In St. Cloud, developer is tackling housing shortage by focusing on overlooked communities

ST. CLOUD – Ryan Daniel stood on an empty plot of land a stone’s throw away from Interstate 94. Snow swirled around him.

It may not look like much now, Daniel explained, just dirt and rocks and trees. Soon, though, this place will become his dream: A new housing development that’ll tackle St. Cloud’s housing shortage by focusing on making homeownership more attainable for communities that haven’t historically become homeowners.

Minnesota Housing, the state’s housing finance agency, last month approved $191 million in housing-related projects around the state, part of its annual selection process that will create and preserve more than 2,000 affordable homes, apartments and lots statewide.

That money includes a $3.4 million grant for the first phase of Dreamliner Estates, which Daniel and his two partners hope will become a haven of “attainable housing” with an emphasis on families that have historically had lower homeownership rates. The first phase will include eight twin-unit, energy-efficient townhouses, with an eventual goal of building out a development of 60 units of housing. The total cost of the first phase is estimated to be $17 million.

“We want to make homeownership attainable for everyone that calls this community home,” Daniel said. “We see the numbers and how it affects people of color. But this program is for everyone. We want to make homeownership a reality, not just a dream.”

Daniel moved to St. Cloud about a decade ago from New York City to lead the St. Cloud Metropolitan Transit Commission. In that job, he’s became connected with the traditional power brokers of St. Cloud as well as the city’s growing minority population. The city that was more than 90% white as recently as 2000 is now about two-thirds white. Its Latino and Black populations, especially its Somali population, have boomed.

Daniel also became acutely aware of the city’s housing shortage, an issue that affects virtually every community in the state: in the Twin Cities and greater Minnesota, in urban areas and rural areas. The existing housing stock has been stretched by several issues, according to a recent study: An underproduction of housing during the Great Recession created a shortage that continues today; the state hasn’t produced enough affordable housing, and the current stock of affordable housing needs preservation.

In St. Cloud, a recent housing study found the city needs more than 17,000 new housing units across all types —single-family housing, apartments, senior housing — by 2040.

It’s not just an issue of providing shelter, said Dave Kleis, the longtime mayor of St. Cloud who steps down this month. It’s an issue of economic development. If you don’t have enough housing, you can’t expand your community.

“Twenty years ago the focus used to be on bringing jobs to your community. Now it’s bringing talent to your community,” Kleis said. “It’s really hard to keep and retain talent in the community and to bring people in. The No. 1 issue is often housing, and that’s at all levels.”

A hidden issue in Minnesota’s housing crisis is racial disparities in homeownership. A 2021 state study showed Minnesota’s homeownership rate ranks third in the nation. Among Black, Indigenous and other households of color, the homeownership rate plummets to 37th in the country. The state’s 2023 disparities report indicated the homeownership rate among minority groups had improved to 32nd in the nation.

In March, CentraCare Health sponsored a housing summit in St. Cloud. The event was packed. Jennifer Ho, the commissioner of Minnesota Housing, drove through a snowstorm to come to the meeting, and she was impressed by the community’s enthusiasm on solving its own problem.

That night, Daniel sat at the dining room table in his St. Cloud house with his life partner, Eunice Adjei, director of multicultural services at St. Cloud Financial Credit Union, and Emmanuel Oppong, a psychotherapist who also serves as community engagement director for St. Cloud. The three are deeply connected in St. Cloud, and, crucially, they understand the immigrant experience: Daniel’s family is from Barbados, while Oppong grew up in Ghana and the United States and Adjei grew up in Ghana, coming to Minnesota to attend St. Cloud State University.

As they team up on their first development project — they’re working with a general contractor, Lumber One Avon, with a track record of multifamily projects funded by Minnesota Housing — all three are keeping their day jobs.

They also understand the idea of making housing culturally appropriate — accommodating for large families, Oppong said, as well as allowing different generations of families to live in one twin house — as well as making the process smooth and trustworthy for families who may be intimidated at the prospect of purchasing their first home.

As the nearly $200 million in state funding awarded last month shows, there’s not a single solution to the state’s housing problem. Many use public-private partnerships to leverage government resources to spur private-sector investment. The state funding will go toward everything from new single-family housing to building infrastructure to improving aging mobile home communities across the state.

About $67 million will go to the construction of 172 single-family houses, including:

Ho, the housing commissioner, feels the St. Cloud project is illustrative of the bigger goals of Minnesota Housing, helping often-overlooked communities in an often-overlooked city.

“The demographics of greater Minnesota have changed in ways that maybe folks who don’t get out there that much don’t realize,” she said. “So housing needs in places like St. Cloud are changing. And if you have new Minnesota families that are multigenerational or with a larger family size, who understands the needs of the newer members of these communities better than they do?”

So when Daniel looks at this empty 13-acre lot, he sees a community-driven solution for this intractable problem.

Daniel pointed toward a backyard in the tidy suburban development that backs up to this plot. One house had a basketball hoop, a fishing boat and a trampoline. It felt cozy and safe.

“Here it’s peaceful, so quiet, a place where people actually have space,” Daniel said. “You have that suburban feel within city limits. You have white families, Somali families, young, old, families with multiple generations, very diverse. That’s the beauty of it. This neighborhood represents St. Cloud.”