Hope Community Is Helping Its Minneapolis Neighborhood during COVID-19, and You Can Help

Minnesotans are stepping up and making a difference during the COVID-19 pandemic, and I want to make sure people know about all the organizations out there doing great work and helping during this crisis and beyond. I’m profiling a different nonprofit each day to share their information and their story.

Hope Community, led by my good friend Shannon Smith Jones, began in the 1970s as a shelter and hospitality house, helping those without housing, those without voice, and those without hope find it. Two decades later, the Phillips community where the organization is located in was poised on the brink of destruction and facing wholesale gentrification as the strategy to save it—a strategy that would likely have resulted in the displacement and disenfranchisement of community residents had Hope not stayed. It worked to organize the residents, ensure their voices were heard, and take action to preserve the key parts of the community while improving the conditions.

Hope acquired and began rehabbing the block where the shelter had been. Where once there was dilapidation, now there are 253 rental apartments (70 percent designated as affordable), Hope’s offices and community center, small businesses, large community gardens, and outdoor community spaces. Hope works to create spaces where racially diverse low- and moderate-income community members can come together to learn about, build, and share power.

Hope Community

During the COVID-19 pandemic, this nonprofit has continued to serve the residents living in its housing, ensuring that their needs are met. Its staff are engaging the youth and community remotely for their organizing and mural work and continuing to operate their community garden space while following social distancing protocols to give community residents a place to process and have some peace. They are also working with the businesses and organizations that rent their space to help them navigate through the impact the quarantine has had.

Through everything, Hope remains a voice for the community, ensuring that those so often underrepresented remain heard and in the forefront of development and change for the better. Visit the organization’s website to learn about its services and how you can help.