Unitarian
Universalist
Affordable
Housing
Partnership

UUAHP Steering Committee
Meeting Minutes, Dec 4, 2003

Attendees: Bob Aderhold, Kay Dawson, Connie Metcalf
Convener: Bob

NEXT REGULAR STEERING COMMITTEE: THURS, JAN 8, 7PM at First Unitarian Society

*Minutes: We reviewed minutes of the prior regular steering committee meeting on Nov 6 and the minutes of the special YIMBY campaign meeting held on Nov 17.
*Treasury: We did not have a formal report but there have been no expenditures since the prior report when a balance of $7,009.28 was reported. This does not include $5,000 from the FUS service auction, which by now has most likely been credited to our account.
*Announcements:
*MUUSJA has succeeded in obtaining a grant from the UUA social justice fund; the amount is $4,000 up front and another $8,000 in matching money; MUUSJA will holding its steering committee meeting on January 6 to discuss how it will match the money and how it is to be used. (See long-term strategy review below.)
*Unity's board reviewed the report provided by the taskforce evaluating alternatives to tearing down housing on an adjacent property it owns. The taskforce sought to determine what investment was required to maintain the building as affordable housing until such time as the church has an alternate use for the property. The Unity board decided to provided additional time to find an affordable housing sponsor that could operate the property; if no such operator can be found the building will be removed and the property will be turned into a park.
*A statewide Supportive Housing Working Group is being formed and will meet on December 10 in St. Paul - I believe this group is being formed to work with the Governor's homelessness taskforce.
*River Run Apartments - The project is not dead. The developer is entertaining other proposals for the site and is suing a number of those that have blocked it from proceeding.
*Near Term Strategy Review
*We reviewed the notes from the Nov 17 meeting and decided a that the YIMBY planning subcommittee should continue to meet separately; we chose Thurs, Jan 15, 7PM at FUS for our next meeting. Kay is very interested in this campaign and will join the subcommittee. Bob will contact Kendyl Gibbons to explore the idea of getting our congregations committed to a housing Sunday that would focus on the YIMBY campaign, what it would look like and how we could best organize across congregations.
*We expect to be involved with and promote the Congregations Building Communities Heritage Park Habitat project in January once we have firm dates from Habitat.
*Bob will attend an upcoming meeting at Unity with Caty Royce of the Community Stabilization Program (CSP), which is a low-income tenant advocacy group. The topic is the Eastside redevelopment project in St. Paul that a number of congregations, including Unity, have contributed to, is in its early stages. CSP is working with some low-income people who are to be displaced by the project. Unity's AHA group and UUAHP are meeting with Caty, who initiated the meeting, to gather further information and see if there is a role for them to play in this project and controversy.
*Long Term Strategy Review:
*We discussed how we have been talking at previous meetings about our revisiting our vision and long-term strategy. Also, now that MUUSJA has obtained some grant money that can be deployed to advance our agenda, we need to determine how that might best be done. To this end, we decided that it would be useful to have a "visioning" session. Kay Dawson volunteered her place for this purpose - and she has a cool loft in the warehouse district of Minneapolis! We thought that we would do it on a Saturday, Jan 31, from 10 AM to 2 PM and have a soup lunch.
Tasks:
*Bob will meet with Kendyl Gibbons (FUS minister) to explore the idea of getting our congregations to commit to a housing Sunday that would occur during some period.
*Bob will contact Nan Corliss or Carol Koepp to coordinate upcoming Habitat events.
*Bob will attend MUUSJA steering committee meeting on Jan 6.
*All - check your calendars and make sure the dates above work for you. Contact Bob if you can work with him on planning the agenda for our visioning session.
Submitted, respectfully, by Bob Aderhold