The Center for Urban and Regional Affairs (CURA) and the Alliance for Metropolitan Stability (the Alliance) are excited to announce the recipients of the Housing Stability Grants. The grants will enhance the capacity of community-based organizations working with BIPOC communities, people with disabilities, and low-wealth communities to build power and advance systems and policy changes to gain access to safe, healthy, affordable, and reliable housing. 

Housing Stability Grants recipients

Lead Organization: Community Stabilization Project
Partner Organization(s): Neighborhood…

Kaysone and Sunny live in and/or have roots in Brooklyn Park, Brooklyn Center and North Minneapolis, where some of Minnesota's largest populations of South East Asians (SEA) live. The team will focus on engaging community members to explore the feeling of being stuck between two worlds - neither here nor there - and highlight the narratives of the diaspora voice and whether a sense of belonging can be found in their neighborhoods.

The artist team will engage communities in telling their stories through outreach of interviews, conversations, and gatherings. The project will conclude with a street theatre performance with the artist team and community members in…

The West Side of Saint Paul is a community that was able to create itself in its place, integrating and feeding the social, economical and cultural dynamics with new practices. And within that evolution the people have not lost their identity matrix. This identity is also a multicolored mosaic of identities of diverse regions of Central and South America that add and juxtapose each other to create the new reality of Saint Paul. In the face of anti-immigration policies of the present administration that attack basic humanitarian principles and break the community, the immigrant and the native communities of Saint Paul make efforts to transform their reality into a more positive…

The Frogtown and Rondo communities have two of the most well established identities in the City of Saint Paul. In the words of the artists, "We are known for being a largely working class, scrappy, artistic, incredibly diverse bunch of humans who have roots all over the planet. We brought the history, stories, tastes and smells to the heart of St. Paul to be shared, explored, and celebrated."

The story of these neighboring communities – two communities divided first by freeway, then by arbitrary district designation, and finally by train, is a story that must be told and preserved. Mychal and Tou Saiko will be creating a colorful, music - poetry - and dance-centered,…

The Center for Urban and Regional Affairs (CURA) and The Alliance for Metropolitan Stability (the Alliance) recently announced a new grant to advance housing stability in the Twin Cities. The Housing Stability Grants will fund organizations that support systems/policy change, community engagement and organizing efforts with BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and people of color) communities, people with disabilities, and low-wealth communities. Grants will enhance the capacity of community-based organizations to partner with…

Too many people in the Twin Cities region do not have access to safe, healthy, affordable, and reliable housing. In particular, BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and people of color) communities, people with disabilities, and low-wealth communities face barriers to this critical resources. Market conditions have shown that the housing market does not work for most low-income people, so solutions may require questioning long held assumptions, creating innovative solutions, and attempting new ideas to address housing stability.

To address these challenges and identify solutions, the Center for Urban and Regional Affairs (CURA) and the …

YO MAMA’S Water(ing) (W)hole WATER BARS hold spaces for serving water to inform Mothers about the connections between water, care, community, and wellness in Minnesota. Through the activities of Gyrating & Hydrating: dancing and making fruit and plant based waters and Resilience Preparedness Workshops, Black (and IPOC) Mothers, living in North Minneapolis, gain awareness that climate change, extreme weather conditions and manmade disasters have profound impact on their physical, mental and emotional health and wellbeing. We are learning that water is life.

With Centro de Trabajadores Unidos en Lucha, East Side Freedom Library, UMN Labor Education Services, PoliGraphix, Inquilinxs Unidxs Por Justicia, New Brookwood Labor College

In collaboration with community and labor organizations, I will paint a series of portraits of low‐wage worker leaders ‐‐ mostly people of color and immigrants ‐‐ with the aim of (1) encouraging workers to see themselves as leaders, individually and also in solidarity with each other, (2) bridging the “formal” and “informal” labor movements (unions vs. other working class organizing efforts), (3) expanding the base of these organizations as well as…

Hmong American Film Director Bao understands too well from personal experience that depression feels isolating, but it doesn’t have to feel hopeless. Part of the isolation feeling comes from the lack of stories that represent Asian communities, like her own, that the media shares about depression. Therefore, she wants to use the power of video storytelling to create a short narrative film about how three members of the Asian community in the Northwest suburbs of Minneapolis experience depression and share the ways they’ve learned to cope with it. Exploring the stories of this population and location is important not only because it represents their lived experience, but also that…

The Rondo Family Reunion will bring together the “Rondo Diaspora”, people of African descent who have lived and/or currently live in the Historic Rondo Neighborhood, to capture photographs and stories that will be shared with the community via a lawn sign photo and poetry project, a book, and a final performance at Penumbra Theater.

About the artists:

Chris Scott’s work as a photographer is conceptually driven currently by themes that relate to human condition, social issues, and the architecture of “community.” She was born, raised and currently live in the Rondo neighborhood of St. Paul. Clarence…