Roseville's community approach to supporting unhoused people
Roseville police department, churches, schools, individuals, and other groups work together to meet housing and everyday needs
When winter temperatures plunge below freezing the need for shelter is critical, but a lack of housing is a crisis year-round. In Roseville, multiple groups, community volunteers, schools, social workers, law enforcement agencies, and other institutions work together to help meet the needs of unhoused people in this suburban city.
According to a 2024 housing profile by the Minnesota Housing Partnership, more Minnesotans are cost burdened than at any point in the last decade. Housing is unaffordable for half of all renters. Median rent increased by 8% in just one year, and evictions increased 8%. Since before COVID, evictions have increased 44% in Minnesota. And on any given night, 19,600 Minnesotans struggled with homelessness.
Being unhoused can look like living outside, but often in Roseville unhoused people do have shelter, it’s just not stable. Some people stay at lower-priced hotels and motels in the city, such as the Motel 6 on Cleveland Ave N. Others hop from couch to couch or stay with other people without officially being on the lease. If you don’t have a consistent place to come home to or a permanent address for paperwork, finding a stable job, applying for assistance, and getting support for things like mental illness or addictions can be extremely challenging.
According to the Wilder Foundation, children and youth (age 24 and younger) account for 4 out of every 10 people experiencing homelessness and families with children under 18 account for 47% of unhoused people. Roseville Area Schools has unhoused children enrolled in the district too.
So how is Roseville responding? Helping people achieve housing stability and support requires a multifaceted, holistic, community approach in Roseville. The Roseville Police Department (RPD), Roseville Economic Development Authority (REDA), Roseville Area Schools (RAS), city council, many area churches and civic groups, state and county agencies, nonprofit organizations, and individual volunteers are involved. The following is an exploration of what this looks like in Roseville.
The Role of a Housing Navigator
The Roseville Police Department has a Community Action Team (CAT) made up of police officers, social workers, a mental health coordinator, and the housing coordinator. The purpose of this team is to work alongside community partners to find solutions to needs and crises in the community, such as human trafficking, mental illness, and homelessness. Cari McCollor is the housing navigator. She started out as an AmeriCorps volunteer in 2021 before the city decided to add her position to the police department permanently.
“We had seen an increase in people experiencing homelessness. You see people in the corner, in the parks, different spaces around Roseville,” said Tom Pitzl, community relations specialist at the police department. There was no ongoing support they could offer people.
Now, McCollor’s role is to help connect unhoused people to the services they need to eventually attain stable housing, a process that can sometimes take months to years. She also plays a role in preventing homelessness by helping people who are struggling to pay their rent get support.
“Very, very quickly we realized that was a tremendous success and a big need here. Cari has done incredible work here. That was very clear from the start,” said Pitzl.
McCollor’s position is funded by grants for now, thanks to a Ramsey County Community Development Block Grant in 2023 and a Minnesota Office of Justice Programs grant in 2024, but the city council has built her position into the budget should that funding ever fall through.
In 2023, McCollor worked with 48 clients or families and in 2024 she worked with 116. Her job is to help connect them with resources and services to help prevent homelessness or to help people secure stable housing.
Of the 116 clients served in 2024, McCollor reports that 22 are now housed, 38 were able to retain their current housing, 31 left Roseville, 2 relocated, and 5 are in treatment.
When McCollor first started in this position, nobody knew who she was. She did a lot of community outreach by talking to people panhandling on street corners or sleeping in city parks. Now, people call her first when they need help with housing or other basic needs. She also gets referrals from Roseville police officers, Roseville Area School social workers, community members, and church leaders. McCollor also gets regular referrals from the manager at Motel 6. She’s even gone over to the motel and set up a table for helping people with paperwork to get them the services they need.
“They are not in a stable environment. A lot of people will have three kids and two beds and that’s not stable. That’s not healthy. That’s not a home,” McCollor said.
Once McCollor connects with a client who wants housing navigator services, McCollor works with them to come up with a plan. This can involve getting necessary identity paperwork like a Minnesota ID and social security card, applying for a Section 8 voucher, getting on waiting lists, accessing mental health services, or enrolling in treatment for addictions.
Here’s one example of the wrap-around community support McCollor was able to rely on to help a client:
Recently, the police department received a request from a 75-year-old woman’s adult child to do a welfare check on her. She was living in Motel 6 and they were concerned about her mental health.
So they checked on her and got her connected to McCollor for support. That initiated a process for finding her stable housing. When the woman moved into her new apartment, she had nothing to furnish it with. McCollor said she had one tote of clothes to her name. So she reached out to the Alley Shoppe, a ministry of Arlington Hills Lutheran Church in Saint Paul. They quickly found her a bed. Then she reached out to the network of churches in Roseville who regularly contribute to meeting the needs of the clients she serves.
“I asked if we could try to cover her deposit so she had some money to buy some things. Within an hour we had gathered $1,550,” said McCollor. She’s hoping to get her referred to Bridging next, a nonprofit organization based in Roseville that provides furniture and home furnishings for people transitioning into stable housing.
Besides helping people with material goods and housing, McCollor also helps connect clients with services to address other issues they are facing. Securing housing is often the first step before they can find a stable job or get access to mental health support. She helps connect clients with psychiatrists and therapists, waivers for in-home care assistance for the elderly and disabled, and other paperwork that can take months to process.
“They were homeless for a reason. So we need to address the underlying reasons for why they were homeless,” McCollor said. “If you didn’t have mental health issues prior to being homeless, you do after. Being homeless is very traumatizing.”
The role of Roseville Police Officers
When police officers encounter people who may be homeless or at risk of losing their housing, they can now refer them to McCollor and the social workers embedded in the department. Sometimes the first point of contact is through a welfare check or dealing with a shoplifting incident.
Pitzl says Roseville police officers try to find out why someone is shoplifting, because sometimes it’s to meet basic needs. If a person is caught stealing things like food, clothing, underwear, or women’s products, for example, that indicates they may need help.
“We try to think outside the box and be creative instead of punitive,” Pitzl said. Before his role as community relations specialist, Pitzl was a sworn officer with the Roseville Police Department.
“There have been multiple times where cops, including myself, you open up your wallet and you pay for stuff. Pay for hotel rooms. Pay for groceries, underwear, gas, that nobody knows about. It’s just one of those things that you’re trying to be helpful instead of punitive. Everyone that works here feels that way,” Pitzl said.
Sometimes police officers find out that a person who was shoplifting is unhoused, so they’ll refer them to McCollor for housing navigator support.
The Roseville Police Department does a few annual supply drives and fundraisers, including for Toys for Tots, Shop with a Cop, and a toiletry drive for Roseville Area Schools. The Shop with a Cop fundraiser brings in large private donations, according to Pitzl. The money helps pay for an outing for kids and families to buy toys around the holidays, but it also helps with ongoing needs throughout the year for unhoused or low-income people that the police department’s housing navigator or social workers support.
Camping out in Roseville Parks
Living in a tent in a park may not sound that appealing, especially during harsh weather, but for some folks it’s preferable to staying in shelters in Minneapolis or Saint Paul that may be overcrowded, dangerous, or don’t allow couples or families with kids to stay together.
It is against city policy to camp out in city parks, but the Roseville city council adopted a “matrix of care” for supporting people living in tents. If individuals are working with the city to take steps toward finding stable housing, then they are allowed to stay living in a tent temporarily. But if they are not willing to receive the support offered by the city, then they will be issued a formal notice of eviction through the city attorney’s office.
“You can’t camp here forever. We can work on a plan. But if you don’t want to, you have to go,” McCollor said.
In the case of the person who has been living in a tent by the railroad tracks in Central Park, they are not willing to accept the city’s help. But since they are officially on railroad property, the city can’t evict them either. The police department has been trying to get a hold of someone at the railroad about it without success, Pitzl said.
The Role of Roseville Area Schools
Every night in Minnesota, nearly 5,000 youth experience homelessness and do not have a safe place to sleep. In Roseville Area Schools, most unhoused students are in elementary school with a significant increase recently in children enrolled in Early Childhood programs, according to Peggy McLafferty-Yares, a school district social worker and the district's McKinney-Vento State Liaison.
According to data provided by the district, there are currently 172 students in Roseville area schools who have been identified as eligible for McKinney-Vento services:
Early childhood: 8 students
Elementary school grades K to 6: 84 students
Middle School grades 7 to 8: 19 students
High school grades 9 to 12: 61 students
Through the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act, the educational rights of unhoused children and youth are protected and federal funding is provided to support their education. It was signed into law in 1987 and reauthorized in 2015.
If a student loses their housing while enrolled at Roseville Area Schools, they become eligible for support for up to a year. This support includes social work, counseling, and transportation to and from school. Even if the student moves out of the district as a result of losing their housing, they are eligible to stay enrolled in the district and access the necessary supports. Lafferty-Yares says the district also helps students in the program with some of the things they might need to be able to focus on their education while at school, such as food, clothing, boots, and shoes.
In addition to the federal funding, the district helps meet students’ needs in a variety of ways and through a variety of collaborations with community groups.
“We’re thinking creatively and we’re constantly pivoting,” McLafferty-Yares said in a virtual meeting of the district’s Community Advisory Committee.
The district has a community resource room, for example, where school social workers can go “shopping” for free essentials, such as toiletries, clothes, and food for students. The district purchases some of the clothing and household items with thanks to some grants, including some relief funding from the Roseville Area Schools Foundation.
The school social workers are the ones who work most closely with students and families in the district, but sometimes the city housing navigator gets involved too. For instance, this winter McCollor was asked to help a recent RAHS graduate who needed $500 to cover her rent.
There are also partnerships with volunteers in the community, such as a group of retired Roseville Area Schools teachers who do laundry and mending of donated clothes for students. Many local churches are involved with meeting student needs at the district too. The district also collaborates with law enforcement agencies and Ramsey County housing navigators.
When serving as a school resource officer at Roseville Area High School in the past, Pitzl’s eyes were opened to the reality of unhoused students.
“I was appalled at how many students at that school were homeless. I did not recognize the depth of that, the gravity of that, until you start talking to staff and teachers at the school. It’s a really big problem I didn’t know about,” Pitzl said.
Lafferty-Yares says that one of the best ways residents can support students in need is by donating to the Roseville Area Schools Foundation, which helps the school purchase items that unhoused and struggling kids need.
A student-led group at Roseville Area High School called RAHS Progressives have also been making a difference by hosting fundraisers and supply and clothing drives that they donate to the Roseville police department to help unhoused people.
“They are a pretty cool group of kids who reached out and said they want to help,” McCollor said.
The Role of Churches
Faith communities in Roseville are often a first point of contact for people in need. Pastors and other church leaders regularly receive requests for aid from people. Many of them will call the housing navigator or send her an email to get help coordinating care. Other times, McCollor calls them—asking whether congregations could share some funds for paying someone’s rent or helping furnish an apartment. In particular, McCollor is regularly collaborating with Calvary, Prince of Peace Lutheran, New Life Presbyterian, Grace Church, and St. Michaels.
Some churches have robust ministries focused on serving unhoused people.
Prince of Peace Lutheran is creating a community of tiny homes on their property for people exiting homelessness, partnering with the nonprofit organization Settled. Read all about it in this Mounds View High School student newspaper article: Prince of Peace Church combats homelessness with tiny home settlement (The Viewer, Jan. 18, 2024) and Sacred settlement: Lutheran-led initiatives offer innovative housing programs (The Living Lutheran, April 24, 2024)
The Alley Shoppe at Arlington Hills Lutheran Church in Saint Paul has served as a drop-off location for the RAHS Progressives donations and has been a regular resource for securing household goods and furniture for clients in Roseville’s housing navigator program.
Roseville Lutheran Church partnered with an organization called Faithful Hospitality to house asylum seekers in their building in January. Six families stayed at the church over night for a month—Roseville Lutheran had enough space for each family to have their own private space. During the day, they went to a separate day center in St. Paul where they have access to legal support and services.
“These families are all somewhere in the legal process of seeking asylum in the United States and getting settled here. We have been honored to be able to get to know them in small ways and to get to be a tiny part of their stories,” Pastor Marty Wyatt said. One family has since found stable housing.
Roseville Lutheran wanted to host them for two months, but the city council denied their request due to state fire code regulations. Wyatt says they’ll try again next fall and hope to get approval for two months in 2026. He knows of other churches in Minneapolis and Saint Paul who got approval for two months, so he’s hoping the Roseville city council will have a change of heart.
The Role of City Council
The role of the city council is to set policy, adopt ordinances, and approve the city budget for the city government staff to carry out in their programs and services.
“As a city we continually innovate to meet this challenge be it new programs or adjusting existing programs, applying for different grants, engaging with various community partners, or adjusting our thinking and/or policies, to name a few,” Councilmember Matt Bauer said.
The city council also plays a big role in how land is zoned and developed, which has implications for housing affordability.
In September 2024, the Roseville Economic Development Authority (REDA) contracted with Stantec to perform a housing needs assessment for the city. (For context, REDA is comprised of all city council members plus city manager Pat Trudgeon, who serves as REDA’s executive director and secretary.) This study will help the city develop some strategies and solutions to meet those needs, funded in part by a housing sales tax collected at the state level. This fund is meant to support affordable housing, including homelessness prevention and support, according to Jeanne Kelsey, Roseville’s housing and economic development program manager.
According to the preliminary report presented to REDA on Jan. 13, almost half of renter households in Roseville are cost burdened, which means they pay more than 30% of their income on housing costs. At least half of those are severely cost burdened, paying more than 50% of their income on housing costs.
The study is estimated to be completed by the end of March, according to Kelsey, and then Roseville’s EDA will make policy and strategy decisions based on the data.
“The EDA has historically been supportive and focused on ensuring people at all income levels have safe and secure housing in Roseville. This has included use of many different affordable housing tools, including using affordable housing tax increment financing to create and preserve affordable housing, funding housing loan programs, and entering into a land trust partnership with Habitat for Humanity to help secure opportunities for affordable homeownership,” Kelsey said.
Councilmember Julie Strahan says she strongly supports the Community Land Trust and the work of Habitat for Humanity in rehabbing or building homes and getting people into affordable homeownership in Roseville. Roseville residents have an opportunity to sell their homes to the housing land trust, guaranteeing their home will be fixed up and sold at an affordable price to a qualifying family.
“We have little buildable land, but I would truly prefer paths for folks to achieve ownership,” Strahan said.
(Learn more in this Sept. 2022 article from the Star Tribune: Roseville’s Housing Strategy: asking residents to sell to Habitat for Humanity)
How Roseville residents can help
Roseville residents can support unhoused people in a variety of ways by joining up with other groups already doing the work as described in many of the above examples.
This week, the Roseville Cares initiative is hosting a winter clothing drive for Roseville Area Schools. The drive was organized by two parent volunteers, Heidi Walz and Travis Sutten, in collaboration with Do Good Roseville. Roseville school children are especially in need of winter jackets, snow pants, and waterproof mittens, Walz said.
“There’s usually a small stash at each school and at the district level, but it is exceedingly low. Some kids are walking to the bus and going out to recess wearing only sweatshirts and thin cotton gloves,” said Walz.
Walz and Sutten were inspired to organize this clothing drive after hearing about the need during a virtual meeting of the district’s Community Action Committee.
There will be a bin outside the front doors of Roseville Lutheran Church 24/7 and at the District Center until Sunday, February 9.
If political action is of interest, the Minnesota Coalition for the Homeless is hosting their annual Homeless Day on the Hill event on March 12.
A little kindness goes a long way too.
“They are people who are struggling and down on their luck and need a little support,” McCollor said. “One of my clients went out to panhandle to try to get a motel room paid for. He said he got things thrown at him. He’s taking care of his elderly mother in Motel 6,” McCollor said. He and his mother had more stable housing lined up in a couple of weeks, but were short the money needed for their temporary motel stay. McCollor hopes more people in Roseville will have compassion for folks like them who are going through hard times and doing what they can to make a better life for themselves.
If you are a Roseville resident without a safe place to live or you’re worried about how you’ll pay the next month’s rent, reach out to Cari McCollor at the Roseville Police Department. She’s ready to support you with a non-judgmental, compassionate attitude. You can call her at 651-802-0279. The City of Roseville website also has a list of resources and contact information for housing and other supports.
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