The closure last winter of Project BEE, which had provided shelter for men, women and families, has made this winter a tougher one for those unable to afford a place to stay.

About a dozen nonprofits began coming together a year ago as the Minot Alliance to End Homelessness to collaborate and do what they can.

“The issue of homelessness is so complex because it’s not just about shelter. That is part of it, but also part of it is issues around mental health, issues around addiction, issues around poverty, issues around financial illiteracy,” said Scott Burlingame, executive director at Independence Inc. and alliance member. “There’s oftentimes reasons why that person became homeless in the first place, and we have to deal with fixing those reasons in order to permanently solve homelessness.”

This past January, the national Point-in-Time (PIT) count found 865 homeless individuals in North Dakota, which compares to 784 in January 2023. The PIT and Housing Inventory Count are annual counts required by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) under its Continuum of Care Program.

Shawnel Willer, coordinator for the North Dakota Continuum of Care, said the majority of the increase has occurred in Fargo and Bismarck, which are referral points for other communities that have fewer resources, she said.

In Minot, there were 38 homeless individuals counted in 2023 and 39 in 2024. However, Willer said, Project BEE’s closure could be a factor in the next PIT count to take place the night of Jan. 22.

“All those individuals that were at Project BEE previously, we don’t know where they are now,” she said.

Burlingame said actual numbers of homeless individuals are higher than a PIT count indicates, simply because those who are homeless tend to want to remain out of sight. Counting individuals who couch surf, spend nights in hotels or utilize other options that make them hard to find influence the numbers as well.

“The affordability of housing is a big factor right now for people,” Willer said. “They are being evicted. They cannot afford their rents. Rent is increasing and wages are not. We’re seeing that across the nation.”

The North Dakota Housing Finance Agency can provide some rental assistance, she said.

“However, resources are extremely limited so we can’t help as many people as we would like to,” Willer said. Housing authorities are helpful but also are limited, often with long waiting lists, she said.

Currently in North Dakota, only Bismarck, Fargo and Grand Forks have emergency shelters. Minot’s family homeless shelter at Broadway Circle was to be ready for occupancy this month, but the city continues to look for an operator.

“For that to be successful, it has to have a community response,” Burlingame said of Broadway Circle. “There’s going to need to be some sort of funding stream for it. There’s going to need to be an organization that steps up. There’s also going to need to be a variety of organizations providing support networks to that agency. … It’s really going to take a united community response to actually solve problems.”

Broadway Circle includes a six-unit family shelter and a 17-unit low-income housing complex expected to open in the spring.

The Men’s Winter Refuge in Minot accepts men who meet its eligibility requirements. The Domestic Violence Crisis Center serves a segment of the homeless population that meets its criteria. Youthworks provides services for certain youth.

The Minot Salvation Army can assist in some instances if tenants are falling behind in rent payments, but funding is limited, Lt. Trevor Reed said. The Salvation Army offers a food shelf to help families stretch dollars and, as a church, can offer spiritual support for families and individuals who need and want that help, he said.

Community Action Partnership of Minot received an emergency housing grant through Souris Valley United Way at the beginning of November that is nearly expended. Housing specialist Nica Granada with Community Action said the individuals and families helped were those who had nowhere else to go.

The grant was used to provide clients with about a week’s temporary housing, but there often needed to be extensions because the time frame was too short to make inroads on the situations leading to homelessness, said Willy Soderholm, executive director at Community Action.

“What we found out when we received this money from United Way was that the city of Minot really needs a low-barrier homeless shelter,” Soderholm said. “All we were doing was putting a Band-Aid on a situation that the city really needs to address.”

“The majority of the folks have been in Minot for years,” Granada added. “They are citizens of Minot. It is, for the most part, a situation that we’re kind of failing a portion of our neighbors.

“It makes it a lot more precarious locally if some of your workforce can’t afford child care, can’t afford rent, can’t afford hotels, and then on top of that there is also no homeless shelter,” she said. “Those little cracks that have been mentioned in terms of a safety net are now canyons, where lots of people end up getting pushed over that edge. … We’ve encountered some pretty serious situations where people are literally rough camping in tents with propane tanks. Potentially very dangerous situations just to try to keep warm and find food and survive.”

Creating stability with consistent housing is a necessary first step before anyone can work on issues of mental health, addiction or other underlying causes of homelessness, say those working to address the problem.

That is why the regional veterans assistance program offered through Community Action focuses on housing first, Soderholm said.

Max Pontenila and Vernna Anderson, who are veterans themselves, work at Community Action with veterans ranging in age from early 20s to well into their 60s.

Anderson said the program has been seeing an increasing number of veterans in the last couple of months. Assisting initially with emergency housing, the program has been successful in getting veterans into more permanent housing within a month, he said.

The Veterans Administration-funded program connects veterans to any other VA assistance they need, including mental health or addiction services, although some veterans find themselves homeless simply due to hard luck at a particular time.

“Sometimes we’re the first point of contact for anything VA-related,” Pontenila said. “We kind of get them on the path of recovery and get them the right level of help at the right time.”

Once stable, veterans can be enrolled for up to two years in the Supportive Services for Veteran Families program, which helps maintain stability, including paying part of their rent.

“They just need a safety net of security – to say we’ve got your back in case something happens,” Anderson said.

In January, Community Action expects to launch services under the Home American Rescue Plan, a U.S. Housing and Urban Development program offered statewide through Community Action and modeled after the veterans program. Again, the case management program has limited funding, Granada said, but it will help some clients who meet the eligibility requirements.

Hundreds of homeless

identified in ND count

The Point-in-Time homeless count in January 2024 found 865 homeless individuals in North Dakota, including 544 people housed in emergency shelters, 131 in transitional housing and 190 unsheltered, according to statistics from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Native Americans accounted for 133 individuals in emergency shelter, 22 in transitional housing and 66 unsheltered. The category for Blacks, African American or African included 93 individuals in emergency shelter, 26 in transitional housing and 28 unsheltered. Individuals who identified as Hispanic/Latino or Hispanic combined with another race accounted for 50 people in emergency shelters, 27 in transitional housing and four unsheltered.

The bulk of the homeless population was male, with 535 of the 865 homeless individuals identified as men or boys. Of those 140 were unsheltered.