Like so many cities around the country, Minneapolis and St. Paul have seen tent cities popping up as groups of people struggle to find homes. Whether it is job loss, inflation, high housing costs, there are increasing numbers of homeless people across all of America’s big cities.
That can leave people who live in the area perhaps irritated and not wanting the issue of homelessness staring directly at them. There are also safety issues both for those living in temporary housing, and in some cases for those who feel unsafe traveling around those areas.
One thing it certainly does is bring the issue of homelessness back to the forefront. An issue that's never gone away in this community. Because it's so cold in the winter, we don't have people year round sleeping on the streets in places like Los Angeles, San Francisco, or even places like Washington D.C. or New York.
What can be done? It’s more complicated than shelters and meals. Eventually people in this situation need a head start at getting their life back on track and becoming self-sufficient. One person trying to do more to help is Carley Kammerer who started a coffee shop called Wildflyer Coffee with a friend, and their aim is to staff it with homeless people.
Speaking to Drivetime with DeRusha, Cameron says their goal is to give people employment opportunities when most of them have no hope of regular work.
“Our goal when we started Wildflyer was to provide a very clear, tangible way for young people out of homelessness through supportive employment opportunities,” says Kammerer. “So our goal is really that we would be one of the last stops for young people on their journey out, by just helping cultivate skills and provide the opportunity for employment.”
Wildflyer hires young people who are either homeless, or they're on the way to being homeless explains Kammerer.
“The youth we work with are kind of across the spectrum,” she says. “We have anything from actually on the streets, to couch hopping, in shelter, connected with drop-in centers, or in transitional living.”
Most of the people Wildflyer has employed so far have been referrals from Youth Link (a Minneapolis-based non-profit), shelters or sometimes case managers who are working with someone who is homeless.
“I just think for a lot of young people that are kind of trying to get into independence, that's just one of the pieces that's really hard as they're getting housed, is figuring out employment,” Krammerer tells Jason DeRusha. “And maybe having a lot of barriers that make employment hard. There's mental health, transportation, just kind of like all those things.”
In many cases, potential employees don’t have a permanent address, or vital documents needed for most jobs such as an ID or driver’s license.
“It's just hard if you're coming out of survival mode and you're just trying to survive,” says Kammerer. “Your mind just hasn't been on employment and so it's just a harder transition. I was a social worker myself and worked with youth experience in homelessness and it just seemed like there was kind of a need for people to offer understanding and supportive employment to help. Because the youth want to work and they're really driven, but there just can be so many barriers that come up. So we've really worked through those so that they can get to a place where they can leave, and maintain employment and kind of become independent and get on their way.”
Kammerer says they have employed around 40 people in their first two years of business at Wildflyer. She adds that there has been around an 80% success rate of youth who leave their program and maintained employment.
Wildlfyer is located in the Longfellow neighborhood of South Minneapolis off 33rd Street and Minnehaha Avenue. They’re now hoping to hop the river and open a second location in St. Paul, not only to bring more coffee to the community, but also to employ more people looking for a break.
“We'll double the number of youth we can serve. So we'll go from about 30 youth to 60 next year,” explains Kammerer.
Wildflyer is currently trying to raise funds for their St. Paul shop on Indigogo. You can find more information here if you’d like to contribute.
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