At last, a real home
Star Tribune
September 24, 2005
By Susan Peterson
Laurence Norfleet has survived what he calls a "tough, rough background," particularly since he discovered 13 years ago that he was HIV-positive. For the past three years he lived in a small room in a Twin Cities shelter, sharing a bathroom with a changing roster of neighbors who didn't always follow shelter rules.
But this month his life took a decisive turn for the better.
He moved into a one-bedroom apartment in a new 32-unit building in northeast Minneapolis aimed at providing affordable housing, services and health care for people living with HIV/AIDS and other disabilities.
"This place is like heaven-sent," said Norfleet, 39. "I'll have my own restroom, my own kitchen, my own bedroom -- oh, it's going to be lovely. I can go to Cub Foods and really buy food, not just snacks -- I want to eat my own cooking."
In recent years, new therapies have turned HIV/AIDS into a chronic disease rather than a fatal illness. People like Norfleet are living longer and healthier lives, creating demand for affordable housing that's less adult care and more independent living. For many, just having a stable place to stay is crucial for sticking with a medication regimen. Similar housing options have popped up on the coasts, but this project is a first for Minnesota.
Clare Housing, a nonprofit that also operates two adult foster-care homes in Minneapolis and St. Paul for people living with HIV/AIDS, began to plan the $7.3 million project in 1999.
The organization based its plans on senior citizen housing, which offers a continuum of care depending on the level of services residents need, said Lee Lewis, Clare Housing's executive director. The new project, called Clare Apartments, has support services such as an on-site nurse, help with making appointments and arranging transportation and 24-hour front-desk staffing.
While some residents such as Norfleet are relatively healthy and say they expect to need few services, others will need help managing their complicated medication schedules or with daily activities such as bathing, cleaning or preparing meals.
Most residents will pay about one-third of their monthly income for renting the subsidized apartments, which received $5.9 million in public funding from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the Minnesota Housing Finance Agency and county, city and neighborhood programs.
Other funds came from foundations, religious groups and individual contributions. Ten of the units were designated for homeless people with disabilities, not necessarily related to HIV/AIDS.
HUD designated the development as a "project of national significance" and contributed $1.2 million toward construction, plus additional funds to pay for support services. In a press release, HUD cited Clare Housing's "unique quality of ... care for people living with HIV/AIDS, the skill with which the apartments are being integrated into the fabric of the neighborhood and the quality of its architecture."
The brick four-story building designed by Cermak Rhoades Architects has offices, meeting rooms and a large lounge on the first floor, and one-bedroom and studio apartments on the upper floors. The lounge and rear units look out onto a landscaped garden and greenway behind the building.
There were more than 100 applicants for the 32 units during a two-month sign-up period, Lewis said. The building opened Sept. 1 and is quickly being filled.
Norfleet said the move to his own apartment is another step in his efforts to rebuild his life. After learning he was HIV-positive, Norfleet said, "you get depressed, give up hope." But with a lot of perseverance and the help of several AIDS organizations, he stopped drinking and smoking, he said, adding that he's been clean and sober for 12 years.
"Drinking almost killed me," he said. "Getting sober was the only way I could manage the disease and the medication."
Chris, a 35-year-old resident who asked that his last name not be used, said he was diagnosed as HIV-positive in 1995. "I was in deep denial and I freaked out about it," he recalled. He's been sober for two years and recently had been living at a sobriety house, where he had his own room but shared a kitchen and other facilities.
"It'll be nice not to have people taking your food, and the privacy factor is great," he said. And knowing there are people on-site to help if he gets sick is another big plus.
Neighborhood turnaround
The project was a tough sell in the St. Anthony East neighborhood, Lewis said, even though it replaced a "bad bar" -- the King of Clubs -- on a hard-to-develop piece of land.
Decades ago the neighborhood fought and won against a plan to run Interstate Hwy. 35W through the community.
"I knew we were in trouble when somebody got up at a [neighborhood] meeting and said, 'We stopped the federal government in 1965 and we can stop Clare Housing in 2003,' " Lewis recalled, noting that not all neighbors were against the project. Some of the opponents thought city officials had been planning a park on the site and objected to having an apartment house there instead, and some would rather have had a retail development.
Clare Housing's original plan was for a 30-unit apartment building, but Minneapolis city officials "wanted us to consider something bigger, saying 30 units was not the maximal use of the property," Lewis said. So the organization teamed with the Minneapolis-based Central Community Housing Trust on plans for a three-building, 120-unit, mixed-income project.
"The neighborhood really didn't like that, and they voted it down," Lewis said. "The issue was that it was too many people on too small a property."
So Clare Housing went back to plans for a 32-unit rental building, but the neighborhood group said they'd like to see some owner-occupied housing included. Central Housing Community Trust came back aboard with plans for eight owner-occupied townhouses along one side of the property, and the neighborhood group signed off on the proposal, even kicking in $90,000 of funds from the Neighborhood Revitalization Program.
"I knew we had turned the corner at a city planning commission meeting, when a couple of neighbors railed against the project," Lewis said. While he was planning his response, he was surprised to see a representative from the neighborhood group get up and speak in favor of the plan, saying that the group had been working with Clare Housing for four years and felt that the project "was the best that it could be."
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