“People in our community have been working on issues of social change for many years. Now we [people who’ve experienced homelessness] want to have a say in what happens.”

A Collaborative Vision

Although Envision was designed and led by people experiencing homelessness, it is also a collaborative vision drawing on perspectives from across our community.

Envision Community arose from a truly collaborative effort among a diverse group of organizations with unique knowledge and resources to contribute to the effort. Click here to learn more about Envision’s collaborative members.

The collaborative created Envision by initially interviewing a wide group of stakeholders including people experiencing housing instability, people who have never experienced homelessness, health plans, healthcare providers, housing experts, and government officials over a one-year period. Those interviews taught us that our community needs a new type of housing that is extremely affordable and truly low barrier. More importantly, we also learned that housing alone is not enough. A supportive community essential to create stability and belonging for people who become housed. With this insight, Envision Community – not Envision Housing – was born. The collaborative then created a gallery exhibit describing our initial proposal for Envision Community. Over 250 individual key stakeholders in our community toured the gallery and gave us feedback on how to improve our concept.

The collaborative then hosted a series of co-creation sessions with potential residents to determine how Envision should run. These co-creation sessions tackled key questions about how Envision’s intentional community should run. This culminated in the creation of our operating handbook which describes the operations at Envision.

At the same time, University of Minnesota Architecture Students collaborated with Envision Leaders to partially build a prototype microhome as part of the Catalyst Workshop at the University of Minnesota. Members from across our community saw this mock build and gave feedback at a public showing highlighting what was accomplished during the Catalyst Workshop.

A team, led by Jacob Mans from the Minnesota Design Center, then built the full-size prototype unit with a group of community volunteers, many with lived experience of homelessness.

After construction, the prototype unit moved to Elim Church where more community members have attended a series of socially-distanced tours to give us additional feedback about Envision’s extremely affordable units.

Meanwhile, Envision Community Leaders have given over 40 presentations to various groups, including homelessness advocates, city government officials, neighborhood organizations, faith communities, business districts, housing boards of directors, architectural associations, public health organizations, and healthcare institutions—ultimately reaching thousands of people in our community.

In Appreciation