Duluth affordable housing complex opens at near capacity
DULUTH — A housing project that has been a decade and nearly $22 million in the making is finally receiving its first residents and is nearly filled, with would-be future tenants waiting in line.
One Roof Community Housing showed off its completed Brewery Creek apartment building Monday afternoon. The development brings 52 affordable housing units to the 600 block of East Fourth Street. It's located where Last Chance Liquor and an auto lube shop once stood.
Jeff Corey, One Roof's executive director, described the project as "transformative" for the neighborhood. In addition to the apartment building, work is also underway on a formerly condemned brownstone next door — a project dubbed Brewery Creek Terrace that could bring yet another 22 affordable housing units to the block as soon as next summer.
One Roof stuck its neck out by buying the property before it had secured funding for a project atop a site that was known to be contaminated.
"We take on projects that others, for good reason, don't want to take on," Corey said. "There's just a bit too much risk."
Yet without site control, he noted One Roof likely could not have successfully secured funding for Brewery Creek. That leading role is nothing new for One Roof.
"It causes some stomach acid. But it's the right thing to do for the community," Corey said.
The swift-to-fill building, with most units already spoken for, speaks to the unmet need for additional affordable housing in Duluth, according to Corey.
Nevertheless, he said each new home the community can provide to an individual or a family living on the margins deserves to be celebrated.
"We're here to make people's lives better," Corey said. "And the way we do that is by making housing possible for folks in our community because we know that if people don't have a good, safe place, it's very hard to put one step in front of the other and go to work in the morning, to go to school in the morning, to do all the things we do as humans to be as self-actualized as we can be. To give back to our community and make it work."
The Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa has been a key partner in the project, One Roof Board Chair Ryan Jones-Casey noted. In recognition of the band's assistance, he pointed out that 10 units in the building will be reserved for tribal members "whose ancestral land we are currently standing on."
"That's an important step toward addressing the historic wrongs of colonization," Jones-Casey said.
He said the top two floors of the building, with the most stunning views, are reserved for young people who have recently experienced homelessness.
"Talk about flipping the typical real estate development on its head," Jones-Casey said. "I absolutely love that some of the most vulnerable members of our community will be able to experience the magic and beauty of Lake Superior every day from their living rooms."
Life House Duluth and the Human Development Center plan to provide wrap-around support services for building residents.
Essentia Health also played a key role in supporting the project with a $1.43 million contribution.
"Essentia Health has been in this neighborhood for more than a century, and we know that someone's ZIP code has significant impact on their health," Dr. Krista Skorupa, president of Essentia Health East, said. "The opening of Brewery Creek represents the first 52 of 145 affordable housing units we've been honored to partner on in this Hillside.
"We know it's hard to be healthy if you don't have a home."
Other project supporters include the city of Duluth, Duluth LISC, Minnesota Housing and the Federal Home Loan Bank of Des Moines.
