A team of University of Minnesota graduate students and Resilient Communities Project (RCP) Fellows has been chosen as a finalist for this year’s MetroLab Student Cup. The Student Cup is intended to recognize exceptional student civic research projects, and create pathways for careers and partnerships in the civic research and innovation domain. The competition is sponsored by the MetroLab Network, an international collaborative of cities, counties, and universities focused on data- and technology-oriented civic research and innovation, and is being held in conjunction with the network’s …

In February 2019, the Reimagining Expungement team, Sasha Hulsey (MPP/MPH), Kshitiz Karki (MPP), Olivia Reyes (MPP), and Alyssa Scott (MPP) formed within a graduate course. Their work began by exploring the barriers individuals with prostitution and prostitution-related convictions face to accessing criminal expungement - the act of sealing criminal records. They investigated the legal and court systems that implement expungement in Hennepin County, and their most substantial findings included the lack of awareness and differing interpretations of the expungement statute among systems professionals.

After this preliminary research, the team continued their work to increase…

In the coming decades, Minnesota is poised to lose nearly 10,000 units of rental housing in the United States Department of Agriculture's Section 515 Program. This housing currently exists in nearly every county in Greater Minnesota, and comprises a substantial proportion of rental housing for very low-income households. In partnership with Minnesota Housing Partnership (MHP), a nonprofit organization based in St. Paul that supports the work of affordable housing and community development organizations, I propose a mixed-method research project focused on the Section 515 Program in Minnesota. Through analysis of secondary data maintained by USDA and primary data collected from interviews…

Tracking the Trust Building Process in the Minnesota Two Generation Policy Network

How can human service agencies and nonprofits work together for better results? A promising model is the collaborative governance model, which enables state/local/nonprofit organizations to engage in shared decision making. This project is situated in the Minnesota Two Generational Policy Network, a system level service integration and innovation project led by the MN Department of Human Services and its partner organizations to support children and families. Taking a mixed methods longitudinal study approach, this research aims to study how the shift from the contracting model to the…