grow to 500 students there.
Culturally responsive environment

Higher Ground Academy’s mission to “create a socially committed, morally responsible and ethnically diverse learning environment that values students individually and collectively.”

The school currently serves 760 black and East African students. The school has a low teacher-student ratio of 18-1, and 95 percent of students qualify for free or reduced lunch. HGA is authorized by Audubon Center of the North Woods.

This vision and purpose of Higher Ground Academy is to encourage student’s maximum intellectual and leadership development to meet 21st century educational standards of education. In order to graduate, all students must have evidence of acceptance for a college place.

The school bills itself as “a college prep school that strives to educate our students in a culturally responsive environment,” according to Yigzaw.
Photo left: “Higher Ground is an environmentally-friendly school, and we want students to grow in sustainability towards the environment. Proximity to Como Park will be a very good opportunity for us,” stated Principal Dr. Samuel Yigzaw. (Photo submitted)
HGA emerged from Executive Director Bill Wilson’s belief that charter schools offer greater flexibility to serve students struggling in the traditional public school system. The former St. Paul city council member and state Commissioner of Human Rights was joined early in the school’s development by Dr. Samuel Yigzaw, then a University of Minnesota graduate student. Their shared passion for serving black students falling behind in traditional public schools has been the school’s driving force throughout its history.
The school opened in the fall of 1999 for kindergarten to ninth grade students. An additional grade year was added each year until it became a K-12 school in the fall of 2002. The school has almost a 100 percent graduation rate.
While HGA has always catered to black students, as time went on the demographics changed from being predominantly African-American to predominantly East African students.
Some of the school’s students have recently immigrated, some are first-generation immigrants but have been in the United States for a period, and some were born in the United States but still share the culture of their immigrant family. In addition to English being new to many students, formal education itself is new.
HGA’s leadership is not hierarchical but is instead vertical. Under the guidance of the principal and executive director, leadership is distributed to grade-level team leaders who take the place of an assistant principal.
The tenets of Higher Ground Academy are that all children can learn; that children learn all of the time; that experience teaches immediately; and that expectations are built on experience.
More information on the school can be found at www.hgacademy.org.

‘Extremely affordable’ housing project planned at 45th and Hiawatha

Amber Apartments to provide a step between homelessness and citizens who give back to their communities

By TESHA M. CHRISTENSEN
An “extremely affordable” housing project in Longfellow will bridge the gap for people who are working but still don’t make enough to afford a standard rent payment.
Amber Apartments is being built by RS Eden, a niche player in the development world that provides affordable housing with support services, explained President and RS Eden CEO Dan Cain.
“The expectation is for people to move from a level of dysfunction to function,” said Cain.
The company manages or owns nine buildings in the Twin Cities, totaling 550 units, that help people get off the streets and into stable housing. The company began with just three staff members and now has 180 employees. In each building, there are also services aimed at dealing with problems that contributed to homelessness, including addiction, mental health issues, lack of education, and more.
Photo right: RS Eden Chief Financial Advisor Paul Puerzer (left) and President and CEO Dan Cain hold up an illustration of Amber Apartments, an 80-unit building that will provide extremely affordable housing along Hiawatha and 45th Ave. (Photo by Tesha M. Christensen)
The goal of the Amber Apartments in Longfellow is to provide efficiency, single-occupancy units at about $600 a month.
“We’re not giving people a handout, but a hand up,” explained Cain. “They have to do the work, but we provide the opportunity.”
Low barrier housing
RS Eden employees envision filling Amber Apartments with tenants who are working but don’t make enough to afford market-rate housing—even what’s labeled as “affordable.” Maybe they’re working at a couple of part-time jobs. Or, they work next door at Walgreens or Cub as a cashier earning minimum wage.
“This will allow them to continue in the process of working and being responsible citizens, and not have to spend 50% or more of what little income they have on rent,” stated Cain.
Residents at RS Eden apartments often can’t pass background checks and don’t have high credit scores. So RS Eden offers “low barrier housing.”
According to RS Eden Vice President of Supportive Housing Lois Mueller, “Many of the people we meet have histories that have resulted in multiple barriers to securing housing, making it easy for landlords to screen them out. RS Eden’s commitment is to ‘screen people in.’ We look for reasons to believe that a prospective tenant will make it, and become a good neighbor.”
RS Eden focuses on creating intentional communities in their buildings. “We look for people who have buy-in to a culture of pro-social values and beliefs,” explained Cain. “They may not have always been that, but now they want to contribute to the community and take responsibility for their own lives. There are any number of barriers that people have had to overcome to make that full leap from where they’re coming to where they’re going.”
He added, “It’s breaking the cycle.”
Photo right: Amber Apartments is being named after RS Eden President and CEO Dan Cain’s daughter as a legacy project to honor the 46 years he’s been with the organization. The majority of the $18 million cost of the project will be covered by various grants and low-income housing tax credits, but RS Eden needs to raise $700,000. (Photo by Tesha M. Christensen)
Right now there are some people who aren’t being served by the housing projects RS Eden already offers as they aren’t technically homeless because they’re staying with a mom or brother or friend. Amber Apartments will provide a place for those people, said Mueller.
When RS Eden opens a new building, they often find that police calls go up in the area. It’s not because there is more crime in the RS Eden building, but because the residents of the RS Eden building are calling in about the crime they see in the streets around their homes, observed Cain.
One of the first steps RS Eden took in getting this project off the ground was to visit with the Longfellow Community Council and garner support.
“We look for a neighborhood that will support the transition for people to become involved in their communities,” stated Cain.
It wasn’t until the LCC Neighborhood Development and Transportation Committee approved the project that RS Eden purchased the property.
Five-story, 80 unit building
Amber Apartments will be located on the property that now houses the Bell Laboratory building, just north of Walgreens along Hiawatha Ave. and kitty-corner from the upcoming Snelling Yards housing development. It does not include the historic Flair Fountain structure.
The five-story, 53,950 square-foot building will sit on one acre. It will include 80 efficiency units that range from 418 to 518 square feet. A parking lot will have 40 spaces, or about a half space per unit, and there will be inside storage for bicycles. One-third of the property will be green space along what planners hope will soon be the Min Hi Line linear park.
The entrance to the building will be off 45th rather than Hiawatha.
The building will sit directly across from the 46th St. light rail station, and planners expect that most residents will not have a car. It was the proximity to a light rail station and A Line Bus Rapid Transit that drew RS Eden to this site.
“For low-wage workers, the expense of owning and operating a dependable car presents one more barrier to success, but not having a car means not having access to jobs, health care, and other necessary amenities,” remarked Mueller.
Photo left: RS Eden President and CEO Dan Cain hopes the city will consider constructing a pedestrian bridge near 45th and Hiawatha to serve residents, including high-density housing projects at Amber Apartments and the Snelling Yards site. Right now, people regularly cross Hiawatha near 45th instead of walking down to the crosswalk at 46th. (Photo by Tesha M. Christensen)
Donations needed
Amber Apartments is being named after Cain’s daughter as a legacy project to honor the 46 years he’s been with the organization.
The majority of the $18 million cost of the project will be covered by various grants and low-income housing tax credits, but RS Eden needs to raise $700,000. Donations can be made via the website at www.rseden.org.
Planners expect Amber Apartments to be fully funded by the end of 2019, and to start construction shortly after that. It will take 10-11 months to complete.
An affordable housing crisis
Minneapolis is in high need of affordable housing, according to Mueller, who pointed out that the city is in need of tens of thousands of affordable housing units according to a study by the Dougherty Financial Group. The definition of affordable housing is housing costs that are 30% of a person’s income. To afford rent payments of $700-$900 a person must make between $2,100-2,800.
Rental vacancies in the Twin Cities have dropped to 2.4 percent while the unemployment rate has dropped to 2.9 percent resulting in low rental vacancies and strong rent growth, according to the Dougherty study. Meanwhile, the compensation for private market workers in 2017 increased just 1.4 percent, making it difficult for low-income wage earners to find housing.
“There has been a lot of attention recently on the homeless encampment along Hiawatha Ave., but we’ve been facing a crisis in homelessness far before those tents went up—it just hasn’t been quite as visible,” remarked Minneapolis City Council member Andrew Johnson. “The Amber Apartments proposal helps address this crisis by creating some units for homeless individuals and families, along with providing necessary support services, such as helping them get and keep jobs. It also creates additional units that help address the affordable housing crisis hitting many major cities, including ours, with runaway rents that push working families out and destabilize their lives.
“We need more development proposals like this and I am thankful to have RS Eden as a partner in these efforts.”

Residents call for compromise at Hiawatha Golf Course

On July 25, the Minneapolis Parks and Recreation Board of Commissioners passed a resolution directing CAC members to reduce pumping at the golf course while also maintaining a minimum 9-hole course. (Photo by Tesha M. Christensen)

After four years of disagreement, some are optimistic and others apprehensive about new Park Board direction

By TESHA M. CHRISTENSEN
Neighborhood residents are being asked to compromise and come together over the Hiawatha Golf Course after four years of disagreement.
Standish resident and Hiawatha Golf Course Community Advisory Committee (CAC) member Sean Connaughty pointed out that compromise was achieved by the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board (MPRB) commissioners during a 6-2 vote on July 25.
“Although it gives nobody everything they want, it meets the basic needs of all constituents including Lake Hiawatha. Homes will be protected, climate resiliency restored, pollution mitigated and the golf course preserved as a 9-hole course,” observed Connaughty.
“Picture an ecologically run 9-hole course, which maintains the key community asset of Hiawatha Golf Course in a reduced pumping scenario, honors the African American history and provides habitat and public access to spaces unusable for golf.
“I am just one person in this community and an appointee on the CAC, but I accept this compromise,” Connaughty said. “Let’s get excited about the near future. May the CAC move forward now with the business of the master-planning process.”
Photo right: Some wetland areas already exist on the golf course land, including this pond in the northwest corner. Under the reduced pumping scenario, lowland areas of the course will be flooded and unsuitable for golf. (Photo by Tesha M. Christensen)
Last year commissioners directed the CAC to begin a master planning process for the golf course property. Some CAC members felt that their official charge was not specific enough, and asked that the board, which had changed following the 2017 election, look at the issue again.
The Minneapolis Parks and Recreation Board of Commissioners did that on July 25 and passed a resolution directing CAC members to reduce pumping at the golf course while also maintaining a minimum 9-hole course. Voting in favor were Commissioners Stephanie Musich, Meg Forney, Letrisha Vetaw, Jono Cowgill, Chris Meyer, Brad Bourn; voting against were Londel French and Kale Severson; AK Hassan was absent.
The golf course is currently pumping 242 million gallons of water each year in a circular fashion to keep water from flooding the course, which sits two feet below the lake, although it only has a permit through the Minnesota DNR for 36.5 million for irrigation. Commissioners directed CAC members to reduce pumping by 70% to 94 million gallons.
The revised compromise resolution was drafted by new At-Large Commissioner Vetaw, who resides in Southeast Minneapolis.
Some optimistic
According to District 5 Commissioner Musich, “I am optimistic that the public planning process utilized by the MPRB will be able to proceed in a productive way now that the new board has reaffirmed the decision made by the previous board.
“The adopted resolution respects the past while considering the future of this park land and the need to design an ecologically diverse landscape that reduces pumping while protecting nearby homes from groundwater intrusion, and is resilient to the impacts of climate change.”
Musich pointed out that the property will continue to be operated as it is today until a master plan is adopted by the board and ready to be implemented. The park’s planning division estimates the process, including procuring funds, will take at least five years.
Ryan Seibold of Friends of Lake Hiawatha is pleased with the park board decision.
“I think it is wonderful that plans will prioritize cleaning up the water, adding more habitat for wildlife, and restoring ecosystems in our city and neighborhood,” said Seibold. “The decision to redesign this public space to be flood-resilient and ecologically-driven is the most sustainable decision the board could make. Protecting our water resources and dealing with climate change is important now and in the future. As a community member, I hope that the CAC as a whole will collaborate effectively with the park board on this positive direction forward.”
Some apprehensive
However, some community members remain apprehensive.
“As someone who lives in a former wetland area that has been developed for residential purposes and has personally experienced the cost of fluctuating groundwater levels, I am apprehensive to say that adding more water to an area, allowing it to go back to its natural state, is a good idea—especially, when you are now taking away a floodplain (Hiawatha Golf Course) that has historically protected the area,” stated CAC member Joan Soholt, who resides near Lake Nokomis.
“The concern that was expressed at the meeting is that we do not understand the hydrology in the neighborhood adequately to understand with high enough certainty to assure that pumping at the golf course will impact that water levels in the neighborhood,” pointed out Dana Lonn, an engineer who lives between Nokomis and Mother lakes and supports keeping the 18-hole golf course.
“There is a significant concern that reduced pumping will result in a further raising of the water table which put some homes at risk. Some of the park commissioners see the issue as a very narrow decision as whether we are pumping only to save the golf course. The decision may be that narrow. However, a number of the commissioners and many in the neighborhood see the decision to be much more complex than that,” said Lonn. “We are advocating for a more comprehensive study to understand the implications of reduced pumping at the golf course.”
Residents associated with the Nokomis/Hiawatha Water Sustainability group are asking for an unbiased study from United States Geological Society (USGS) to more fully understand the interrelated issues of water management in the area.
This issue is being evaluated by the Lake Nokomis Groundwater and Surface Water technical team, which is composed of representatives from the city, the park board, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR), and the Minnehaha Creek Watershed District.
Lonn worked for Toro Company in Bloomington for 48 years and was connected to the golf industry. “The MPRB has not done their homework on the impact of a golf property,” Lonn maintained. “Properly managed golf is an environmental asset to the community. The view by many is that it is a toxic waste dump. That is just not true.”