The workshop, held on September 22, 2026, from 1:30 p.m. in Courthouse Room 220, focused on Ramsey County's Housing Stability Department (HSD) and its role in the homelessness response system. Commissioners reviewed HSD's current work, funding, system pressures, and the encampment response. No formal votes were taken, but commissioners shared priorities for resource allocation.
HSD Overview & Strategic Priorities: HSD Director Denise Wilkins and Deputy Director Shmeha presented a detailed overview of the department's 33-person team. Key strategic priorities include alignment across the housing continuum, equity (75.6% of people in the homelessness response system identify as persons of color), and collaboration with community providers, cities, and other county departments. HSD's work spans prevention, shelter coordination, coordinated entry, supportive services, and system performance.
Funding Breakdown: HSD's current revenue is approximately $19.3 million, consisting of 33% levy, 28% state, 21% Local Affordable Housing Aid (LAHA), 11% Local Homeless Prevention Aid (LHPA), and 7% federal funds. Federal continuum of care (COC) funding primarily supports permanent supportive housing (PSH), though policy shifts may prioritize rapid rehousing and transitional housing. Commissioner questions clarified that PSH has no time limit, but federal changes may reduce its funding. The county does not fund PSH directly; it uses federal and state dollars.
System Pressures & Opportunities: Rising rents, limited affordable units, insufficient shelter and housing capacity, longer pathways to housing, and differing needs across populations (single adults, families, youth) are straining the system. Opportunities include a redesign of coordinated entry (procurement passed, work expected within 30 days), strengthening shelter capacity, improving adverse weather response, clarifying staff roles, and updating policies. The adverse weather task force has begun meeting.
Encampment Response: HSD is focusing on strengthening pathways from unsheltered homelessness to shelter and housing. Efforts include expanding shelter beds via city/county investments, providing case management services (using LAHA dollars), and a weekly "by-name list" case consultation meeting involving partners. Data as of the meeting: 235 residents identified on the encampment list since inception; 204 currently active; 20 placed in housing; 11 no longer at encampment; 117 completed coordinated entry assessments; 12 not completed; 20 need updates; 6 not eligible. Coordinated entry uses HUD's definition of homelessness (chronic/long-term), which may not align with state definitions—an issue noted for system redesign.
Commissioner & Staff Comments: Commissioner Moran emphasized upstream prevention. Commissioner Jebinsing highlighted the need for a broader ecosystem beyond housing (e.g., Medicaid, informal supports). Commissioner McMurtry requested data on PSH bed gaps (est. 1,500 beds short) and average costs. Commissioner Miller asked about definitions of homelessness and funding streams. Commissioner Mills noted the importance of partnerships with cities and faith-based organizations.
Resource Allocation Exercise: Commissioners were asked to place a hypothetical dollar on one area: prevention, shelter, coordinated entry, or supportive housing. Three chose prevention, three chose supportive housing, and one chose coordinated entry.
All right. Well, welcome back from life, everyone. So this afternoon workshop, we'll focus on Greenville Ran, Ramsey County Commissioners. This afternoon workshop will focus on Ramsey County's housing stability department. This is our second half of the first. And our role in the homelessness response system. We were here about the housing stability department's work, their investment priorities, and current system pressures. We will also discuss opportunities to strengthen the system and what we are learning through our encampment response. So again, if you can please hold your questions until the end of this afternoon workshop regarding the county's role in the homelessness response. And so with that, I would like to pass it over to direct the workings. Good afternoon, everybody. So this morning we stepped back and we looked at the broader community response to homelessness, particularly looking at school heading home Ramsey is, where their strategic plan says we're trying to go, what our data is telling us, and HSD's role as the lead agency. This afternoon, we're going to bring that lens just a little closer to look at Ramsey County specifically housing department stability. We're going to look at where our department is today, kind of the work that we're responsible for internally. See a little bit where we're investing some of our dollars and some of the pressures we're seeing across the system and where we see some opportunities and where we can strengthen our response. So this slide gives you a sense of the breadth of housing stability's role. I mentioned earlier we are a small but mighty team. There's only 33 of us on the team. And Denise kind of talked about the roles. We have a planning side and we have an operations side. And our work touches multiple points across the homelessness response system. But not every HSD responsibility is federally funded by the COC or a COC activity. So that's where you'll see some of the separation. We have responsibilities around emergency shelter and crisis response. Much of that work is supported through the county, state, and local resources rather than our federal COC dollars. We coordinate around unsheltered homelessness and street outreach, although much of the direct outreach that we have in the county itself is delivered by contracted community providers and partner organizations through our solicitation process. We do oversee the coordinated entry and housing connections. That's again where we overlap. We get that some money from the federal part, but we do that work internally in the HSD department. We talked a little bit earlier about that system that there are distinct pathways for single adults, families, and youth. And also people through victim service providers. So those four lists that we talked about on coordinated entry a little bit earlier. We support some housing focused services and stabilization, including the housing support program. So for those that are familiar, formerly formerly GRH, our board and lodge funding. We do that in collaboration with our friends in FAS, where they're doing the financial eligibility work, but we do the agreements with the providers who have housing support units, and that is something we do internally. And then we coordinate shelter access reservation and placement functions. So that's through our shed team, meaning that for adult shelter and also family shelter, we coordinate and reserve the beds for the night, each individual and on the information line, and we work in collaboration with all the shelters, making sure that we reserve those beds and maintain those priority waiting lists for people waiting for shelter. We have uh the operations team does that. And then we coordinate extensively with our community provider network heading from Ramsey that we talked about earlier this morning. And we have a significant role in system planning data, grant oversights, contracts, and really performance. So not only are we monitoring our own performance, but we're monitoring the performance of the vendors that we contract to do the work, both on the state side for some of the state dollars that we get as well as on the federal side. These might look like separate areas of work on the slide, but they are connected. That's the complexity of housing. They um run through all of it. Um some of the sources, and we'll get into this in the budget slides, but a lot of it is braiding funding, eligible activities, and some of those difficulties. So we'll talk a little bit about that. But it's how we connect crisis response to shelter services, housing, and then ultimately again the goal of housing stability. So housing stability today. When housing stability first stood up on its own legs or as its own department, because they historically sat within financial assistance services, was during a COVID period. Homelessness looked different.