MICAH NorthEast Chapter March Newsletter Report

The Northeastern Suburban Chapter of MICAH (with representatives from White Bear to Stillwater, Hugo to Lake Elmo) had a uniquely effective Legislative Breakfast on Friday February 5th.

This year, our event, like so many other things impacted by COVID, was different. In the urgency to deal with the pandemic, combined with the ease of setting up virtual meetings, legislative committees were already up and running several weeks earlier than normal! This made picking our date a little tricky, since it’s hard to have a Legislative Breakfast without legislators (not to mention, no breakfast…) and the chapter needed to reschedule from our original Wednesday to a Friday, when only one committee meets. We met with 8 elected officials and 60 local voters on that Friday the 5th.

We did, however, have other levels of government represented – the chapter spans both suburban Ramsey and Washington counties, so we invited both county commissioners and mayors of cities across those two counties.

We had a desire to be a little more direct with our elected officials this year.
In the past, people had been able to talk about their own priorities – and anyone who is in public office is usually quite skilled at talking about what they’re good at! So, we settled on one single question that we would ask each of the three groups – State legislators got one, Washington County commissioners and mayors got another, and Ramsey County commissioners and mayors got a third. AND, after these questions were asked, we would share a “sacred witness” – and report back to the group what we had heard the legislator commit to.

Ramsey County is moving to create more money for affordable housing, and the MICAH chapter supports this. They have a tax authority for a Housing and Redevelopment Authority (known as an HRA) that they have never used, and we asked the county commissioners and mayors this question – where would you put those dollars, if you did get that authority?

Ramsey County Commissioner Victoria Reinhardt said that she supported this authority, and would prioritize funding housing that serves people making the least – 30% of the Area Median Income. White Bear Lake Mayor Jo Emerson responded that she’d been focused more on their own housing issues – they are forming a housing commission – and that she’d love to know more about the County support! (Since then, there has been a meeting scheduled by a MICAH leader with White Bear Lake staff to discuss this!)

Washington County currently has no homeless shelter for single adults – the only county shelters are for families; Hope for the Journey Home operated by Guardian Angels Catholic Church, and the St. Andrews Family shelter operated by St. Andrews (who also provides intake for Hope for the Journey Home). While those two shelters are wonderful (and huge credit to MICAH member congregations that make these happen!) there is a definite need to be filled – and one that the County is moving forward to meeting! Plans have been in place for several years to look for a shelter – perhaps 20 to 40 beds – to be sited somewhere in the County. Our question on this - are you committed to finding a site for this shelter in 2021, and opening it in 2022?

Washington County Commissioner Fran Miron answered with an overall statement of support for the shelter and said that the County Board did as a whole support it; that they had voted to authorize the Washington County Community Development Agency (the CDA) to pursue it. While Commissioner Miron did not explicitly commit to siting the shelter in 2021 and opening it in 2022, he did point out that we had the chair of the Washington County CDA at our meeting – John Belisle, who has been a MICAH chapter member for years. John did speak to the issue; saying that they were already in discussion with a variety of communities in the county, that they felt they had good support from the County board, and that he was hopeful that they could choose a site this year and open the next.

Our State Legislative delegation had one simple question – will you support the Lead Safe Homes bill? MICAH has had this bill at the center of our legislative priority for the last 3 years – a pilot program to provide two districts – one urban, one rural – with the funds needed to make every home in the area lead safe by encapsulating the flaking paint from surfaces painted before 1978 (when lead paint was made illegal).

~ Over 600 children a year in the state are poisoned by lead paint and this potentially costly medical condition is fully preventable by making homes lead safe. ~

We began with the State House – Representative Peter Fischer was able to say yes, he would support the Lead Safe Homes bill; as a matter of fact, he was already the chief House author!! We also had great support from Representative Leon Lille and Representative Shelly Christiansen – who said they were “happy to support” and “ABSOLUTELY going to support” the bill.   

Then, the meeting turned to State Senator Karin Housley. The bill faced more of an uphill battle in the State Senate, where we really needed a Republican Senator to champion the bill with the Republican caucus that holds the Senate majority. Senator Housley, who is the Assistant Majority Leader and had been the Republican candidate for US Senate, clearly fit that description. Which is why, when asked “Would you support that bill?” we were overjoyed to hear “YES – and I am more than happy to author that bill in the Senate!”

Senator Chuck Wiger also followed up with an enthusiastic “Absolutely, and I’m willing to co-author the bill” and so our main legislative priority is a healthy step closer to legislative success! A great way to end the meeting!

If you would like to learn more, here is video of the online event (1hr, 18mn) and the slideshow presentation (pdf)