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April 2016
Policy&Practice
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GAGE EAST
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as a community. We are planning to
partner with the school district and the
community school to maximize our
impact in this neighborhood.
I am thankful we have an integrated
model of service. Funding the building
and the services for Gage East was
incredibly hard. CCH received full
capital funding for the housing units
from the Minnesota Housing Finance
Agency in a competitive process
because we were able to braid and
blend various sorts of funding at the
local level, giving us a competitive
advantage in their scoring criteria.
This would not have been possible
without a two-generation approach
that leveraged resources in an inte-
grated manner.
As part of this project the Olmsted
County Community Services Adult and
Family Services Division is committing
15 banked beds to this project. This is
state funding for housing with services
that we can use from closed residential
programs. It is a unique and precious
funding source. In addition, our Child
and Family Services Division (CFS)
is committed to master leasing five
of the youth apartments. CFS is also
committed to providing two case man-
agement staff and $20,000 in respite
care funds for the families.
As a community service organiza-
tion our department is integrated with
the Olmsted County Housing and
Redevelopment Authority (OCHRA)
and the Dodge/Fillmore/Olmsted
County Community Corrections
Division (DFO). The OCHRA is
committing 30 project-based HUD
Section 8 vouchers for this project.
Our juvenile probation unit of DFO is
master leasing five youth apartments
per month as part of their support for
this project. We think this may be a
building block for serving some of our
sex-trafficked youth.
This is truly our first foray into this
type of model. The building is under
way and we are partnering with the
University of Minnesota—Humphrey
School of Public Affairs to build a
measurement plan for the outcomes.
We are confident that this project will
lead to better outcomes for homeless
youth and families. We have learned
a lot and we are anxious to learn from
our own community experience. This
work matters and we are very thankful
to the many communities and pro-
viders who have traveled this path
ahead of us.
Paul Fleissner
is the director
of Olmsted County Minnesota
Community Services, an integrated
human service agency that includes
social services, probation services,
veteran services, public assistance
programs, and the Housing and
Redevelopment Authority. He
currently serves on the board of the
National Association of County Human
Service Administrators as well as the
Locals Council Executive Committee
at APHSA and has recently joined the
APHSA Board of Directors. He can be
reached at (507) 328-6350.
Photographs courtesy of Center City Housing
(Above) Community members gathered for an event announcing the start of construction.
(Below) Construction of the lobby and front desk area at the Gage East Apartments.