Minneapolis shelter that received City Council bailout will no longer renovate or receive city funds

By Winter Keefer, MinnPost 
January 28, 2025

A renovation project for an Agate Housing shelter and transitional home that received Minneapolis City Council-passed funding will no longer move forward.

In September, the council passed a resolution to re-appropriate money from multiple city department surpluses to fund a $1.5 million grant to keep Agate’s 137-bed shelter at 510 S. 8th St. from closing permanently. The building closed in October due to needed renovations and the grant was intended to help Agate possibly reopen its doors.

On Tuesday, Agate Housing confirmed that it would not be moving forward with planned shelter renovation, according to an email statement from Erik Hansen, the city’s director of community planning and economic development. This means the $1.5 million will no longer be appropriated.

In an email statement about the situation, Mayor Jacob Frey said: “This result, while unfortunate, is exactly what we communicated to the Council months ago. It underscores the importance of ensuring any use of taxpayer dollars is carefully vetted and goes through a thorough and equitable City process, which the Council refused to do.”

Frey also called Agate “an invaluable partner in our shared work to help people experiencing homelessness.” The city and Agate have partnered to open shelters, provide affordable housing and connect people to services, his statement reads.

When the council considered the grant, city staff warned the council that such budget decisions have potential consequences. Saray Garnett-Hochuli, deputy city operations officer, sent an email to the council at the time warning that the grant approval was based on a second-quarter projection rather than the year-end budget. Garnett-Hochuli stated that a budget surplus is not recognized until books are closed at year end and all revenues and expenses are recorded.

The council-passed grant was contingent upon an additional $1.5 million match, which came in September less than a week after the council approved its grant. It’s unclear what will happen to the match.

Agate has not responded to a request for comment. However, as the council was considering the grant in September, Virginia Brown, vice president of external relations for Agate, told MinnPost — grant or no grant —  that Agate still needed a thorough assessment to know the extent of renovation needed.

The 100-year-old building includes a 42-bed shelter and 95-bed “low barrier” housing area. An initial assessment by a construction company conducted about a year ago found the building needed between $3 million and $5 million in renovations.

This article first appeared on MinnPost and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.